The Producers review

 Number 574 on the top 1000 films of all time is Mel Brook's black-comedy 'The Producers.'

Max Bilaystock (Zero Mostel) is a has-been Broadway producer desperately searching for his next hit. Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder) is a naive and neurotic accountant hired to audit Max's books. Together the two cook up a scam to make them rich. To this end, they produce a play called "Spring Time for Hitler," which celebrates the life of the notorious dictator.

The Producers was Mel Brooks' directorial debut. He won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. He later went onto win the EGOT, as well as directing very funny films like Blazing Saddles and Robin Hood: Men in Tights. I was expecting a lot, but I was disappointed.

Sure I could see the blackness - Mel Brooks has said the only way to get back at genocidal maniacs like Hitler is to laugh at them. Except I didn't laugh at all. Not because I was offended by the risque subject matter, but because it just wasn't funny. The jokes either didn't land or were drawn out longer than was funny.

I also didn't rate the lead actors either. Gene Wilder was a frequent collaborator of Mel Brooks, going onto star in Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles. He was a funny man, but here he was painfully over-the-top. I understand that Leo Bloom was a deeply neurotic character, but Wilder took the neuroticism to an obnoxious level.

I didn't think Zero Mostel was much better as the hapless Broadway producer. He was similarly over-the-top and annoying. After a while, I became annoyed whenever I saw him on screen. The same went with Wilder. Considering both of them were the main characters, this was not a good thing.

I really wanted to like the Producers; I love Robin Hood, Men in Tights, but the Producers was a complete directorial debut dud.

Hoosiers review

 Number 702 on the top 1000 films of all time is the 1986 sports-drama film 'Hoosiers.'

Norman Dale (Gene Hackman) is a washed-up, former college basketball coach who arrives in a small Indiana town to start teaching high-school basketball. To aid him, he recruits the alcoholic Shooter Flatch (Dennis Hopper). However, with the entire team dead-set against outsiders, Dale's task to train the team becomes easier said than done.

I enjoyed this film more than I thought I would, which was a surprise as I am not a basketball fan. Where this film succeeded and (arguably failed) was its focus on Dale and Shooter. Hackman and Hopper were great in the lead roles. Dale was obviously a maverick with crazy ideas. This earns him the distrust of the fellow teachers and the resentment of his students. However, he remains steadfast in his methods, grudgingly earning the respect of those around him. Despite Hackman's dismissiveness of the film's success, he performed well.

Dennis Hopper, who earned his only acting nomination from this film also performed well. He was great as the alcoholic, down-and-out Shooter Flatch. It was a stark contrast to the larger-than-life Frank Booth that he played in Blue Velvet. This role was far more human and understated. Hopper gave the character of Shooter a great vulnerability.

But while Dale and Shooter were great characters played by great actors, I cannot say the same about the rest of the cast. Many of them blurred into one including the many teachers dismissive of Dale's methods, but, in particularly, the actual basketball team. The film is about basketball so why don't we see more of the actual basketball players? Even as I'm writing this, I'm struggling to remember their names or any of their distinguishing features. There was someone called Ollie or Will who introduces himself as being too short and not very good at basketball. This begs the questions about why he is even on the team. Surely, everybody on the team has to be good. It made no sense that they would have any bad players on the team.

Moreover, there was the character of Jimmy. He is regarded as some type of wunderkund who left the team after the death of the previous coach. After much umming and urring, he finally decides to return. You think he would be a massive player, but then he fades into the rest of the team. He barely has any dialogue. It was like he was a plot device rather than an actual character.

Although the film does focus on basketball with lots of slow-motion and corny music, it needed to focus on the actual players, as much as the game itself. For me that a complete technical foul.

Mississippi Burning review

 Number 470 on the top 1000 films of all time is the 1988 crime-thriller 'Mississippi Burning.'

Mississippi Burning is based on the true story of three civil rights activists going missing in a small Mississippi town. When FBI agents Rupert Anderson (Gene Hackman) and Alan Ward (Wilhelm Dafoe) start investigating, they are met with hostility from the town's racist locals. Soon they suspect the three activists were killed by the KKK. Frances Mcdormand, Brad Dourif, Michael Rooker, R. Lee Erney and Stephen Tobolowsky co-star.

I recently wrote a listicle about films too traumatic to watch again. If I were to write another list, surely Mississippi Burning would be at the top of the list. This is a film that does not shy away from the United States' racist past. Rather, it tackles it head-on. And there's no other way you can depict such horrible subject matter.

Mississippi Burning is a harrowing and brutal portrayal of the ugly discrimination that the black community was forced to endure. Yes, it does show it through the perspective of white men, and it would be have been more interesting if the black men were put more front-and-centre, but it was still a powerful watch all the same.

The relationship between Anderson and Ward underpinned the film. Anderson, the older and more maverick of the two, has to follow the orders of the younger, but more senior in rank, Ward, who is a stickler for the rules. Despite their differences, they learn to work together.  Dafoe and Hackman had great chemistry, which shone through.

As Dafoe is a character actor, he usually plays larger-than-life oddballs, usually leading, to over-the-top, exaggerated performances *cough cough* the the Boondock Saints, but he was incredibly measured and controlled in this.

Hackman was also great. Anderson has a romantic subplot with the wife of one of the Mississippi police officers played by Frances Mcdormand. she showed why she is one of the few actors to have won three Best Acting Oscars. Their relationship was wonderfully understated. Originally, the pair were supposed to have a sex-scene, but this was dropped in favour of the two characters standing in the shadows. And that's all we needed to see. Props to the lighting department.

And all the supporting cast were good too: Brad Dourif, Michael Rooker, and, especially, Stephen Tobolowsky were chilling ass the abhorrent KKK members.

Sure there might be some who criticise Mississippi Burning for distorting history, but the key message is clear enough: the black community was subject to terrible, racist abuse. And that's a true we should never forget.