Badlands review

 Number 392 on the top 1000 films of all time is Terrence Malik's directorial debut: the 1973 neo-noir period crime drama Badlands.

Loosely based on the true-life story of spree killers Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate, Badlands tells the story of twenty-five year old Korean war veteran and greaser Kit Carruthers (Martin Sheen.) He is a deeply troubled individual who quickly forms a relationship with the naive, impressionable fifteen year old Holly Sargis (Sissy Spasek.) The two of them soon embark on a murder spree across America.

Badlands is the third Terrence Malik film I've seen after Days of Heaven and the Thin Red Line. I didn't like either of those films finding them slow, boring and overly-philosophical. I didn't enjoy them so much that I didn't think I would ever like a Terrence Malik film. But I will happily admit that I was wrong in that assessment. Badlands was a thrilling and engaging crime drama with some brilliant performances from its lead actors.

For his role as the psychotic Kit Carruthers, Martin Sheen deservedly won the Best Actor Award at the San Sebastian International Film Festival. Sissy Spacek was nominated for the Most Promising Newcomer at the BAFTA's. Both of them were great. Spacek remarked on the chemistry she had with Martin Sheen and this really showed through on-screen. It would be easy to compare them to Bonnie and Clyde, but their relationship was far different. Rather than being a willing accomplice like Bonnie, Holly seemed more like an innocent young woman caught up in Kit's charismatic charm.

And Kit had all the charm and charisma you would expect from a spree killer. No doubt carrying trauma from the PTSD, he is completely cut off from his emotions and any sense of human decency. Sheen shone in the lead role. He was engrossing as Kit Carruthers. Usually when you have "couple" killers, it is the man that initiates like with the Moors Murderers or Paul Bernado and Karla Homolka, with the woman usually claiming they were bewitched by their male counterparts. However true that actually is Sheen was spellbinding in his role.

Unlike the bloated The Thin Red Line, the Badlands is only ninety minutes long meaning the pacing was terrific. The tension rarely let up for a second as we see how Kit and Holly attempt to navigate this new life they've created for themselves. 

Granted Terrence Malik wasn't the easiest to work with as many members of the crew quit during production. Malik went through three different cinematographers and allegedly he was practically the only one left by the time the shoot had finished. Despite this, the film remained cohesive and unified. You might expect it to look like a disparate, disconnected mess but this was far from the case. Perhaps that's because how Malik also wrote, produced and edited the film ensuring that his vision remained intact. I loved the cinematography too, as it really emphasised the isolated American landscape.

If I were to criticise anything it would be Sissy Spasek's voiceover. Holly narrates the film throughout, but her narration is little more than exposition serving no purpose except for explaining things that the audience could have figured out for themselves. It was a strange choice by Malik as it suggests that he either didn't trust himself to explain his vision clearly enough or that he didn't trust his audience enough to understand it properly. Yet neither of these seem very likely from what I know about Terrence Malik.

That minor criticism aside, I thoroughly enjoyed Badlands. I wasn't expecting to like it at all but I'm very happy to say that it proved me wrong.

All about my Mother review

 Number 386 on the top 1000 films of all time is Pedro Almodavar's 1999 Spanish comedy-drama All About my Mother.

Manuela Echevarria (Cecillia Roth) is an Argentine nurse and single mother who after losing her son - the aspiring writer Esteban (Eloy Azorin) - in a car accident, travels to Barcelona to reconnect with her estranged husband - the transgender Lola (Toni Canto) - of whom she hid Esteban's birth from. Along the way she befriends actress Huma Rojo (Marisa Paredes) nun Rosa (Penelope Cruz) and transgender sex worker Agrado (Antonia San Juan.)

In 1999, the conversation around gender identity and transgenderism wasn't nearly as prevalent as it is now. Yet you still had directors like Pedro Almodavar who pioneered these so important dialogues. He did this by creating a humourous but touching story which won a whole host of International Best Film awards including the Oscar, Bafta and Golden Globe. The characters all felt real rather than cartoonish stereotypes or box-ticking tokens. At least that's from my perspective of a cis male. However, it has been praised by the trans community for its honest, authentic and level-headed portrayal of the trans experience.

All About my Mother explored themes like gender identity, motherhood and family through a fresh and unique lens. Although things start in tragedy with Esteban's death, Manuela soon has a new chance to become a mother when she begins taking care of the HIV positive nun Rosa. Rosa is later revealed to be pregnant by Manuela's husband. Cruz and Roth were great in the lead roles helping to provide humanity to their sad characters. They navigated the difficult subject matter well.

This applies to the rest of the cast too. From Azorin's brief role as Esteban to Canto playing his estranged father and especially the brilliant Antonia San Juan as sex worker Agrado, a lot of humanity was afforded to the film's large cast of characters. Out of all of them perhaps Agrado is the most tragic yet she was also the most human. 

Probably appropriate to Esteban, a theatrical version of a Streetcar named Desire plays throughout the film with Manuela and Huma in the lead roles. It served as a nice metaphor for how these old characters were trying to navigate a new unfamiliar time, much like Blanche in New Orleans.

Overall, this was an entertaining film about identity - much like the Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert - it navigated contentious issues with ease, introducing humour and heartbreak to a very important conversation.

A Prophet review

 Number 389 on the top 1000 films of all time is the 2009 French prison-drama 'A Prophet.'

Malik El Djebena (Tahir Rahim) is a French-Algerian petty criminal who is sentenced to six years in jail. Naive and alone, he soon falls under the sway of the ruling Corsican gang led by Cesar Luciani (Niels Arestrup.) At first Luciani and the others look at him as nothing less than an annoying bug, but Djebena soon rises to the top of the prison hierarchy.

A Prophet was a brutal and unflinching look into French prisons. I always say that you can't shy away from difficult subject matter like this - you either have to go hard or go home and A Prophet definitely goes hard. It's no surprise that it was nominated for the Best International Film Oscar. While it ultimately lost to the the Secret in their Eyes, it won the equivalent Bafta, the Best Film Cesar as well as further awards at Cannes. In many ways it reminded me of the equally brutal Midnight Express.

Sure, you can argue that petty criminal Malik El Djebena isn't the most likable of protagonists - he's in prison for a reason and once there he commits further crimes like murdering the other inmates, but Tahir Rahim moulded him into a very interesting character. In some ways, he is reminiscent of Michael Corleone from the Godfather films - he begins the film as an outsider to the criminal world, but finishes as its uncontested king. 

Tahir Rahim has the same acting talent as Al Pacino, as he won the Cesar award for Best Actor. Rahim took Djebena on a fascinating arc from a teenage boy haunted by his past crimes, including murder, to the kingpin of the prison.

Every bit his equal was Niels Arestrup as Cesar Luciani - the hitherto king of the criminal underworld. He strongly reminded me of actor Brian Cox bringing the same level of grounded intensity. Luciani was an unpredictable character - in a second he can go to sharing a joke with you to digging a spoon into your eye, as Djebena found out first hand - it was this unpredictability that made him so frightening. Arestrup helped to keep this villain scary without turning him into a cartoon.

If I were to criticise this film for anything it would be its title of "A prophet." Sure Djebena does demonstrate some prophetic tendencies like helping to avert the car he's in from crashing into a deer, this doesn't happen until midway through the film. This idea of him being a prophet didn't seem relevant enough to justify titling the film, but this is a minor criticism.

A Prophet was an uncomfortable but thrilling movie with great performances from its lead actors. Also, can we just talk about how interesting the Corsican language is? A language, similar to the Tuscan-dialect of Italian, being spoken on a French island? Amazing.

The Insider review

 Number 387 on the top 1000 films of all time is Michael Mann's 1999 biopic 'the Insider.'

The Insider tells the real-life story of Dr Jeffrey Wigland (Russell Crowe) - a whistleblower in the tobacco industry who alleged that his former employer - the Brown and Williamson tobacco company is chemically altering their product to make it more addictive. He takes the story to CBS producer Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino.) The two have to defend the story and themselves as Brown and Williamson aim to discredit Wigland.

To start this review, I need to address the Russell Crowe-shaped elephant in the room. While he was good as Wigland, earning a Best Actor Oscar nod, I also think he was miscast. The Insider was released in 1999 when Russell Crowe was 35. The real life Dr Wigland blew the whistle in 1996 when he was 54 - almost 20 years older than Russell Crowe. Crowe was too young for the part and not convincing as a fifty-year old no matter how much grey hair-dye they applied.

While he may have been miscast, he did well with Eric Roth's and Michael Mann's Oscar-nominated screenplay. This was a year before he featured in the film that forever defined his career - Gladiator. After his Oscar-winning role there, Crowe could never again shake off the shadow of Maximus Decimus Meridius. Thankfully, as the Insider was released a year earlier, I didn't need to worry about that here.

Al Pacino was a better choice to play Lowell Bergman. Rather than 19, there was only nine years separating him from his real-life counterpart. Of the two, he was more engaging bringing a quiet intensity and ferocity to the role. As the film portrays, Bergman struggled in defending Wigland's testimony and Pacino portrayed this righteous indignation well.

The Insider also marked a noted departure from the stylised dramas that have so defined Michael Mann's career. It is a very different film to Heat, Collateral and Public Enemies, but Mann still did it justice. He is already a director known for his meticulous attention to detail, but he and Roth took things one step further by sticking purely to the facts. If something could not have been independently verified by three separate sources, it wasn't to be included in their film. This paid off, as Mann directed a well-researched and engaging film.

Overall, the Insider was enjoyable enough. Pacino was great, but I do think Russell Crowe was miscast. An older actor should have been cast instead.

The Right Stuff review

 Number 384 on the top 1000 films of all time is the 1983 historical drama film 'The Right Stuff.'

The Right Stuff portrays the true story of the Mercury Seven - a group of Navy, Marine and Test pilots who were picked for Project Mercury - the US first manned space mission. It also tells the story of Captain Chuck Yeager (Sam Shephard) - the first person to fly at supersonic speed. The astronauts consist of Air Force captains Virgil 'Gus' Grissom (Fred Ward) Gordon "Gordo" Cooper (Dennis Quaid,) Donald "Deke" Slayton (Scott Paulin,) Marine corps pilot John Glenn (Ed Harris) and Navy pilots Alan Shepard (Scott Glenn,) Walter Schirra (Lance Henriksen) and Scott Carpenter (Charles Frank.)

Coming in at 192 minutes, this is an epic film in every sense of the word. Yes, it was depicting a monumental moment in not just American history, but the history of mankind, but did the film need to be so long? It is a slow-paced film that dragged in a lot of places and was also somewhat lacking in conflict and tension. Of course, you can argue there was never going to be that much dramatic tension in the film - we know that Project Mercury was ultimately a success, but still the film was boring and bloated.

Originally, William Goldman was hired to write the script, but he completely ignored the contributions of Chuck Yeager. Director Philip Kaufman and producer Irvin Wrinkler disagreed with this and instead Kaufman used his own script. That's why we see Chuck Yeager at the beginning of the film making history. After many failures to break the sound barrier, he does what nobody else has done before.

From here we get a loose sketch of the different main characters who soon blended into each other. I can only really remember John Glenn, due to Ed Harris' stardom, and Gus Grissom, for reasons I'll explain later. 

I understand that Kaufman and Wrinkler had to stick to the historical record, which might explain why there wasn't too much drama, but more things could have gone. Perhaps they could have taken some more creative license to amp up the tension. True there were scenes of the pilot's wives worried about their safety, but these were little more than minor inconveniences. As a whole the female characters were overshadowed by the men. They could have contributed more to the film.

The most drama came from Grissom's space flight where he lands in the ocean and possibly panicking blows the hatch early leading to the spacecraft flooding and ending up on the seabed. As such he is denied the same prestige awarded to Alan Shepard. 

Although this storyline did face some criticism for unfairly portraying Grissom as a coward, instead of acknowledging a mechanical fault with the spacecraft, it certainly injected a shot of life into this film. It also made Grissom one of the more memorable and sympathetic characters.

No doubt, the Right Stuff was portraying one of the most important moments in not only the history of space travel, but also the history of the mankind, but it could have done so in a shorter, more engaging way. The Right Stuff for Project Mercury? Sure. The right stuff for an entertaining film? Not so much.

Bride of Frankenstein (1935) review

 Number 380 on the top 1000 films of all time is James Whale's Gothic horror film 'Bride of Frankenstein.'

Sequel to Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein portrays a previously un-filmed subplot of Mary Shelley's original novel. Scientist Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) and his mentor Doctor Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger) work to create a "Bride" for the monster (Boris Karloff )they created in the last film.

The original story was the birthchild of Mary Shelley when she, her husband Percy Shelley, Lord Byron are stuck inside on a rainy, miserable day. To stave off the boredom, they challenge themselves to tell the scariest ghost stories ever and, so Frankenstein, was borne. Bride of Frankenstein began by portraying this very incident in a way to establish some continuity (more on this later) between it and its successor, but I don't think this was necessary. I think any viewer could have filled in the gaps quite easily. 

A criticism I had for the original film was their unfair portrayal of Frankenstein's monster. In the original novel, he is portrayed as an intelligent and articulate, if hideous being. In Frankenstein, he is little more than a simple-minded beast. This edition helped to rectify that mistake. He's still far from being any type of Renaissance man, but we do see more depth to his character. 

He's not just an animal now, but somebody desperately looking for friendship like when he befriends a blind hermit who teaches him how to speak and how to enjoy life. Boris Karloff should also be credited for bringing some humanity to a monster that everybody misunderstands. Rather than being a mindless brute, he's more something to be pitied. 

This film also helps to develop Henry Frankenstein. Far from being a mad scientist, he still wants to continue his pursuit to the secret of life and immortality. Again, he has more depth than the first film.

At the start, I talked about continuity. I know this film was only made in the 1930's but there were a whole slieu of continuity errors. One I particularly remember was when the hermit was showing the monster how to smoke. He passes his cigar to him, but in the next cut, both characters have lit cigars. 

Bride of Frankenstein was enjoyable enough with well-developed characters, despite its dodgy editing.

Ed Wood review

 Number 378 on the top 1000 films of all time is Tim Burton's 1994 biographical comedy-drama 'Ed Wood.'

Ed Wood (Johnny Depp) tells the real-life story of the film-maker Ed Wood and his ascension through the Hollywood ranks to become affectionately known as the "Worst Director of All Time." The film portrays his personal and professional relationships including with Dracula actor Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau) and drag queen John "Bunny" Breckinridge (Bill Murray.) Sarah Jessica Parker plays Ed Wood's first girlfriend Dolores Fuller, but when their relationship deteriorates he starts anew with Kathy O'Hara (Patricia Arquette.)

Tim Burton is well-known for gothic horror and dark fantasy films being the director of such films like Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride, Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice. Yet Ed Wood was an interesting mixture of the real and the fantasy. Being a biopic, the story was founded in truth. It portrayed the life of famed B-movie director Ed Wood, but did so through a fantasy lens. The use of black-and-white gave the film a timeless element - although it was depicting the 50s it could have been set anywhere. Martin Landau and Johnny Depp's performances were suitably surreal too.

Johnny Depp has become well-known for playing off-the-wall eccentric characters. We've already talked about Edward Scissorhands, but there's also Sweeney Todd, Willy Wonka and of course, his most famous role, Captain Jack Sparrow. I would argue that Ed Wood was just as off-the-wall and as eccentric as any of these characters. He soon became known for his unconventional production techniques such as providing little direction for his actors, only shooting one take and filling any gaps with stock footage. Having said that, George Lucas was also notorious for only saying "faster" and "more intense" to his actors, so maybe that point isn't that unconventional, but I digress. 

And, most eccentrically of all, there was also Ed Wood's transvestism. Yet despite all this, Johnny Depp gave a three-dimensional and well-rounded portrayal of the ill-celebrated director. Granted both and he and Burton admitted to being overly-sympathetic side to Wood. Reportedly, the real-life director suffered from alcoholism so bad it was the true reason why Dolores left him. These scenes were not included in the film.

Finally, let's talk about Martin Landau who won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for playing Bela Lugosi. In the fifties, Bela Lugosi's best days were long behind him. Similar to Ed Wood he also had his own alcohol problems. Yet his collaborations with the ill-famed director saw a minor resurgence to his career. Just like Depp, Landau brought a vulnerability and tenderness to the damaged character.

Ed Wood was an enjoyable enough film. It had all the surrealism and eccentricity you would expect from a Tim Burton film and it also had Johnny Depp in one of his trademark off-the-wall roles.