Henry's Top 100 Performances of All-Time: #79 - Joseph Cotton in Shadow of a Doubt

"Do you know the world is a foul sty? Do you know, if you rip off the fronts of houses, you'd find swine? The world's a hell. What does it matter what happens in it? Wake up, Charlie. Use your wits. Learn something."


Hitchcock Villain number 3...

Joseph Cotton is one of the more underrated actors of the forties and fifties. Though best known for being a favorite of Orson Wells, what's not talked enough about is how Cotton is the heart and backbone of Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, and The Third Man. But even his best friend Orson Wells never used Cotton as well as Alfred Hitchcock did in the director's personal favorite: Shadow of a Doubt.

Cotton plays a killer who, in order get away from the police who are on to him on the east coast, decides to go stay with his sister's family in California. His niece, who is named Charlie after her beloved uncle, is the only person who senses that something is off with Uncle Charlie.

Cotton plays a lot of different emotions in the film, all of them flawlessly, and it is one of the more nuanced performances of a serial killer ever given. There's the genuine love he feels for his sister and niece. The bored appreciation of his brother-in-law. The weariness of dealing with his young nephew. And then, most chilling and impressive of all, those moments where he lets the world see his ugly side. He's not a raving loon, he's better at hiding it than that, but the audience can tell how disturbed he is.

Never more so than in the best scene of the film:

Henry's Top 100 Performances of All-Time: #80 - Richard Burton in The Spy Who Came in From the Cold

"What the hell do you think spies are? Moral philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx? They're not! They're just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards like me: little men, drunkards, queers, hen-pecked husbands, civil servants playing cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten little lives. Do you think they sit like monks in a cell, balancing right against wrong?"



This is one of the "last" performances to make the list. In preparation for this countdown I watched a lot of movies I had never seen before. There are certain roles that critics hold up as being among the best of all time and I thought I had to try to seek them out before I dared to list my Top 100 of all time. I watched musicals, foreign films, indie films (lots of John Cassavetes...), and tried to uncover every rock that I hadn't already checked under.

I was usually disappointed, though some of the roles I watched made it into my "almost" top 100, and others are worth mentioning like Penelope Cruz in Don't Move and Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence, but then my dad suggested I check out this John le Carré adaptation from 1965. I had been looking to put Richard Burton on the list, and I felt okay with putting his performance from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, but then I saw this film and it made my decision incredibly easy. Burton is fantastic in this movie. Just fantastic.

In 1965 Cinema was still in the grips of James Bond fever. We were one year away from parodies like Our Man Flint or Casino Royale, and television imitations like Mission Impossible, and the idea of releasing a spy picture that didn't glamorize the career or lifestyle must have been very controversial. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold is a very sparse film. Almost every character in the film is miserable or pathetic in some way. Our main character is an amoral alcoholic. Our villains are not charming, or dastardly, they just exist. The ending, without spoiling the film (because I really think you should see it), offers no easy answers.

And at the heart of this rebel production is Richard Burton's performance of Alec Leamas. Burton is an interesting actor. He is kind of a strange mix of Olivier and Brando (his career overlapped with both). He brings that English gravitas to every role while having a real humanity that made him seem "true" in nearly everything I've ever seen him in (the exceptions are the splendidly hilarious "The Exorcist" sequel and his interpretation of Alexander the Great). I can't overstate how good he is in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf but, at the same time, there is something about every film adaptation of a play that limits the actors. We are always aware that they are reciting lines...it's just an unfortunate reality of film adaptations of plays. Closer, Angels in America, Wit, every Hamlet ever filmed...all great films but the performances usually have the feel of filmed rehearsals.

So I was delighted to discover The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, and Burton's performance, so I could honor his abilities without having to reconcile the limits of the Broadway adaptation. Burton perfectly plays a man at the end of his rope. The fact that he's a "spy" is incidental; Burton captures, better than any actor before or since, someone who is burned out. Whether you're a teacher, a lawyer, or a spy, it is very easy to sympathize with someone who is just burnt out when it comes to their job. And the moments where Burton is getting this point across are just spot on. His belligerent drunk, or semi-charming loner, is perfect.

When the plot comes in, and Burton has to act as a triple (?) agent, he still works...but he's on this list because of the first 50 minutes of the film. His performance of a of a depressed and solitary man is never false.

Best Scene:

Henry's Top 100 Performances of All-Time: #81 - Judith Anderson in Rebecca

"Go ahead. Jump. He never loved you, so why go on living? Jump and it will all be over..."


Hitchcock villain number 2...

What's funny about Mrs. Danvers is that she is one of the most unlikable characters in film history but still manages to be somewhat sympathetic at the same time. On the surface, and in action, Mrs. Danvers is nothing but an evil, manipulative bitch. She's never given a scene in which she's written in a positive light, she's constantly scheming against our heroine (played by the cute, yet dull, Joan Fontaine), and her only friend in the movie is the smarmy cousin of Rebecca played by George Saunders. Still, because of Anderson's performance and what we come to understand about Mrs. Danver's relationship with Rebecca, we actually do kind of side with Mrs. Danvers a little bit. Yeah, in the end, Joan Fontaine is just a little too innocent, and a little too pretty, to root against...but we can kind of see why Mrs. Danvers wants her to jump out a window.

Rebecca tells the story of a young woman (Fontaine) who marries a widower (the always overrated Laurence Olivier) whose first wife Rebecca died in a tragic accident. Mrs. Danvers, played by Judith Anderson, is the housekeeper who loved Rebecca and doesn't want Fontaine's character to replace her in any way.

Judith Anderson's Mrs. Danvers is a mix of the Wicked Witch of the West and Morticia Adams (there's no way Angelica Houston didn't watch this movie before creating that role). She's like a ghost, always appearing without announcement, and is one of the creepier and colder characters I can think of. Still, Anderson brings a humanity to the part, especially in the scene where she is showing Fontaine all of Rebecca's old clothes and linens, that we never don't believe in the character's love for her former mistress.

The lesbian aspects can't really be ignored, though I don't really want to go into it, but I will say that where some might claim that Hitchcock had a tendency to villianize homosexuality (Mrs. Danvers, Bruno in Strangers on a Train, all of Rope) I think it was more that he was fascinated by it. Mrs. Danvers' love for Rebecca is actually the closest thing to actual love that we get in the film. Olivier and Fontaine's relationship is all sorts of screwed up, I mean it is really a passionless pairing, while Anderson sells us on the fact that Mrs. Danvers really did idolize and adore Rebecca. It doesn't really matter if they had a physical relationship...Danver's final moment in the film is actually the most intimate scene in the entire movie.

Judith Anderson, along with Margaret Hamilton in The Wizard of Oz, defined how women would play villains for the rest of cinema history. Whereas Hamilton chewed up scenery like it was Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Anderson defined how women would play the cold and calculating antagonist. And still, one can't help but kind of like her and George Saunders in the film, and if I actually had to spend time with any one character from the film Rebecca...I actually think it might be Mrs. Danvers...

Best Scene:

Henry's Top 100 Performances of All-Time: #82 - Aaron Eckhart in In the Company of Men

"Women. Nice ones, the most frigid of the race, it doesn't matter in the end. Inside they're all the same meat and gristle and hatred just simmering."


Is Aaron Eckhart's Chad from In the Company of Men the biggest asshole in the history of cinema? It's possible. In the Company of Men is a disturbing film about two guys who decide to toy with a deaf woman's emotions just to make themselves feel better. Eckhart plays the more confident and better looking of the two men and it's Eckhart's Chad who is really out for blood. Eckhart perfectly personifies every misogynistic douche-bag found in office settings.

He's so smarmy, and yet inherently charming in his own way, and it is an underrated comedic performance. If one doesn't mind dark humor, and I certainly don't, than it is hard to deny that Eckhart is pretty damn funny in the film:



It's amazing that Eckhart was ever able to break out of this kind of role as he is so convincing. Eckhart would go on to be quite good in Thank You For Smoking, solid in The Dark Knight, and perfectly fine in some other roles, but it will always be hard for me to see him as anyone but Chad. Chad could certainly be considered yet another villain to appear on this list, he's realistically evil, but I'd rather consider him the first and greatest pure asshole to appear on the list.

Best Scene:

It's just a little throw away scene but it's the scene in which Chad says "Fuck her! Let's get a sandwich."

Henry's Top 100 Performances of All-Time: #83 - Helen Mirren in The Queen

"So, what would you suggest, Prime Minister - some kind of a statement?"


A quiet and understated performance that managed to impress just about everyone who saw it. Mirren took on the challenge of playing a living monarch in the midst of a controversial period of her life and did more to humanize Queen Elizabeth than just about anyone, including the Queen herself, has ever done.

Whether it is walking around her grounds with her Corgis, having a little argument with her son Charles, or sharing a "moment" with a stag, Mirren is always convincing. It is her performance that makes The Queen feel as authentic as it does.

Mirren won and deserved the Oscar for her work in The Queen and it stands as one of the best jobs ever done by an actor in portraying a famous figure who was still alive at the time of filming. In fact...it might be the best such performance.

Best Scene: When the Queen explains to Tony Blair she will not leave her grieving grandchildren to placate the London mob.

Henry's Aunt Laura Saw: A Serious Man

Continuing the pattern of my guest reviewers completely outdoing me at my own game comes my aunt Laura with a review of A Serious Man. I had no (and I mean zero) desire to see this film. So Laura was good enough to write up a review after she saw the Coen Brothers' latest. Click the link to see what she thought...


The Coen brothers film, A Serious Man, opens with a scene in a European schetel, in which a husband and wife speak Yiddish. An old man comes to the door. The wife claims the old man actually died years ago and is a dybbuk, or ghost. To prove that she is right, she stabs the old man in the chest with an ice pick. The filmmakers create the only suspense that will occur for the next hour and a half—will the old man’s wound bleed? It does and he staggers out the door as the husband cries that the couple will be cursed for the murder of the old man.

Fast forward to Larry Gopnick (Michael Stuhlberg), a Jewish physics professor in a college in the Midwest, whose seemingly normal life in a subdivision is about to fall apart as his wife announces she is leaving him, a Korean student tries to bribe him for a better grade, his weirdly asocial brother gets arrested, his bar mitzvah-bound, pot smoking son seems concerned only about seeing the sitcom F-Troop and his teenage daughter views him as an annoying interruption.

The movie drags along as Larry seeks spiritual advice from rabbis, young and old. The rabbis are actually the centerpiece of the film’s joke—shit happens and the rabbis have no explanation. Larry, a 1960’s Job, listens intently as the rabbis use parables to explain the unknowable, but the parables do not result in any spiritual answers. In fact, one of the stories provides a highlight of the movie—a dentist who discovers a message in Hebrew carved in the teeth of a Gentile patient. The story, carefully told by a supposedly sage rabbi, and recounted through a flashback, should provide Larry with a meaningful revelation, but as with all of his rabbinical encounters, the story is a story without meaning. Larry is frustrated, but not bitter about his inability to find comfort through his religion.

Although the movie seems interminable at times (my friends threatened to leave at least twice during the 1:45 minute running time), it had a strangely lasting impact on me. I found myself liking the movie more in retrospect than when I was watching it. While I was watching it, I wondered who the heck the audience was and why anyone would want to watch a period piece movie about a middle class, unremarkable Jewish family living in the Midwest in the 1960s. As it turns out, the movie has a subtle, dark humor that pokes fun at religion and is, in its quirky revelations, a sly denunciation of the comfort of spirituality-not an easy theme to communicate but one worth thinking about.


Henry's Grade By Proxy: B-

Best Scene By Proxy: The meetings with the two Rabbis

Henry's Top 100 Performances of All-Time: #84 - Harrison Ford in Star Wars: A New Hope

"Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, and I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything to make me believe that there's one all-powerful Force controlling everything"


Han Solo takes the piss out things. Star Wars is a pretty absurd movie. The characters are stereotypes, the plot is a fairy tale, and the dialogue is stilted at best. There is only one character who feels like he could really exist while calling the rest of the film on its bullshit: Harrison Ford's Han Solo.

It's pretty well known that Harrison Ford thought that Star Wars was kind of silly and it comes through in his performance. It just so happens that it is perfect for his character. Han Solo is a jaded smuggler who joins the story just for money which is not wholly different than why Harrison Ford did the movie. Still, despite his weariness of the film, it is Harrison Ford who became the biggest star of the franchise. Han Solo is who every young man wants to be - his devil may care attitude and skill with a blaster is much cooler than Mark Hamill's eager Luke Skywalker - and Harrison Ford is my generation's James Dean and John Wayne due to this role.

The pathos of the character wouldn't emerge until The Empire Strikes Back, and I could easily have put Harrison Ford's performance in that film instead, but I think he is more important in the first Star Wars. It is Harrison Ford's performance that elevates Star Wars from being a flighty child's fantasy movie and cements it as an all ages classic film.

And in the end...Han Solo is just frigging cool.

Best Scene:

Han shot first

Henry's Top 100 Performances of All-Time: #85 - Maximilian Schell in Judgement at Nuremberg

"I'll make you a wager..."


Schell plays Hans Rolfe, a lawyer defending six German judges who enforced Nazi law, and who feels as though he must defend all the German people who were not Nazis.

Schell gives a vibrant performance. In a film staring a calm Spencer Tracy, a stoic Burt Lancaster, and a hard Richard Widmark, Schell is the energy of the film. Hans Rolfe gives multiple impassioned speeches throughout the film and commands the screen. I disagree with much of what Hans Rolfe argues so it is a credit to Schell's performance that over the course of the film he makes Rolfe a sympathetic character who is far easier to "root" for than any of the American lawyers.

There is also a smugness to his performance, a real arrogance, that adds a very human touch to what could have just been a mouthpiece character. He's the best lawyer in the room and he knows it. Where the American lawyers try to use footage of concentration camps, and the general outrage at the Germans, Rolfe enjoys that he can use hard logic and the words of American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr..

One of the best portrayals of a lawyer I can think of and it is all in Schell's ability to capture Hans Rolfe's belief in what he is saying and his desire to win the case.

Schell won the Academy Award for Best Actor and he definitely deserved it.

Best Scene: Hans Rolfe's opening statement - Starts at 3:25 of this clip:

Henry Saw: The Box

...


Don't do it Henry. It's too easy. It's a stupid joke...it has no relevance to the movie at hand...

Don't.


...

(spoilers for Se7en...)



I'm so weak...

Click the link for a review of Richard Kelly's 2009's film "The Box"...





Ah hell...

I now know Richard Kelly by 4 of his films:

Donnie Darko: Richard Kelly wrote and directed this 2001 cult film. The first time I saw it I just didn't like it. I remember watching it with Sam and Ben (they both dug it) and I just didn't get it at all. Typical of a teenager, it took my older sister telling me that she thought it was a cool movie for me to revisit the film. Upon second viewing I saw what everyone else was saying: Donnie Darko is bizarre, and fairly confusing, but its nostalgic science fiction yarn really is pretty awesome.

Seek out the original version (the director's cut is strangely bad) but Donnie Darko is a well done (sinister) atmosphere piece with strong performances from Jake Gyllenhaal, his sister Maggie, and Jenna Malone. Also worth noting is Beth Grant as Mrs. Sparkle Motion, an early Seth Rogan role as a bully, and Drew Barrymore not being bad in a film...and also one of the better uses of music in film history:



I strongly recommend Donnie Darko. It's not a personal favorite, it can't be because I disliked it so much the first time I saw it, but it is a favorite.


Domino: Kelly wrote this movie. Tell you what...watch the trailer...guess what I think of this one:



And just in case you don't get it...Domino sucks. It's awful.


Southland Tales:



Kelly's second film (he wrote and directed)...

Someday, soon(ish), PITAOE will tackle Southland Tales. We've been building up to it since the formation of the site. Ben and I...really without much deliberation...both consider it to be the very single worst film ever made. And for once...I'm really not exaggerating. I'm not saying that Southland Tales is a brutal film to sit through. Or that it is one of the worst films of the 2000s. Or that it's the worst movie to star The Rock.

No...I'm saying that Southland Tales is the single worst movie I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot...a lot...of bad movies.

Exorcist 2...Cool World...Moulin Rouge (which I hate more than Southland Tales but which is a much better made movie...). None of them are as bad as Southland Tales.

I'm serious.

Southland Tales, in my (and Ben's) humble judgement, is really the single worst movie of all time. When you consider pretension, intent, extravagance, casting, editing, length, acting, writing, direction...it doesn't get worse.

Let me get this out of the way ~ Southland Tales has one good scene. Here it is:



And, for me, all that scene does is reinforce the suck of the rest of the movie. If Kelly could reach such fun heights with that scene...why does the rest of the film stink of menstrual blood and dead person s***?

And so, Southland Tales is sitting on the shelf in my apartment. It's waiting for Ben and I to revisit it again (we've each seen it twice) and to write about our experience. Someday, we will force ourselves to do it. But for now...just know that Richard Kelly, in my approximation, is responsible for the worst movie ever made.


Which brings us to Richard Kelly movie number four: The Box:



The Box, based on a Richard Matheson short story, which was them adapted for a late 1980's version of The Twilight Zone, is...not as bad as Southland Tales.

But it's not very good.


I've seen the Twilight Zone episode (it's awful) but it's an undeniably strong concept. A man shows up at your door with a box, which is equipped with a button, and tells you that if you push the button two things will happen: Someone, that you don't know, will die; and you will receive one million dollars.

Good moral question. The kind of thing that you might argue about at 1:30 AM in the morning during Junior Year of college. Honestly, and unfortunately, that debate might not last very long for me. I'd push the button. But anyway...

So this movie, which stars Cameron Diaz and James Marsden as the couple offered the "Box", and Frank Langella as the man with the offer, has a strong initial hook but just falls apart after 45 minutes. The opening third, dealing with the couple debating the offer and the immediate aftermath, are filled with strong atmosphere and smart moments.

The rest of the film....there's a lot of bad here. A lot. Again, Kelly can't help but creating pretentious and ridiculous scenarios for his characters. And like Southland Tales...this movie makes no sense after a certain point. None.

Where the mysterious parts of Donnie Darko felt like they had answers out there...you just had to struggle to figure them out...Southland Tales and the last 2/3rds of The Box are just heinous and baffling works of garbage.

With Donnie Dark and Southland Tales I was kind of 50/50 on Richard Kelly. He'd made one good (to great) film and the single worst movie of all time. The jury was still out.

Which makes The Box kind of a sad experience. Because it means Richard Kelly is probably not a good filmmaker. In fact, I now have to say he is one of the worst movie-makers in the history of ever.

And given the fact that I still really like Donnie Darko...that's kind of sad

Grade: D


Best Scene: Frank Langella's first meeting with Cameron Diaz

Henry's Top 100 Performances of All-Time: #86 - Ellen Burstyn in Requiem For a Dream

"Harold, I'm gonna be on Television."


This is one of those great performances that is very hard to watch. Burstyn plays Sara Goldfarb, a woman obsessed with appearing on her favorite television show, and who is willing to take a plethora of diet pills to help achieve her goal.

Burstyn's portrayal of this rather pathetic woman is heart-wrenching. It is also, quite appropriately given the role, unpleasant. Her nasal whine, her unattractive appearance, her stupidity...Burstyn isn't worried about us liking Sara...just believing in her and her addictions. In a movie filled with tragic characters, and impossible to watch situations, it is Burstyn who elicits the most sympathy from the audience because of her grounded performance.

There are very few roles for women in their late 60s and even fewer that demand this much range from the actress. I can't think of another modern American actress who could have pulled off this part. So despite the fact that Requiem is not a movie I want to revisit, and Sara Goldfarb is anything but a charming character, Burstyn's performance has to have a place on this list.

Best Scene: "I'm somebody now, Harry. Everybody likes me. Soon, millions of people will see me and they'll all like me. I'll tell them about you, and your father, how good he was to us. Remember? It's a reason to get up in the morning. It's a reason to lose weight, to fit in the red dress. It's a reason to smile. It makes tomorrow all right. What have I got Harry, hm? Why should I even make the bed, or wash the dishes? I do them, but why should I? I'm alone. Your father's gone, you're gone. I got no one to care for. What have I got, Harry? I'm lonely. I'm old."

Henry Saw: A Christmas Carol

Yeah, this is as lame as you think it is...


What a bland and unnecessary movie.

Robert Zemeckis has become obsessed by motion capture film-making and the world is worse for it. Zemeckis was never my favorite director but movies like Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Forrest Gump were all highly entertaining and worthy films. Recently Zemeckis has only been working with motion-capture technology (where actors wear funny suits covered in ping-pong balls, act out the whole film on a set surrounded by green-screen, and then artists animate, exaggerate, and fill-in the entire world of the film). Zemeckis' first try was The Polar Express and it was nearly unwatchable. Seemingly every character sported a scary version of Tom Hanks' face and the film struggled to expand a lovely picture book into a full length film (kind of like Where The Wild Things Are). Beowulf was an improvement, and had some things I enjoyed (the action, the music, the weird hot dragon version of Angelina Jolie), but would still have been better as a live action film. The creepy factor was still there, the 3D was headache inducing, and the whole look was more distracting than immersive. The "Mo-Cap" technology did not help the film at all.

At least those were two films that kind of made sense. The Polar Express is a beloved book and Beowulf had never been put on film in any meaningful way. With A Christmas Carol Robert Zemeckis has made a movie out of a story that never needs to be filmed again. Not only have straight versions been made of the film since 1910 but there have been spoofs (the great Scrooged), porno versions, and even the Muppets released an interpretation of Dickens' novella. The last thing the world needed was another telling of A Christmas Carol.

Well we got one. This one stars Jim Carrey as Scrooge (and all of the Ghosts of Christmas ______) with Gary Oldman taking on nearly every other major part (even Tiny Tim). Also popping up, in supporting roles, are Robin Wright Penn and Bob Hoskins. I'm not going to bother telling you the story, if you don't know already then shame on you, but I will tell you that all this version does is add some unnecessary "action" scenes to the proceedings.

And maybe that is something that I should acknowledge. To my surprise...this is a pretty accurate adaptation. I read the story just before seeing the film and as far as I can tell Zemeckis used only a few lines that Dickens did not use in the original book. He did not really Disney or Jim Carrey it up. This is much less silly than the version of A Christmas Carol that I once saw at Madison Square Garden with Dr. Zaius as Scrooge. Unfortunately...A Christmas Carol is not really a good story. It's just not. It has a kind of fairy tale, or fable, aspect that makes it charming in a distant way but as a story, and especially as a movie, it just isn't that interesting.

So that was this movie's biggest flaw - it's just dull. I can't actually fault anyone who worked on it, except that their action additions were really the worst parts of the film, because they had lame source material in the first place. I don't know why this movie was made or why this tale had to be told in 3D...

Is there anything good to be said? Well, again, it's a good retelling of the story. And, as far as I can tell, Gary Oldman gave a pretty good performance as Bob Cratchit (Tiny Tim's father). And any scene involving Tiny Tim (except that horrible famous line of his) is fairly emotional in a fairly exploitative way. Otherwise...I just kind of sat there waiting for it to be over from the minute it started.

Grade: To be fair...C+...but I never want to see this movie ever again.

Best Scene: The Ghost of Christmases Yet To Come takes Scrooge to see the Cratchits after the upcoming death of Tiny Tim. At one point Bob looks right at Ebenezer...it's almost a touching moment.

Henry's Top 100 Performances of All-Time: #88 - Jim Carrey in Liar Liar

"Stop breaking the law, asshole!"


Just a very impressive performance. Playing a lawyer who cannot lie for 24 hours, Jim Carrey is often at war with himself throughout Liar Liar and he tries to stop himself from speaking or writing the truth. Carrey uses every funny face, strange gesticulation, and odd voice he has in his arsenal to their greatest effect in this film.

Consider this: what other actor could have played this role so well? Carrey can be annoying, and I haven't thought much of a lot of his dramatic work, but when well cast he is a very strong and unique performer. Liar Liar shows the best that Jim Carrey has to offer and his perfromance of Fletcher Reede stands as one of the better comic roles of this era.

Best Scene:

Alex Saw: Couples Retreat

On Saturday morning I missed a call from my cousin Alex. He was calling to ask what movie he and his girlfriend should go see. I missed that call (I was working) and I'm very sorry for that. Had I answered the phone I would have told him to seek out An Education. Because I did not answer that phone call Alex had to endure Couples Retreat...



In these trying economic times, we are all in search a cant-lose investment. Well, I have a proposition for you: promise me I will never, under any circumstances, have to watch Couples Retreat again, and I will pay you $100. In spite of a seasoned cast, a tenable premise, and misleadingly adequate previews, this movie was the worst movie I (or anyone else who saw it) have ever seen. It will be difficult to convey how truly terrible it is without going into so much detail that you turn to stone, but think back to similar movies you have enjoyed; Dodgeball, Swingers, Old School are a few that come to mind. Now dig deep within your overall positive memories of those movies to find instances of a joke that just didn’t quite work, a gag that crossed the way-too-gross line, or a scene that your are quite sure you could directed better yourself. Couples Retreat is a medley of those moments, steadily compounding to achieve higher and higher degrees of failure.

What disappoints me the most is that nearly every single actor in this film is talented and well-cast for this type of role. This means that is must have been writing [Henry's editorial note: this movie was written by Favreau and Vaughn so they have no one to blame but themselves] or directing that dropped the ball (or perhaps a joint effort). Put simply, another team could have produced this movie and made it a raving success, or even a mild success, and spared me the fat-naked-Jon-Favreau night terrors from which I now suffer.


Henry's take: As I said, I did not see this movie. While I often disagree with Alex on movies (he hated Children of Men for instance) I have a feeling we would be in complete agreement on this one were I to ever suffer through it.

Ah, who am I kidding? There's no way I'm not going to end up seeing this movie on an airplane or on HBO...but I'd like to think I will never watch it. Isn't it pretty to think so?


Grade by Proxy: D-

Henry's Top 100 Performances of All-Time: #87 - Mike Myers in So I Married An Axe Murderer

"Let's get pissed!"


Mike Myers' portrayal of Charlie Mackenzie, and of his father Stuart Mackenzie, isn't quite as impressive as Jim Carrey's manic performance in Liar Liar. I rank Myers slightly ahead however, because I'm always impressed when an actor competently plays two roles in a film, and because I think Myers' roles are simply funnier than Carrey's.

Especially Start Mackenzie. Before Fat Bastard and Shrek, Myers first used his Scottish accent to portray Stuart, a crotchety old drunk who believes that there is "a secret society of the five wealthiest people in the world, known as The Pentavirate, who run everything in the world." The funniest moments in the film belong to Stuart and he ranks among the most quoted characters in my circle of friends.

Myers also brings charm to the role of Charlie Mackenzie especially in the scenes in the coffee house and on Alcatraz Island.

Just a very funny role that features a Mike Myers before Austin Powers sequels and Cat in the Hat made him fairly unbearable.

Best Scene:

Henry Saw: An Education

The first good movie of the "Oscar" season...


I had gone on a pretty bad run with movies recently. While I was at least kind of intrigued by Antichrist, nothing else that I had seen for the last two months could even be called interesting, much less good. With An Education, the new coming of age tale by writer Nick Hornby and director Lone Scherfig, we finally have a smart film made by, and for, thinking adults. While An Education is not flawless, it is easily one of the two best dramas (along with The Hurt Locker) that I've seen this year, and I cannot recommend it more when compared to what else is out in theaters at the moment.

Set in the early 1960's, An Education follows a brilliant 16 year old girl named Jenny (Carey Mulligan) who's parents (Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour) are obsessed with her getting into Oxford University. One day, after cello rehearsal, she meets a 30-something year old man named David (Peter Sarsgaard) who offers her a ride home. A romance soon follows as Jenny is wooed by David's fancy lifestyle and posh friends (Dominic Cooper and Rosamund Pike) and David, in turn, is able to convince Jenny's parents that he is a good influence on their daughter.

Jenny is soon forced to choose between pursuing her education, represented by her English teacher Olivia Williams (the teacher from Rushmore) and her school's headmaster played by Emma Thompson, and the opportunity to fulfill her lifelong dreams of nights in music clubs and weekends in Paris with David.



The film's greatest strength is its incredible cast. Everyone in this movie is great. The standout, perhaps because she's the least known performer in the film, is Carey Mulligan. She looks a little like Larisa Oleynik or Audrey Tautou but has a glow and warmth that neither of them possess. Which isn't to say that she's too sunny, when she needs to sell being mad or upset she nails it, but she's always a pleasure to watch on screen. I also appreciate how Mulligan, and Hornby's script, play the character. She's not some callow faun who's innocence is burst by David. Jenny is a smart girl who knows that she's attractive. She has smoked a cigarette before and she has flirted with boys. While she feels as though she has never experienced anything, and David does certainly take advantage of her, she's not a blind child led astray into sin.

Peter Sarsgaard manages to sell both his smarmy character and the English accent. His part actually has a lot of little quirks to it (his job, his behavior in the bedroom) and Sarsgaard makes the whole thing awkwardly realistic. Alfred Molina is always a welcome addition to any movie. He brings the right amount of humor, stupidity, and love to his part. Also worth mentioning are Dominic Cooper and Rosamund Pike as David's high society friends. Cooper has a casual way of playing every scene he's in, while having some kind of hard to describe inner decency, and he's probably the most charming person in the movie after Mulligan. Pike is asked to play the flighty blond, and to be the butt of a lot of jokes, but she never plays it too broad. Instead we can all see someone we know in Pike's performance.



It's a very clever script, at times I found myself just nodding with a sharp line of dialogue or plot reveal, but sometimes it is a little too smart for its own good. It also has a small problem in the third act, I actually don't know if Hornby really knew how to end it, and I really could have done without the closing voice-over.

Scherfig's direction is good if not remarkable. Some shots are fairly well composed but I don't think it is any better than the direction found in an above average Mad Men episode. The score is also a bit off. Ben pointed it out to me but the score is never quite sure of what mood to take or whose perspective to underline.



This is not a groundbreaking film, It has less to say about statutory rape than Notes on a Scandal did, and there is nothing original about the way they play the coming of age angle, but there's something refreshing about the whole movie. Maybe it is because there have been so few intelligent films this year. Maybe its because it is a look at an era and place we don't see too often (even with Mad Men on the air). Maybe it is because it is not that ambitious and never wavers from the film it should be. Most likely it is because of Carey Mulligan, and Peter Sarsgaard, and Cooper, and Pike, and Molina, and Williams and Thompson...and the lines that Hornby gives them. It is always nice to watch great actors delivering good lines. And that's what An Education has to offer.

I recommend this film to pretty much everybody and I actually think almost everyone I know will get something slightly different out of it. Either way, whichever characters, or whatever messages and themes resonate most with them, I'm confident they will enjoy the film. I definitely did.

Grade: A- (Ben tried to talk me into a B+ last night...the score and the pervy nature of the movie bothered him...but the movie sat really well with me)

Best Scene: Jenny's first night out with David and his friends.


P.S.: For another good (and gushing) review - Check out Filmspotting's podcast

Sam Saw: Where the Wild Things Are

Where the Wild Things Are is an interesting film to write about. It's not often that I find my perceptions of a film as off as they were with Where the Wild Things Are. Maybe that's the fault of the marketing campaign which went on for what seems like over a year and a half and for the last four months promoted the movie primarily as a children's film. I can't say I was entirely unwarned though, as the original adds hinted at some of the film's gloomier elements. Whatever the real reasons are...I found myself completely shocked as I walked out of the theater, having just seen a modern treatise on adolescent depression, when I expected to be watching something more like Wall-E...


The one thing I was expecting, that the film undoubtedly delivers on, is that the film is visually stunning. The monsters, which are combination of costumes and CGI faces, are both expressive and detailed. The sets on the island look amazing and are in many ways more fantastic and intricate than those of the book. I often found myself staring at the background instead of the characters because the scenery was so captivating. The actual meat of the movie, on the other hand, does not fair nearly as well as the window dressings.



I won't summarize the plot for those of you who haven't seen it yet, but I will talk about the overall themes....or theme for that matter. This is a coming of age film about an adolescent boy dealing with all the typical problems a 10 year old can find themselves dealing with: older siblings, trouble fitting in, struggles with the transition from childhood to the teen years, divorced parents; these issues are really what the movie is about. Max runs away from home after seeing his Mom kissing her boyfriend and ends up at an Island where the Wild Things are. The majority of the movie takes place on the island, and I had assumed that the time on the island would be about Max running around with all the Wild Things (and there is a little bit of that), but in truth the real point of the island is Max's self reflection about his current situation at home.

Each of the monsters seems to represent an aspect of him or his life, and seeing as he is pretty sad at home, so are most of them. That being the case, Max's whole time on the island is devoted to trying to help these depressed monsters deal with their problems. Oddly enough for a Children's movie, Max ends up leaving when he realizes he can't fix anything for the monsters, and in many ways they are more depressed and in a worse situation then when he arrived. It is almost as if Max realizes that he can't fix any of the "mosters'/his" problems and so he just leaves them to go back to his life. It's almost as if Jonze is saying you can't fix your problems so just deal with them. That would be great if the middle portion where Max is dealing with all the sadness and misfortunes of the monsters wasn't so long. So, although there is an ending which seems to bring things to a more happy conclusion, the bulk of the film is really about sadness. I found the whole thing to be quite depressing and at the end I was happy that I didn't have to watch anymore.



I think the main problem is that Jonze mixes movie types that just don't mix. Fun children's movies, and coming-of-age-while-dealing-with-depression films, are oil and water. I honestly cannot imagine what it would be like to bring a child to see Where the Wild Things Are. I image you'd spend a lot of time trying to explain why the "big furry guys" are crying.

I don't want to finish review without stating that the film is well done. Jonze hits the nail on the head with all the problems Max is dealing with and he is a truly relatable character, but one has to beg the question of why would you want to spend a 100 minutes in a movie being reminded of all the things that made you sad as a child, and furthermore, would you really want to bring a kid? In general, the monsters are just a plot device for Max's self-realization and, to be honest, for the purposes of this film I could have done without them. At least that way it would feel like the the film was being honest about what it is. As it stands, it feels like Jonze wanted to make a movie about dealing with sadness and thought Where the Wild Things Are, and the fuzzy monsters that came with it, would sell more tickets. Where the Wild Things Are is just too serious for Children, and packaged in too Childish a box for Adults.

Grade: C

Henry's Top 100 Performances of All-Time: #89 - Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men

"What business is it of yours where I'm from, friendo?"


It's actually hard to define why Bardem is so good as the murdering Anton Chigurh. He's not charming and he certainly looks ridiculous. His accent, in almost any other part, would stand out for lacking any specific place of origin. He has no character arc, a lot of repetitive scenes and lines of dialogue, and seems to exist outside of the grounded reality of the rest of the film. Somehow, it is because of all these factors, and more, that Bardem's Chigurh is one of the greatest villains in modern cinema.

It was said a lot at the time of the film's release but it is an accurate description: Bardem is a force of nature in this film. Unflinching, driven, constantly alert - Bardem captures the Terminator like determination of Cormac McCarthy's creation. Despite the page-boy haircut and doughy face Bardem's Chigurh is still scary, especially in the scene he has with Kelly Macdonald, and is one of the more intimidating villains ever captured on film.

Along with that menace there is a darkly comic touch in Bardem's performance that was not in the original book. It adds to the undefinable nature of Anton Chigurh and the small moments where Chigurh seems happy are both eerily funny and quite unsettling.

It all comes together in the film's best scene. It takes place at a gas station and is almost a little one act play between Javier Bardem and Gene Jones. It's an expertly acted scene in which Bardem is terrifying, funny, bizarre, and incredibly intense. It's one of the better scenes of the decade and exemplifies why this is one of the best performances of all time.

Best Scene:

Henry's Top 100 Performances of All-Time: #90 - Amy Ryan in Gone Baby Gone

"I feel like 9/11 now."


Apparently when Amy Ryan showed up for her first day of location shooting on Gone Baby Gone she was stopped by a security guard who thought she was a townie trying to break into the set. That's how convincing Ryan is as Helene McCready in Gone Baby Gone.

Ryan, who plays a foul-mouthed drug abuser whose daughter gets kidnapped, gives an incredibly unglamorous performance. She uses awful words like "faggot" or "nigger", looks strung out and unclean, and is never given a "redemption" scene. You'll see very few performances that feel more "real" than this. Helped by the fact that she's not particularly beautiful, or famous outside of fans of The Wire, Amy Ryan is able to completely disappear into the role.

It's not common to see roles written for woman where they get to be this vulgar and repellent (the only ones that come to mind are Charlize Theron in Monster and Monique in the upcoming Precious) and Ryan makes every word and ugly revelation seem natural. In a slightly absurd movie Amy Ryan makes everything feel truthful and grounds the film in a very ugly reality.

Best Scene:

Beatrice McCready: You took Amanda with you?

Helene McCready: Well, what am I gonna' do? Leave her in the car, Bea? I don't got no daycare. It's really hard bein' a mother. It's hard raisin a family, you know? All on my own. But God made you barren, so you wouldn't fuckin' know. So I understand, Bea, okay?

Beatrice McCready: You are an abomination.

Henry Saw: This is It

A few thoughts on the documentary/concert/tribute film about the dead King of Pop: Michael Jackson


This Is It is a pretty strange movie. It is assembled footage of Jackson rehearsing for what was to be his big comeback (or maybe farewell? He seems to allude to this being it at one point) concert.

In short: this isn't a very good movie. It's not even really a movie. It's a bunch of footage that Jackson never intended to be seen by the world. Like Prince, Michal Jackson had a tendency to film everything, and then lock it in a vault, and never show it to anyone. When Jackson died people who like making money saw a golden opportunity and decided to assemble the random pieces of video into something resembling a concert film.

The result is a movie that is basically made up of Jackson performing some of his most beloved songs, some interviews with his dancers who fawn over him like he was Michelangelo, Mozart, and Martin Luther King Jr. all in one, and some footage that gives us an idea of how extravagant this concert was going to be.

Those looking for any insight on Michael Jackson the man will be disappointed. On the other hand, so will those who just want to see this as some kind of exploitative cash in. This Is It is very respectful of the man, and his "vision", and I don't believe he would have objected to its content or release.

But, as I said, it's not really a movie. It's the kind of stuff that would be in the extra materials on a DVD of an actual concert film. While the "performances" are okay, and you can see that Michael still had it (especially the ability to dance...), they're not so special as to have any greater value than the recorded versions we all know by heart. This is not Stop Making Sense or The Last Waltz - there is no performance of any song that surpasses the version we already have on our ipod.

The scenes with the dancers just reflecting how amazing it is to be performing with Michael Jackson left me cold; I respect that this was an important moment in their careers but I'm just so put off by Michael Jackson that I couldn't really reconcile their awe with my low opinion of the man's character. Even beyond what I think of him personally, throughout the film I couldn't help but think of something Chuck Klosterman wrote in Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. I'm paraphrasing, but it was something akin to the idea that we don't really care what great musicians do after a certain age. When we consider the Rolling Stones as a band we don't really include anything they did after 1982. Further more, when someone like Bob Dylan releases an album nowadays they're almost always called an instant classic (or something similarly hyperbolic). The reason they are so praised, Klosterman argues, is that they aren't that bad. The fact that Dylan doesn't embarrass himself, like Paul McCartney does for instance, is enough for the album to be called great. But again, we don't really care if Paul McCartney makes bad music now...it won't change what we think of him as a musician when he dies. We'll all kind of collectively agree to only go as far as "Live and Let Die" when grading McCartney's discography. I don't even need the musician(s) in mind to be old; I'm perfectly happy to only grade Weezer on their first two albums even though they've been releasing sub-par albums for over a decade.

With Michael Jackson it is slightly different. Because he was just so weird, and in my opinion a child molester, it is impossible for me to just look at his music through...say...the Dangerous album. Especially when I'm asked to watch him (and it really is hard to look at him) for over an hour and a half. I can still appreciate his talent, and like his music, but I can't just decide to ignore the last 15 years of his life. Watching This Is It, and having Michael look and act so bizarre, with no one around him phased by his oddness, was a stark reminder that it is almost never good to see extended looks at musical gods once they are past their prime. Old musicians are better heard and not seen. I kinda like Bob Dylan's song "Things Have Changed" but when he performed it at the Oscars all I could think was that he looked like dead Vincent Price. Paul McCartney is still a likable person but when I see him now I just wonder why Angela Lansbury is singing Maybe I'm Amazed. Can you imagine what a documentary that followed Elvis during the last six months of his life would have been like?

And again, that's not what This Is It is. We never see Michael Jackson outside of the studio or the concert venue. This is just a bunch of video of Jackson rehearsing, coaching, and putting together the biggest concert of his career. Still, we see enough of Jackson's off-putting nature (the really creepy voice, the horrible wardrobe, the view of the world that is slightly less mature, and less connected to reality, than a 14 year old retarded child) that it is a stark reminder of just what a weirdo this guy was.

All this wouldn't matter if the performances in the film were so good that nothing else that you brought to the film mattered. James Brown was a real son of a bitch until the day he died but he was a great enough performer, even towards the end of his life, that all the other stuff seemed meaningless at worst and like hilarious theater at best. If Michael Jackson had just killed it in these performances, keeping in mind these are just rehearsals (in some footage he is clearly "saving" his voice for the real shows ahead), than I might not have remembered all the bad things I think of him now. I also might have forgotten just how many times I've heard all of these songs and how I wasn't really excited to hear a single one of them ever again. But the live versions This Is It shows aren't that good. They're fine. They're impressive for a man of 50. But they're not good enough to wipe clean the baggage or make us reassess Jackson's talent.

Ultimately this film is a waste of time. It offers no insight, no great moments or live versions of his songs, and serves more as a vague reminder of how good he use to be, and how weird he got, than something that makes us regret that this former dynamo is now dead.

Grade: C -

Best Scene: The performance of Beat It (not even one of my favorite songs of his...)

Henry's Top 100 Performances of All-Time: #91 - Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times

"..."


I first saw this film in the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm, Sweden. This, it turns out, was a very appropriate venue to watch Chaplin's anti-industry masterpiece. Chaplin is a physical marvel in this film. Just watching him deal a never ending series of cogs on a conveyor belt is exhausting.

Not only does Chaplin have astonishing energy throughout the film but he's also quite funny. Watch the scene where the machine is feeding him:



That's pretty funny! For someone who thinks film comedies are dated after 20 years...that's a pretty big complement for me to give a silent film.

Something about this film just really impressed me and most of that is because of Chaplin's performance. It's a mix of ballet, vaudeville, and slapstick and it's utterly brilliant.

Best Scene:

Scene of the Day: The dance in Band à Parte

I have a poster of this very scene hanging in my bedroom...it's one of my favorite scenes in movie history.

Enjoy:

Henry's Cousin Alex Saw: Paranormal Activity

I did see Paranormal Activity but was not in any way inspired to write a full review. I decided to let my older cousin Alex write up his thoughts on the indie hit of the year. I normally don't agree with Alex on movies but I think he is dead on here...



The only thing paranormal about "paranormal activity" is that people keep seeing it. It's not like it's the worst movie in the world, and for the amount of money it took to make, it might even be considered ok on some relative scale. I, however, am accustomed to seeing movies that cost tens of millions of dollars to make, with professional actors, and teams of writers, producers, and god knows who else to make sure that the finished product turns out nothing like "paranormal activity." It is better than its budgetary counterpart, "the blair witch project," but you could better spend your $10 on making your own version of "paranormal activity" starring all of your friends, and still have change left over to take everyone out for pizza afterward.

Now for the positive elements. The two "stars" are reasonably charismatic (and by reasonably, I mean 'not especially'). The scary scenes are, for the easily shaken, scary. The dialogue is mostly realistic. And yet these scattered strengths do little to compensate for this failed art project of a movie. When I hear people call in to AM talk radio claiming they haven't slept for days after seeing "paranormal activity," I can only assume that means they, too, actually live in a haunted house, because to think the memory of this movie could inspire anything more than mild buyer's remorse is truly frightening.

Grade: C-



Henry's three sentence take: I think Alex is basically completely right. I think some of the atmosphere of the movie works, especially when you just hear sounds coming from downstairs while we see the couple sleeping in their bedroom, but I would never call this movie scary. It's a nice job by all involved - kudos to the filmmakers and marketing people for making an $11,000 movie that can gross over 75 Million dollars - but this is just Blair Witch Project with better acting and a worse ending.

Best Scene: When we hear loud stomping downstairs while the couple sleeps...

Henry's Top 100 Performances of All-Time: #92 - Kathy Bates in Misery

"Well, I'll get your stupid paper but you just better start showing me a little appreciation around here, Mr. MAN!"


She's almost a cartoon. Whether she's the sweet Annie who saves James Caan's life, or the scary Annie who hobbles him, Kathy Bates' performance is always teetering on going over-the-top.

Based on Stephen King's book, Misery was Kathy Bates big break in Hollywood (she had been a minor star on Broadway). Watching the film now it is easy to see why she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Annie Wilkes is a terrifying combination of June Cleaver with Norman Bates. It's a manic performance that carries the film. The role, which calls for more range from the actress than you might remember, has many moments where Bates has to switch her personality on a dime. One moment she is calm and loving and the next she is furious and dangerous. It doesn't seem to be a trick of clever editing - just great acting.

Annie Wilkes is yet another classic film villain and it's quite amazing how many are on this countdown. Bates performance stands out for its unique approach to creating a cinematic monster and how well she plays all the sides of Annie Wilkes.

Best Scene:

Scene of the Day: The Fox in Antichrist

This is completely out of context but please know that this is as funny in the movie as it is on its own here.

Also know that Antichrist is better than you might think. Not great...but pretty good.

Interesting film.

Hilarious clip:




Be Good,

H