Wonder Woman - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Lame, voiceless direction sinks WW solo effort

I am Wonder Woman! I kill to bring peace to mankind.

Wonder Woman (2017)
Dir. Patty Jenkins
Scr. Allan Heinberg
Starring: Gal Godot, Chris Pine, Danny Huston, David Thewlis, Robin Wright,
Ewan Bremner, Saïd Taghmaoui, Eugene Brave Rock
Connie Nielsen, Elena Anaya, Lucy Davis

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Though I refused to read any reviews of Wonder Woman before seeing it, I was unable to avoid knowing that "critics" (I use the word loosely these days) have enthusiastically raved about the film. That the picture is such a huge hit, another fact I was unable to avoid knowing, adds insult to injury. Granted, the injury afflicted is to me (and seemingly me and me alone), but it is an injury nonetheless.

Watching the loathsome Wonder Woman was one of the more painful acts of self-flagellation I've recently engaged in. Let me assure you, my flesh is now mighty raw from that scourging. My soul is empty and again I felt bereft of hope for the future of movies. (Luckily, hope was restored one day after suffering through the dross by watching Jean-Pierre Melville's Two Men in Manhattan and David Miller's Sudden Fear - both made when people made real movies.)

I made a point of seeing Wonder Woman in 70mm. Though preferable to unwatchable 3-D, the glorious widescreen film-format ultimately added nothing to the experience. I found myself limping out of the movie theatre after having to yank the nails from my feet, which I was forced to use in order to affix myself in place for the entirety of the loathsome 141 minutes of Patty Jenkins's interminable miserably directed sewage tank of wasted celluloid.

If you must know, Wonder Woman retches up the origin of Diana Prince (Gal Godot), D.C. Comics' lithe raven-haired superhero. We're forced to endure her childhood, adolescence and early adulthood on the all-female-populated island of Themyscira, a kind of Isle of Lesbos without the lesbo action (not even submerged). Here a race of powerful Amazons created by the Gods of Mt. Olympus, endlessly train in the art of killing in order to eventually bring peace to the world.

When an insufferably handsome American pilot, Captain Steve Trevor (the sickeningly smirking Chris Pine), crashes his plane, he's rescued by our heroine. She learns that World War I is raging and as it's her birthright to restore peace to humankind, she joins him on a pilgrimage to Dear Old Blighty. She's convinced the war is not the fault of Kaiser Wilhelm and the Germans, but rather, by Ares, the nasty nemesis of Zeus who has supplanted himself in the body of British politician Sir Patrick Morgan (David Thewlis). (Some might consider this a "spoiler", but if you can't figure it out from the moment you first lay eyes on him, then I suspect you might require a brain transplant.)

Morgan is in cahoots with General Erich Ludendorff (the vaguely amusing, scenery-chewing Danny Huston) and his facially-deformed chief mad-scientist Doctor Poison (Elena Anaya) who are concocting a super-deadly cocktail of mustard gas in the hopes that Germany will bring the world to its knees.

Wonder Woman and the annoying American join forces with a dog's breakfast of wily rascals to kill a whole mess of Germans to bring peace to the world.

Ugh!

I first read the D.C. comic "Wonder Woman" when I was a kid in the 60s and 70s. Unlike the critically-maligned (and boneheadedly so) Zack Snyder-directed Man of Steel and Batman v Superman movies, Patty Jenkins has no feel for the essence of these grand comic books of yore, but even worse, she clearly has no idea where the camera needs to be placed during action scenes. They are the typical contemporary hodgepodge of poorly composed multiple camera setups that the editors are forced to breathe life into (and mostly in vain) by creating sound-based cut-points instead of dramatic "action" cut-points.

The jury is out on whether Jenkins has any genuine talent. Her first film was the competent, decently acted Monster which dramatized the tale of real-life serial killer Aileen Wuornos (who was the focus of two great documentaries by a real filmmaker, Nick Broomfield). On the basis of Monster and now Wonder Woman, I see no evidence of a genuine directorial vision. It's little more than a (mostly) badly acted catalogue of dull action scenes. I simply don't understand why the studios keep hiring directors with no feel for action (I'm looking at YOU: Christopher "One Idea" Nolan and Sam "I'm from the thay-uh-tuh" Mendes). When you think of the Zack Snyder DC films, one can at least marvel at the painterly compositions of every shot and even though the cutting is rapid fire, he has actually put thought into creating action set pieces as units of dramatic action, not merely "action".

Just because they gave a woman a shot at directing means nothing. They should have thought of hiring a woman who knows how to direct with some panache. Much as I hate all of the Twilight movies, the very first film in the franchise was at least directed by a woman who has obvious directorial talent/vision. Catherine Hardwicke's distinctive voice as a filmmaker is what raised the level of the 2008 vampire soap opera from a simple "event" movie to that of a genuine work of first-rate pop-art.

Audiences don't care about "voice" or "skill" anymore. They've been systematically indoctrinated into not caring about much of anything other than ADHD-infused pyrotechnics, which Wonder Woman is over-stuffed with.

Also, that the movie threw away an opportunity in the first section with the Amazons by avoiding a healthy infusion of lesbian subtext is beyond the pale.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: * One-Star

Wonder Woman is in wide release via Warner Brothers.

KONG: SKULL ISLAND - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Saved By Great Monsters, John C. Reilly

John C. Reilly: The only thing resembling a human being.

Kong: Skull Island (2017)
Dir. Jordan Vogt-Roberts
Scr. Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein, Derek Connolly
Sty: John Gatins
Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson,
John Goodman, Brie Larson, John C. Reilly

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Why it took four writers to come up with the lame, dull Kong: Skull Island screenplay is beyond me. Then again, given the sheer emptiness of most studio pictures these days, it shouldn't surprise anyone since it takes a whole lotta boneheads to generate a whole lotta stupid. An American President called Donald Trump is proof of that.

If truth be told, I can almost even forgive inept imbecility. What I can't forgive is tedium and this mostly horrendous reboot of the Kong franchise is nothing if not mind-numbingly boring for most of its interminable 118-minute length. Much of what makes the movie dull are the missed opportunities it took four writers to conjure up.

Things begin promisingly enough with the pre-credit sequence. It's WWII and two soldiers - one American, the other Japanese - crash on the remote Skull Island. Ah, tantalizing! Perhaps we will be afforded a lovely action-packed nod to John Boorman's Hell in the Pacific? But, no. We're handed two dull anonymous actors - no Lee Marvin or Toshiro Mifune here. Jesus, I'd have even settled for something resembling Peter Sellers/Burt Kwouk Pink Panther martial arts slap-schtick shenanigans. That, however, would be too politically incorrect by contemporary standards (and sadly, the movie's endlessly shoe-horned P.C. sensibilities are another big problem with the picture). So instead, we get a dull sprint up a mountain and our warring soldiers meet with a far more formidable enemy - Yup, you guessed it, King Kong, the big hairy ape. (But don't worry, ain't nothing too Eugene O'Neill about this hirsute monkey.)

Our movie launches into an annoyingly wham-bam credit sequence detailing American history from the last Great War and eventually leading up to the turbulence of the 1970s. Thank God it stops here - a real decade. Alas, the period detail, in virtually every respect, is woefully inadequate - most annoyingly with the contemporary-speak of the dialogue and the decidedly 2017 timbre of the delivery of said dialogue.

Of course, this being 2017, in spite of the movie being set in the 1970s, we don't get to meet a cool adventurer seeking passage to Skull Island, say along the lines of showman Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong in the 1933 version, Jack Black in Peter Jackson's 2005 entry) or even a delectably sleazy oilman like Fred Wilson (Charles Grodin in 1976). What we get is the supremely unimaginative, ineffectual government hack Bill Randa (John Goodman) and his earnestly plucky African-American geologist Houston Brooks (Corey Hawkins). Randa is such a useless schmo that it takes his right-hand Houston to convince a Senator to bankroll the expedition.

Welcome to 2017. And not that I have a problem with this smooth young Black male weaselling dough out of the Senator instead of boss man Whitey, but it might have been far more interesting to have a character like Randa, written-for and played by someone with some balls, like Laurence Fishburne for example. The role of this character, or character-type, requires - Nay, demands someone in his august years (or at least in the case of 1976's Grodin, one of those 30-something guys who feels like he's in his 50s or 60s) and more importantly, someone who has the smarts to squeeze oil out of an empty drum.

But, I remind you - it took four writers to generate this screenplay.

Can't go too wrong with a cute prehistoric muskox.

So, off to Skull Island we go. Randa assembles a stock, boring team that includes former British Special-Ops mercenary James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston, a great actor in a nothing role), gung-ho army dude Colonel Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson, a great actor, but more boring than usual in this stock role), looking for more carnage now that the Vietnam War is over and perhaps most sickeningly, Mason Weaver (Brie Larson, a great actress with a completely idiotic role), a self-proclaimed "Anti-war photographer" (whatever that's supposed to mean). Of course the team is replete with other soldiers, scientists and bureaucrats in order to provide ample food for the monsters.

The movie plods through all of its uninspired machinations as our team essentially needs to get off the island as soon as they land on it - there are monsters, after all. Our leading lady is, of course, not the "beauty who killed the beast", but rather, the beauty that the beast thinks is kind of okay and not a danger to him. Our leading man is boring and does little more than argue with the gung-ho army guy and acquiesce to the madman's needs to kill monsters to avenge the deaths of his soldiers. Of course, the ineffectual adventurer Randa is so useless that we almost forget he's in the movie until he gets eaten. Then, we get to forget about him all over again.

Happily, the movie introduces us to Lieutenant Hank Marlow (John C. Reilly, playing the older version of the American soldier introduced at the beginning of the movie). Marlow has been living on the island since WWII in the protective custody of the island's indigenous Native population. Thank God! A real character with an irascible sense of humour. Reilly not only makes us laugh, but he's really the only person we care about. Stupidly, the writers have relegated Marlow's Japanese counterpart to that of a corpse - someone who is talked about fondly, but whom we don't get a chance to know. It would have been amazing to have a great veteran Asian actor quipping with Reilly and doing battle with the monsters, but you know, there were only four writers, so you can't expect creative miracles.

Even more boring than most of the film's non-characters are the island's tribesmen. What a ho-hum lot. They appear to be pseudo-Buddhist types who do little more than cast inscrutable glances every which way. This is strangely even more ethnocentric (and perhaps even downright racist) than the previous incarnations of "ignorant", "bloodthirsty" "savages" in the 1933 and 2005 versions. At least those people had something resembling "life" infused in their ooga-booga personae.

Kong looks forward to some yummy octopus tentacles.

Other than Reilly's delightful performance, the only thing else left are the monsters. I won't bother attributing any of the picture's "success" in this regard to the by-rote direction of Jordan Vogt-Roberts (his boring nods to Apocalypse Now notwithstanding), but rather, all the magnificent SFX geniuses who designed the myriad of creatures. Kong's battles with the other behemoths are pretty damn spectacular and perk things up ever-so thrillingly. There's a phenomenal aquatic cage match twixt Kong and a humungous octopus which culminates in a wonderful moment in which Kong slurps up a few tentacles. One can, I suppose, attribute this to one of the four writers. Kudos, dudes!

That said, all previous incarnations of the Kong story were a whole lot more than just the monsters. They had, uh, characters, a solid story arc and were chockfull of wonder. They were sheer magic. There's nothing like that here - just a whole lotta tedious expository (and stupid, 'natch) nonsense to setup the inevitable sequels and franchise "universe". I'm coming to hate that word. "Universe" should conjure up feelings of expanse and possibility - not more of the same.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *½ One-and-a-Half Stars

Kong: Skull Island is in wide release via Warner Brothers

WAR DOGS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Lame Arms Dealer Shenanigans Lacks Focus

War Dogs (2016)
Dir. Todd Phillips
Scr. Phillips, Jason Smilovic, Stephen Chin
Starring: Jonah Hill, Miles Teller, Ana de Armas, Bradley Cooper, Kevin Pollak

Review By Greg Klymkiw

War Dogs is about assholes. That the picture is based upon real-life assholes certainly takes it out of the usual territory of male mayhem director Todd (The Hangover) Phillips has specialized in to date. Alas, aside from a knockout performance from Jonah Hill and superb support courtesy of Bradley Cooper and Kevin Pollak, the picture never quite lives up to its potential to explore the savagery of international arms dealers.

From an article, then full length book ("Arms and the Dudes") by investigative reporter Guy Lawson, the screenplay cobbled together by Phillips and his co-scribes Jason Smilovic and Stephen Chin never takes flight into the territory of black humour and/or outright satire that might have been its saving grace, especially since it never really works as a straight-up drama, nor a comedy.

Charting the story of old school chums Efraim Diveroli (Hill) and David Packouz (Teller) who team up to secure government contracts to provide arms to the U.S. military, the film reduces most of their actions to cliches. Packouz is a loser facing the responsibilities of being a husband and father who is swept up by his flamboyant buddy into the legal, but morally dubious world of supplying implements of destruction. When the temptation of riches beyond their wildest dreams dangles before them, they acquiesce to illegal activities which will ultimately lead to their downfall. Though fact-based, we've seen stories like this before and a movie like War Dogs needed far more than the derivative bargain-basement Scorsese-like voiceovers and montages driving it.

The film required genuine savagery. Perhaps it even needed to go into Robert Altman-like M*A*S*H territory to make its protagonists even vaguely understandable. If anything, the film seems like bargain-basement Todd Phillips. A lame fact-based version of The Hangover films with arms dealers replacing the hapless clowns of the aforementioned comedy trilogy just isn't very compelling.

Jonah Hill, however, continues to dazzle and display his remarkable range and gifts as an actor. He attacks his role with ferocious, maniacal and nasty glee that injects considerable life into the otherwise blah proceedings. Bradley Cooper pops up as a slime ball arms dealer infused with an oddly friendly malevolence and Kevin Pollak lights the screen up with both humour and slime whenever the dry cleaning mogul he plays shows up.

The entire domestic subplot involving Packouz's wife (Ana de Armas) is a drag, sucking the life out of the proceedings and once the story takes genuinely dark turns, the movie continues to go through the motions, doing very little to shock or move us.

By the end of the film, we're left with a perfunctory wrap-up of the actual events, but never do we feel like we've waded in the utter hell of the world these two men crawled through. They're ultimately less than assholes, they're slugs and vipers and how we're supposed to feel about either of them is finally one big question mark. We don't have to "relate" to them or even empathize with them. It might have been nice if we could have even mildly revelled in their sheer scumbaggery, but the movie doesn't even afford us that one meagre pleasure.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ** Two-Stars

War Dogs is in wide release via Warner Brothers.

SUICIDE SQUAD - Review By Greg Klymkiw - David Ayer Delivers Pure Comic Book Joy

Suicide Squad (2016)
Dir. David Ayer
Starring: Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jared Leto, Viola Davis, Cara Delevingne,
Karen Fukuhara, Jay Hernandez, Jai Courtney, Joel Kinnaman,
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Adam Beach, Aidan Devine

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Oh, to be a kid again! What pure, unadulterated joy! And I have writer-director David Ayer to thank for this happy blast into my past. Having discovered both DC and Marvel in the 60s, their true golden age, my memories were tweaked by Ayer's snappy, colourful, darkly funny, occasionally nasty and wholly exuberant dive into everything that made comics so special for me.

Suicide Squad has cool heroes, even cooler villains, high stakes for the world of the film (and its characters) and most of all, it's infused with sacrifice, sentiment and a big heart. It's also gorgeously shot, snappily edited, overflowing with a great selection of immortal classic songs, an original score that pounds with power and replete with a juicy ensemble cast.

Seriously.

What's not to like? Or, for that matter, love?

We all remember that Superman died like a Jesus made of steel at the end of Zack Snyder's epic Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and this is the milieu greeting the American government at the beginning of Ayer's film. Sans Christ Kent's powerful alter-ego, the powers-that-be are quaking in their boots that alien hordes and super villains will wreak havoc upon the earth.

Tough military strategist babe Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) has an answer - collect the nastiest incarcerated super villains and offer them reduced prison sentences in exchange for fighting on the side of all that is good. The Pentagon balks, but eventually, even the most vocal balking General (Aidan Devine) has his mind changed with the advent of annihilation at the hands of an ancient witch.

It doesn't take long before we get a comic book remake of The Dirty Dozen - one that still manages to resonate with freshness and originality. The simple idea of villains/criminals being used to fight evil drives the picture and Ayer's wonkily wonderful script offers up a fun first third which provides lively origins for the various criminals who will make up the suicide squad of super heroes.

What a team!

Will Smith's Deadshot is a hit man with a conscience, Boomerang (Jai Courtney) is an Aussie psychopath handy with blades and the Down Under implement he's named after, Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) the mutant half-man, half crocodile has a mordant wit to match his massive appetite for humans and crocodiles, El Diablo (Jay Hernandez) turns into a human flame thrower when he gets riled up, Katana (Karen Fukuhara) is the lethal samurai with a sword which holds her late husband's spirit within it, the very cool SlipKnot (a great Adam Beach, but sadly underused) and last, but not least:

Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie).

Harley via Robbie's nutzoid performance comes close to stealing the show, but that honour is ultimately reserved for Jared Leto as the suave, giggling madman the Joker - Harley's lover and the man responsible for transforming her (via shock treatment no less) from a prison psychiatrist into a highly skilled and dangerous psychopath. Together, this loving couple of wackos rival Mickey and Mallory Knox, Sailor Ripley and Lula Fortune and, lest we forget, Bonnie and Clyde - all rolled into one.

Have I mentioned how to-the-heavens sexy she is? A deadly sexpot with a potty mouth who's handy with firearms and a baseball bat - she's as sex-drenched a film character as they come. The one rival in the ultra-sexy department is June Moone (Cara Delevingne), the honey-glazed archeologist babe who becomes possessed by the arch-villainess The Enchantress, an ages-old evil superpower bent upon the world's destruction. (Seeing The Enchantress writhe in front of her technicolor doomsday machine like some Paul Verhoeven-imagined pole dancer will inspire erections and/or love-juice-drenched putty-tats to rival those that Robbie inspires as Harley.) And no wonder the squad's team leader, the "mortal" ace soldier Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) is all hot and bothered. He's madly in love with June Moone, but sickened he'll have to kill her when she's in witch enchantress mode.

Given the insane number of characters the film must juggle, Ayer pulls off the impossible and creates individuals we like, love and care about. Damn, even The Joker is pretty goddamn loveable. (Oh, and bothering to compare Leto with the late Heath Ledger is a mug's game. They're both great and different enough that comparing the characters/performances is virtually in apples and oranges territory.)

The action scenes are skilfully staged - perhaps a few too many closeups and rapid-fire cuts for my taste - but there isn't a single shot less than perfect thanks to one of my favourite contemporary cinematographers Roman Vasyanov. He's obviously one of Ayer's favourites since this is the third film they've worked on together.

David Ayer is one of contemporary cinema's great treasures. He directed one of the new century's best crime pictures (Harsh Times), one of the best cop pictures since the 70s (End of Watch) and one of the best war pictures in decades (Fury). With Suicide Squad, he's made a superhero picture that's up there with the best of the best (all three Sam Raimi Spiderman pictures, plus Zack Snyder's Man of Steel and Batman v Superman).

Ayer's also a great screenwriter. Lest we forget he delivered scripts for Training Day, Dark Blue and The Fast and the Furious. His writing is tough, uncompromising and often gritty to the max. He's also got a terrific sense of humour which serves him well. Most of all, he's got considerable heart. There's a sequence towards the film's final bloody climax when the heroes assemble in a bar to assess their lives and situation. Reminiscent of the great moments in the Mexican whorehouse followed by the bloodbath in Peckinpah's western masterpiece The Wild Bunch, Ayer plumbs the humanity of criminality in the face of evil.

It's here where we realize that David Ayer is the real thing and so is his movie.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

Suicide Squad is in wide release via Warner Brothers.

BATMAN v SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - ***** 5-Star Snyder

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
Dir. Zack Snyder
Scr. Chris Terrio, David S. Goyer
Starring: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Irons, Holly Hunter, Gal Gadot, Scoot McNairy, Callan Mulvey, Tao Okamoto, Kevin Costner, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, Ezra Miller, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Soledad O'Brien, Anderson Cooper, Nancy Grace, Charlie Rose

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There is an absolutely breathtaking and dynamically nightmarish sequence about 90 minutes into the 151-minute theatrical version of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice which had me gripping the armrests of my front-row-centre chair as I experienced mega-shocks of joyous gooseflesh. The synaptic charges coursed through me with such acute ferocity, that I gasped repeatedly. There's not a single cut employed here - just superb choreography and dynamic cinematography. I sat there in awe. Once again in this (and so many of his films), director Zack Snyder's virtuosity as a filmmaker battered me senseless into glorious submission.

He is the real thing and then some.

Without spoiling the context of the aforementioned sequence, let's just say that its centrepiece involves one single shot of Batman (Ben Affleck) leaping into action against a veritable army of deadly soldiers adorned in steel helmets and uniforms not unlike those from Nazi Germany, whilst flocks of winged demons descend upon the Earth from the sky. (One can't go wrong with the picture's blend of Totalitarianism and monsters.)

Of course, there was plenty to admire in the picture prior to this gorgeous dazzler of a sequence, plenty! However, it was here where I marvelled how easily Snyder crushes his competition in the action/fantasy sweepstakes. There isn't a single sequence to top it in any of the action films non-directed by the "visionary" poseurs or by-the-numbers hacks who've been assaulting cinema for the past fifteen to twenty years with their supreme mediocrity.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is a dazzler! Beginning with a concise and powerful re-imagining of the Batman origins, Snyder offers a stunning evocative shot of Mom and Dad Wayne's coffins being led in a slow procession into the Wayne Estate's crypt (eerily resembling a crumbling family resting place straight out of a Hammer Horror and/or Amicus picture). This is followed by young Bruce's mad dash into the woods, and then, an astonishing "God"-shot flashback of Bruce and his family making a similarly-timed procession on a sidewalk beneath a movie marquee boasting the upcoming opening of John Boorman's Exclalibur. (There are so many gorgeous, breathtaking cuts like this in Snyder's stunningly edited film.)

This dates the murder of Bruce Wayne's parents some 35-years before the events of Snyder's film (happily eradicating/ignoring the existence of Tim Burton's dated, overrated  DC toe-dips into the Batman mythology and Joel Schumacher's subsequent grotesqueries) and places Affleck's (superbly realized) Batman firmly in his mid-40s. Snyder has made this universe all his own with only the tiniest passing nods to the previous efforts of Christopher Nolan.

Though the 1981 date of the murders is not without merit in and of itself (especially given that it's the horrid beginning of Ronald Reagan's presidency and during Margaret Thatcher's fascist rule of UK), what's especially evocative here is how Snyder, with screenwriters Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer, let us know immediately that we're in the realm of myth as it relates to 20th century political realities and beyond. The Batman mythology is as attached to our contemporary consciousness as any of the great historical myths of yore and certainly not excluding those of the Arthurian legends as mediated through John Boorman's great film. The filmmakers cannily choose to invoke this detail in the flashback as it places us firmly in the sword and sorcery world of Sir Thomas Mallory's "Le Morte d'Arthur" which Boorman adapted so stunningly.

We all know what happened in the horrific origin story of Batman, but never have these events been so hauntingly captured as they are here - the horrifying murder of Bruce's mother and father is simply, effectively juxtaposed with Bruce's fall into the mysterious cave of bats who then surround the grieving child who witnessed his parents' snuffing-out on the dirty streets of Gotham City. Even more throat-catching are the images of the bats lifting young Bruce up to the Heavens, arms outstretched like a Holy Christ-child ascending to the glories of eternal life as his bitterness-tinged adult voice intones:

"In the dream, they took me to the light, a beautiful lie."

A beautiful lie, indeed, as the white light of "Heaven" dissolves into the white light of the clouds overlooking Metropolis, the dominion of The Super Man (Henry Cavill), a world in which an older, more grizzled, more pain-infused Bruce Wayne descends from the heavens and we're shuttled back to the closing minutes of Snyder's Man of Steel. During the climax of that tremendously dark and stylish film we witnessed the brutal duel (pas de deux) to the death between Superman and General Zod (Michael Shannon), both beings driven by hatred and vengeance as their deadly battle extended to massive collateral damage of Metropolis and its citizens.

This time, though, we are privy to the collateral damage from the perspective of humanity and Batman himself as the aliens cause thousands of human deaths and the massive destruction of buildings (including that of Wayne Tower in nearby Gotham City - both cities not unlike a bay-separated San Francisco and Berkeley). The reality is that Superman is indeed driven by hate, revenge and the need to rescue his lady love Lois Lane (Amy Adams), but most importantly, he must destroy General Zod at any cost in order to save the Earth. (Perversely, Superman/Clark Kent is obsessed with taking down Batman. He fussily believes the Bat's penchant for branding sexual offenders so their time in prison will be a living Hell, is, to his way of thinking, conduct most unbecoming of a gentlemanly crime fighter.)

This won't change the minds of those caught in the collateral crossfire, nor will it assuage Bruce Wayne's hatred-infused desire to destroy Superman, the entity that's "murdered" so many for reasons Bruce perceives as strictly personal.

And this is what sets Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice apart from any previous film versions of the DC comic book legends. Hatred, in a world already driven by hatred and terrorism, is the wedge driving these entities apart when we desperately need them to be on the same side. From a contemporary standpoint, this film and Snyder's previous foray into the world, not only provide a perfect mirror's eye view into the post-9/11 ennui, terror and the overwhelming sense of New World Order dominance over everything, but will, I suspect, have far more resonance as cinema, not just now, but in future decades. I'd argue this approach does, in fact, encompass the full scope of human-inflicted horrors of the 20th and now 21st centuries and by rooting the comic book legend (albeit subtly) in Arthurian legends, is what brings us smack into the Judeo-Christian realm of Man, God and the Devil - a world where man must battle real monsters, but also the monsters within. (And yes, Snyder eventually delivers a big banana of New Testament imagery much later in the film, invoking the sadness and "joy" of Christ's Passion and extermination upon Calvary/Golgotha.)

Yes, this is a comic book on film, but whoever said comic books could not be infused with depth?

Snyder's film is certainly rich with details and one suspects its 151-minute running time might well be too slight to encompass all the narrative and thematic details it needs. (A much longer version will happily be available when the film is released to the home entertainment market.) That said, everything we need for now, is on-screen, but it's also worth noting that Snyder's immeasurably dense visual style also creates a wholly sumptuous and integral level which, we must ingest, nay: embrace wholeheartedly to see the considerable layers beneath.

For a tentpole studio blockbuster, this is unheard of, yet Snyder has somehow fashioned a multimillion dollar art film - one which offers everything great cinema requires to have lasting, as opposed to, ephemeral value.

Yes, we get all the details a DC film adaptation might need, but ultimately, its heroes are anti-heroes, not unlike those so prevalent in both 40s/50s film noir and American cinema of the 70s. If anything, both Superman and Batman are, to put a fine point on it, presented here as major-league pricks. No matter what their "noble" intentions are, they are still driven by old hatreds and the machismo of vengeance.

It's a beautiful thing, really.

And yes, we get to have our DC cake and eat it too with the inclusion of the megalomaniacal psychopathic villain and New World Order/Bilderbergian represented so delectably in Lex Luthor (as brilliantly, hilariously and creepily rendered by Jesse Eisenberg). For good measure, we get plucky "girl-reporter" Lois Lane and the grimly monstrous Doomsday creature created from the alien DNA of General Zod and the foul, diseased human blood of Luthor. Also on hand is Bruce Wayne's loyal manservant Alfred, delightfully rendered by the dryly witty Jeremy Irons. Hell, we even get Jimmy Olsen, though represented in a completely shocking and unexpected fashion.

However, we also get added elements like middle-eastern arms dealers, dirty Russian mobsters and double-dealing politicians looking to feather their own nests by jumping in the sack with powerful villains like Luthor. "Good" politicians are represented by the well-meaning "Liberal" senator, gorgeously played by Holly Hunter (with her still-sexy overbite/lisp). Of course, those with "good" intentions in the world of the film (as in our own world), are far more doomed than those who are either purely infused with evil or, like our superheroes, pricks muddled with ambiguity.

Another gorgeous touch in the picture is the notion that a race of "super" aliens exist, waiting to rear their heads. Will they be heroes or villains? Or, better yet, both?

Even cooler is that we not only get to meet Wonder Woman (Gal Godot in a perfectly fine rendering of the role) but she is presented within the context of being so "immortal" that she's seen in early photographs from the First World War.

Ultimately, what drives the film in terms of content is its sheer darkness and political context. The narrative exists, but is ultimately a coat hanger by which Snyder and team can dazzle and provoke us. That Superman and Batman are "unlikeable" is a huge point in the film's favour. In fact, who cares if we "like" them or not? What we respond to is their humanity, the Jekyll and Hyde nature of their personae. Hell, even Satan was God's most beloved, then sadly, His most fallen Angel.

Something I'll never forget from my childhood is that the first season of the immortal, long-running "Superman" TV series (starring the doomed George Reeves) was one nasty, post-war noir-infused piece of work and if anything, both Man of Steel and now Batman v Superman invoke the joys inherent in that pitch black of darkness. Curiously, my prime time for discovering and religiously reading comic books was between the mid 60s to mid 70s and while I was primarily a Marvel fan (notably Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, The Silver Surfer and Spiderman) I was occasionally drawn to D.C. I don't recall Superman and Batman being quite as dark as the Marvel material, but they still seem, in retrospect, plenty dark to me.

Speaking of Satan, and via Lex Luthor's character, Batman v Superman portends the greatest darkness of all. He is on His way, along with His minions. The giggling, manic, totally wacko, richie-rich man-boy so gorgeously etched by Eisenberg points out that the Devils and Demons do not come from below, but from the skies, the Heavens above (like aliens/superheroes). I have no problem with this. I accept it wholeheartedly and look forward to more of the same, and then some.

Finally, what I especially love about Snyder and this film, is that he genuinely is a film artist with cinema hard-wired into his very DNA. There are seldom any shots in any of his films which are less than painterly. Best of all, even though he might employ a myriad of shots designed to be cut lighting-quick, they are never boneheaded masses of celluloid Play-Doh mushed together the same way most of Hollywood's current breed of hacks and poseurs slap their pictures together with. The cuts in Snyder's films are always designed and driven by VISUAL cues whereas many of the aforementioned non-filmmakers set up as many shots as possible without even knowing what precisely they're shooting (unlike the bonafide genius inherent in mega-shot, multi-camera masters like Sam Peckinpah or George Miller). The new breed leave their poor editors adrift to create forward movement within the cuts by using sound cues to almost always drive them forward, rather than relying upon the important and far more saliently appropriate elements of visual storytelling.

When Snyder needs to create visual and aural cacophonies, we know he's doing so intentionally. It's not there to hide his lack of filmmaking artistry as in the case of so many of his contemporaries.

Thankfully, one of the upcoming DC pictures will have another real filmmaker at the helm and I'm chomping at the bit to see it. Though I'd be happy if Snyder did ALL the DC movies, one respects he might wish to move on. Suicide Squad, however, is directed by one of America's great contemporary filmmakers, David Ayer, and this is happy news indeed. He's generated some of the most evocative, stylish and deliciously-dark crime pictures of recent years and though I imagine he'll bring his own unique approach to the proceedings, I'm predicting it will have the same power to dazzle us as Snyder has brought to the fore here.

Another thing worth noting about Batman v Superman is that it's available in several different formats in the theatrical marketplace. I've seen them all.

I highly recommend seeing it in the rich 70mm (yes, real FILM) which is happily without 3-D of any kind. Regular 3-D and 2-D digital should be avoided at all costs - especially the Real-D 3-D. The 3-D just gives one a headache and the digital 2-D lacks the obvious richness of the 70mm (whether or not one sees it in the overrated Ultra AVX or the lesser auditoriums).

If you get a chance to see the film in The IMAX Experience, know that the IMAX experience is NOT consistent. In the city of Toronto, for example, the IMAX in the Cineplex Entertainment Scotiabank Theatre is phenomenal and replete with the gorgeous sense of height true IMAX should have, whereas in the Cineplex Entertainment Yonge and Dundas cinema, the IMAX is a pale imitation and barely more watchable than than the Real-D Ultra AVX presentations. Also, though I prefer the IMAX Experience sans 3-D, the IMAX 3-D used in Batman v Superman is not as egregious as I thought it would be.

I have not wasted my time seeing the film in D-Box. I've seen other films in the shake and bake format and all I can say is that it's easily the most moronic cash-grab yet invented for the movies. None of the motions ever seem wired realistically into the action and are little more than a novelty for the feeble-minded.

While writing this piece, I have refused to read any reviews of Batman v Superman. All I know is that the critical consensus is on the lowest possible rung. I'll be curious to read these reviews, if only to bolster my belief that mainstream film criticism is utterly dead.

I also know that the CinemaScore audience response to the picture is extremely low. I'm not sure where or whom or when these paragons of taste are polled, but each public screening in Canada that I've enjoyed has been packed to the rafters and upon the final, exhilarating cut to black at the end, the picture was met with thunderous applause.

As for myself, I've been compelled to applaud each and every time. It's so seldom one sees this degree of craft, artistry and intelligence in contemporary blockbusters - especially in super hero movies, most of which I find intolerable (save for Sam Raimi's Spider-Man films), that I'm completely and utterly without shame in admitting my undying love for this great picture - one I will see many more times and a picture that I strongly suspect will be seen, loved, studied and appreciated, long after all of us are little more than food for maggots.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is playing everywhere in the world via Warner Brothers.

BLACK MASS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - TIFF 2015: A solid cast in search of a good movie

Black Mass (2015)
Dir. Scott Cooper
Starring: Johnny Depp, Joel Edgerton, Benedict Cumberbatch,
Kevin Bacon, Jesse Plemons, Peter Sarsgaard, Rory Cochrane,
Adam Scott, Dakota Johnson, Mary Klug, Corey Stoll

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Joe Berlinger's Whitey: The United States of America V. James J. Bulger (2014) is a modern masterpiece. It tells the same story as Scott Cooper's Black Mass, but aside from a genuinely solid cast working overtime and a few directorial frissons, the latter is little more than a derivative, often dull dramatic exercise in style. This ultra-violent homage to much better pictures like Goodfellas, which it desperately wants to be, really has little going for it, save for its stalwart performances.

Berlinger's modern classic is an alternately terrifying and heartbreaking documentary exposé of Boston mobster Whitey Bulger, his protection at the hands of the FBI and the suffering of his hundreds of victims. It's the perspectives of the victims which gives Berlinger's film its oomph, but alas, Cooper's picture is saddled with a by-the-numbers screenplay by Jez Butterworth and Mark Mallouk which does little more than blast through key high points of Bulger's "career".

Bulger was an asshole and psychopath of the first order. This places Black Mass immediately at a disadvantage. There's clearly no room for redemption and the only change of any consequence is just how appalling Bulger's actions become. Though Cooper interestingly (albeit too briefly) focuses on the odd family dynamic between Bulger, his Massachusetts State Senator brother Billy (Benedict Cumberbatch) and their tough, accepting Mom (Mary Klug), all that's really left to target is Bulger's 30-year history as an FBI informant, set-up by his old neighbourhood chum, FBI agent John Connolly (superbly played by Joel Edgerton). Bulger is given complete immunity to commit horrific crimes so the FBI can get the dope on the Italian mob whom our "hero" is attempting to rub out so his Winter Hill Gang can completely control all criminal activities in Boston.

Much will be made of Depp's performance as Bulger and he does indeed seem to be having the time of his life mugging malevolently under a variety of insane makeup designs. It's hardly a departure from most of his flamboyant excess and though it delivers prime entertainment value (to a point), the fact remains that he has delivered much better work in pictures like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Ninth Gate, Donnie Brasco and especially Ed Wood and, for that matter, most of his collaborations with Tim Burton. Hell, I even love his work as Tonto in The Lone Ranger.

Unfortunately his toils here are merely showy. The ho-hum screenplay doesn't really provide a strong-enough adversary for Bulger to play against. This wasn't a problem in Berlinger's great documentary since he placed the lion's share of focus upon one of Bulger's victims who delivers some of the most chilling moments in the film and all throughout the picture fears for his life (and indeed was rubbed out during the film's shooting and Bulger trial). All Depp has to work with here are his enablers, henchmen and virtually faceless rivals whom he stylishly dispatches.

It's the human factor that's missing right across the board and without it, both Depp and his talented director Cooper are lost at sea in a dinghy with no oars. Though I have little use for his overrated Crazy Heart, Cooper previously infused his superb crime film Out of the Furnace with a scary creep factor as well as considerable humanity. All that's left in Black Mass is plenty of creepy.

Creepy is always good, but when it's really the only thing driving a picture, it eventually loses steam and by extension, so too does Black Mass.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ** Two Stars

Black Mass enjoys its Canadian Premiere as a TIFF Special Presentation at TIFF 2015. For tix, times, venues, dates visit the TIFF website HERE. The film opens wide on September 18, 2015 via Warner Bros.

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Now's My Time to Weigh-in on This

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Dir. George Miller
Starring: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron,
Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There's no need at this point to make much of the perfectly-wrought slender plot of George Miller's spectacular ode to the glories of cinema via its wham-bam ultra-violence, save for the fact that Tom Hardy's Max Rockatansky, the immortal road warrior of the three movies starring Mel Gibson, hooks up with the hot, head-shaved, one-armed Imperator Furiosa (the hot, head-shaved, not-really-one-armed Charlize Theron) to make her way back to the paradise of her childhood homeland whilst rescuing a clutch of gorgeous babes held as breeders by the post-apocalyptic mutants who've carved out a massive kingdom of slavery and brutal repression.

The most interesting aspect of the tale is that our hero is initially captured by the mutants, forced to become a perpetual blood donor and then secured to the front of warrior Nux's (Nicholas Hoult) car as a "blood bag" (to explode in a shower of crimson if and when the roadster slams into something). For at least 30 of the film's 120 minutes, its hero is forced to wear a mask and trussed into complete immobility. He does, however, have a perfect view of the mad chase and carnage that ensues, happily giving us, the loyal audience, more than a few delectable points of view.

Then for another 30 of the film's 120 minutes, Max plays second fiddle to Furiosa until the final 60 of 120 minutes whereupon he's finally able to fully engage in the heroics Mel Gibson was allowed to indulge in during Mad Max and The Road Warrior.

The first hour of the film contains some of the most stunning, nail-biting chase sequences ever committed to the edification of action fans since the very dawn of cinema as well as imagery in the mutant kingdom which is so eye-poppingly grotesque that it rivals that of Fritz Lang's Metropolis, which director George Miller is clearly indebted to. At 72-years-old, director George Miller manages to easily take several huge dumps of superiority upon every other younger director in recent years who've purported to direct action blockbusters. This includes, but is not limited to the execrable Sam Mendes, J.J. Abrams, Bryan Singer, Joss Whedon and Christopher "One Idea" Nolan.

Miller's mise-en-scene is thankfully sans herky-jerky camera moves, ludicrously endless closeups, picture cutting that's almost solely dependent upon sound cues rather than visual dramatic action, an over-reliance upon digital effects and tin-eyed spatiality. His eye for action and his sense of rhythm is impeccable, his eye for the grotesque (the mutant villains, the earth-mother breast-milk slaves, the mohawk hairdos, body piercings, tattoos and the grandly retro mechanisms in the fortress) has seldom been paralleled, his commitment to driving everything dramatically because he's wisely utilized a simple narrative coat hanger to add all the necessary layers; all this and more points to his innate genius as a REAL filmmaker as opposed to most of the poseurs making blockbusters in contemporary Hollywood.

Though a part of me would have preferred if Miller had continued using the great Mel Gibson in the role of Max and added the layer of age to the character's bitterness, guilt and weariness, I'm happy enough with his selection of the strange stalwart intensity of Tom Hardy and the fine actor's chemistry (thankfully non-romantic or even vaguely sexual) with Charlize Theron's tough-as-nails-exterior masking her long-ago lost innocence of childhood.

And yes, though another part of me wished Miller had tried to bring his film's running time down to the 90-95-minutes of Mad Max and The Road Warrior, I was never bored during the 120 minutes of Fury Road, only occasionally fatigued by its relentlessness.

I love the first two Mad Max films so much that I'm grateful to Miller for not abandoning the spirit of them and using his previous work as a natural springboard into both the familiar and the fresh.

That the villain Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) is equally foul to such previous villains as The Toe Cutter and Humungous makes me very happy. Even happier to me is that Hugh Keays-Byrne played Toe Cutter AND Immortan Joe.

That the movie, by including a kick-ass female lead who is not just a woman pretending to be a macho Rambolina figure, but a woman driven to fight for the rights of fellow women and lay claim to a part of her that she lost, is what allows Miller to take his place as a genuine artist who heartily grasps the comfort of the familiar whilst building upon that and allowing it to blossom into a wholly new hybrid of insanely magnificent splendour.

That Miller has attempted a different approach to colour with Fury Road is also pleasing. I'll admit to always loving the occasional dapples of almost fluorescent colours amidst the sandy, dusty Australian outback, but I also love the high contrasts Miller employs here with varying shades to lighten or darken the proceedings when necessary.

That the movie uses real souped-up cars, trucks and motorcycles which are really driven by real stunt drivers and really smashed-up-real-good is the biggest bonus of all. (Porcupine-like killer cars, a big-wheeled monstrosity outfitted with banks of speakers and a heavy metal guitarist whose guitar shoots out flames and the terrifying gas tanker commandeered by Furiosa and Max are but a few of the vehicular delights on display.)

Finally, though, I do wish the film had had far more dystopian 70s-style melancholy infused into its a-bit-too-hopeful ending, especially since there's a sense of Max's final look to Furiosa, and to us, resembling the final looks of Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) in John Ford's The Searchers.

But, really now, who am I trying to kid?

I fucking loved this movie.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **@** 5-Stars

Mad Max: Fury Road is in wide-mega-release all over the world via Warner Bros. It is presented in 3-D. I refuse to see it in that format as it annoys me. I've only watched it in normal 2-D and was quite satisfied with that, though I'll admit the 3-D might be less egregious to me than it normally is, given Miller's superb direction.

NIGHT NURSE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX series "Ball of Fire: The Films of Barbara Stanwyck". Curated by the inimitable Senior Programmer James Quandt.

Night Nurse Stanwyck holds her own against thug Gable

These images from NIGHT NURSE
clearly provide many good reasons
as to why the pre-Code period in old
Hollywood had a whole lot going for it.

Night Nurse (1931)
Dir. William A. Wellman
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Ben Lyon, Joan Blondell, Clark Gable, Charles Winninger, Ralf Harolde

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Things are tough for a young lady in the big city. They're especially difficult for a night nurse. If you're Barbara Stanwyck, things tend to be a little easier, but still mighty challenging. William A. Wellman's 1931 pre-Code (when Hollywood was at its most provocative) melodrama Night Nurse, crackles with wit, sex, sentiment and thrills, serving up a genuine minor classic reflecting the age of gangsters, bootleggers and single, young women trying to make a way for themselves in the world, whilst making the world a better place for others. The picture blisters with a zippy pace, entertaining us and delivering a sophisticated window into a bygone era, feeling as fresh and resonant today as it must have felt in the 30s.

After a rip-snorting ambulance P.O.V. ride through the city during the opening titles, Oliver H.P. Garrett's screenplay (along with Charles Kenyon's razor-sharp additional dialogue) doesn't waste any time plunging us into the world of the hospital via Lora Hart's (Barbara Stanwyck) perspective. She applies unsuccessfully for a position as a student nurse to a nasty old harridan who chides the lass over her lack of education. Luckily, on her way out, Lora collides with kindly, old Dr. Bell (Charles Winninger) who dives to the floor to retrieve all of our heroine's personal goods which spilled out of her purse. This allows the codger a good view of Stanwyck's gams which, is not lost on our gal at all. One friendly, provocative smile in the doc's direction is all it takes to get Lora back in the hospital and hired.

Lora is hooked up with wisecracking Nurse Maloney (Joan "Hubba Hubba" Blondell) who'll be her roommate in the weird hospital boarding rooms for nursing students (a hint of orphanage and/or women's prison here). Maloney gives Lora the lay of the land, including a tip or two about how to make the job work to her best advantage. First and foremost, Maloney warns against taking-up with the drooling, always-on-the-prowl interns. "Take my tip, sister and stay away from them," she cracks. "They're like cancer. The disease is known but not the cure." However, Maloney's most cogent advice to Lora is thus:

"There's only one guy in the world that can do a nurse any good and that's a patient with dough! Just catch one of them with a high fever and a low pulse and make him think you saved his life. Trust me, sister, you'll be gettin' somewhere."

Lora, however, connects with Mortie (Ben Lyon) a friendly bootlegger with a gun wound that she patches up without reporting it to the police. This endears him to her immediately and he becomes a helpful ally when she finds herself in a jam with some seedy criminal types.

Lora lands what should be a coveted spot as a private night nurse offsite. Unfortunately, she finds herself helplessly watching over two children being intentionally starved to death (for a whopping trust fund) by their alcoholic mother in cahoots with her seedy chauffeur lover (Clark Gable) and presided over by the sleazy quack Dr. Milton A. Ranger (a brilliant Ralf Harolde who not only oozes slime, but twitches ever-so madly with an obvious cocaine addiction). Lora tries to appeal to Ranger by threatening to go to the authorities, but he snidely reminds her she'll be washed up if she does.

"The successful nurse is one who keeps her mouth shut," he intones menacingly.

Even kindly old Dr. Bell can't help, citing "ethics" as being in the way of his interfering with another doctor's case. She fires back, as ONLY Barbara Stanwyck can with that unique blend of vulnerability and tough, no-nonsense moxie: "Oh, ethics... ethics... ethics! That's all I've heard. Isn't there any ethics about letting poor little babies be murdered?"

Poor Lora's in a major bind: a drunken gangster has tried to rape her, the children's mother lollygags about in a drunken stupor, the nasty chauffeur belts her out cold and, adding to her frustration, she's forced to stand by idly as murder is being committed before her very eyes.

"I'll kill the next person that says 'ethics' to me," she says to Maloney (again, as only Stanwyck can).

Her wiseacre pal retorts, as only Joan Blondell can, "Hah! Says you!"

But then, tweaking on to the notion that she's the only one who can take charge and make things right, Lora fires back (with Stanwyck's distinctive Brooklyn twang), "Yeah, SAYS ME, in a BIG WAY, sister."

Lora grabs the reins with a vengeance.

A big storm's a brewing and she's the one brewing it. Along the way, though, she does get some help from her friendly bootlegger pal. Burgeoning romance and rescuing children make for perfect bedfellows.

The film ends with another rip-snorting ambulance ride through the city, depositing a stiff for the morgue. It turns out, the stiff's been hit by some thugs, but happily we learn it's a thoroughly justifiable homicide.

Stanwyck gloriously delivers a final hardy-har over that news and we're all the better for it. Both her performance and the film have us soaring in a movie that provocatively and joyously kicks the kind of butt only a 30s pre-code picture can. Night Nurse is a glorious blend of melodrama, social consciousness and heroism against the biggest odds of all. It extols the virtues of ordinary folk over high society and places more ethics in the hearts and minds of a dame who never finished high school and her good-hearted bootlegger boyfriend over all those who had the money and opportunities to move up the ladder of success and where reaching the top only really meant adhering to ethics supporting an old boy's club over those who do most of the real living and dying.

It's impossible to argue with.

Night Nurse plays Saturday, February 7 at 3:30 p.m. at TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX in James Quandt's amazing series "Ball of Fire: The Films of Barbara Stanwyck". The film is presented in GLORIOUS 35MM. For further info, visit the TIFF website HERE. As well, there are many Barbara Stanwyck films from this TIFF series which can be ordered directly from the following links: Buy Barbara Stanwyck movies in Canada HERE and/or Buy Barbara Stanwyck movies in the USA or from anywhere in the world HERE. You can even click on any of these links and order ANY movie you want so long as you keep clicking through to whatever you want to order. By doing so, you'll be contributing to the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner.

THE STRAWBERRY BLONDE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Tough-guy Walsh delivers Rom-Com

The Strawberry Blonde (1941)
dir. Raoul Walsh
Starring: James Cagney, Olivia De Havilland, Rita Hayworth, Jack Carson, George Tobias and Alan Hale

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Casey would waltz with a strawberry blond,
And the Band played on,
He'd glide cross the floor with the girl he ador'd,
and the Band played on,
But his brain was so loaded it nearly exploded,
The poor girl would shake with alarm.
He'd ne'er leave the girl with the strawberry curls,
And the Band played on.
- Chorus, "The Band Played On" by Palmer and Ward, 1895

He was one of the original two-fisted, piss and vinegar Old Hollywood filmmakers - a man's man and then some - and yet, in spite of this reputation and a canon that included sprawling, dusty westerns, brutal gangster dramas and some of the most effective and affecting war propaganda, Raoul Walsh directed one of the most grandly entertaining, politically astute and decidedly progressive romantic comedies of the 1940s, one that placed women's roles and rights in a society controlled by men at the forefront of its narrative and thematic concerns while, at the same time focusing on a very different male figure, a regular guy from the wrong side of the tracks who is drawn to the surface attributes of both beauty and success, but discovers in himself something deeper.

The Strawberry Blonde is set against the backdrop of a simpler, gentler time in American history - the Gay 1890s - where every Manhattan street corner seemed equipped with a cheerful barbershop quartet crooning away to whomever would listen and when a man's biggest worry was what young lass he'd stroll through the park with on a Sunday afternoon. Life was sweet and an innocence and complacency gripped the towns and cities of America with the promise of new beginnings and sky's-the-limit opportunity.

Biff Grimes (James Cagney) is a working stiff with a dream. He wants to be a dentist. His pal from the old neighbourhood, the amiably smarmy Hugo Barnstead (Jack Carson) wants wealth and power. What they both have their sights on is the flirty, charming, strawberry blonde of the picture's title, Virginia Brush (Rita Hayworth). In all things that SEEM to matter to Biff, Hugo wins and Biff loses, but in the process, Biff learns a few lessons in life when he ends up genuinely falling in love with Virginia's free-thinking, generous suffragette girlfriend Amy Lind (Olivia De Havilland) who has devoted much of her life to the profession of nursing.

On the surface, the movie is a grass-is-NOT-always-greener-on-the-other-side tale of love, friendship and what the true meaning of happiness is, but within the context of a shiny bauble, we get a story that, for its time was AHEAD of its time and in contemporary terms, is a drama for OUR time and frankly, universal enough to be for ALL time.

Walsh was a director imbued with such a strong sense of place and time. Film after film, characters moved through interior and exterior sets, backlots and locations endowed with meticulous attention to detail. Walsh played his characters thoughtfully and carefully, like chess pieces crafted from the ivory of Wooly Mammoth tusks and he moved them on sets as painstakingly rendered as the famed Staunton-crafted wooden boards. There are seldom false moments in a Walsh film and the reason for this is how he blocked his action with only the best actors - making sure that interior and exterior landscapes surrounding them were rooted in WHO they were as characters. To do this required scrupulous attention to every detail and he had the eye of a true Master. (In fact, one of Walsh's eyes was savagely extricated during a car accident when a jackrabbit jumped through an open window as he drove to the In Old Arizona set in the late 1920s. For most of his directing career he only had one eye, but WHAT an EYE!!!)

The Strawberry Blonde is a movie that pulsates with the life of a world that is both magical and real - so much so, that the visuals come close to conjuring actual smells. The spittoon-laden beer halls where Biff and his ne'er-do-well boozing Dad (Alan Hale) wind up in brawl after brawl practically reek with the stench of cheap tobacco smoke and draught-soaked floors. The barber shop where Biff hangs out with his master hair-stylist buddy Nick Pappalas (George Tobias) is so perfectly accoutered with the fixtures and implements of the trade that one's olfactories are gently pummelled with the aroma of pomades, lotions and talcum powder.

The gaslight illuminating the streets at night, the fresh leafy parks, the grocery-market-lined streets, the stuffy, oak-paneled boardrooms and offices of Hugo's construction empire, the gaudy, ornate nouveau-riche mansion Hugo lives in, the warmth of Biff's eventual hearth and home - all are teeming with sounds and sights that embrace all the characters in a world that's as bygone as it is familiar.

And the sounds!

Even in the 40s, this is a movie that delivers a richly layered soundtrack that rivals (if not downright trumps) the over-mixed, over-crowded digital aural blankets so prevalent in contemporary movies - but in glorious, delicious optical mono. And the music! Bands playing, tenors trilling; the movie is blessed with all this in addition to the almost continuous use of vocal and instrumental renderings of Palmer & Ward's insanely popular ditty of the period "The Band Played On" (which was re-popularized after the release of The Strawberry Blonde).

Walsh lays an incredibly rich tapestry before us. It's all that money could buy and then some - not surprising as The Strawberry Blonde was born out of the glory that was Warner Brothers studios. Walsh, began his career as an actor during the silent era and eventually moved into production. He worked as an assistant director to the legendary, groundbreaking D.W. Griffith - the height of Walsh's mentorship under cinema's first true master of cinematic narrative was assisting in the direction and co-editing the immortal Birth of a Nation. In addition to learning the ins and outs of narrative, editing and the use of the frame, Walsh even credited Griffith with his learning everything about techniques of production and production management - all contributors to Walsh's command of the film medium. In spite of this, Walsh was a contract director at the staid Paramount Pictures during the early sound period and his work here was perfunctory at best. However, when he moved to Warner Brothers, he positively exploded.

Walsh was one of those directors who thrived on collaborative relationships with people as brilliant as he was. Never surrounding himself with uninspiring yes-men, he worked in tandem with only the best artists and craftsmen. This aroused a spirit of artistry that was even greater than what he was naturally imbued with. At Warner Brothers, many of his best films were in collaboration with the visionary producer Hal B. Wallis (who would go on to produce Casablanca). Wallis was a showman par excellence and Walsh was a cinematic storyteller of the same order. They were formidable creative collaborators. Add to this that Walsh was always fixated on stories about "the little guy" or regular "Joes" against the backdrop of worlds bigger than they were, he and Wallis made ideal bedfellows - Wallis loved heroes, Walsh loved making all his characters bigger than life (yet in so doing, infusing them with a life force more real and sophisticated than most studio productions).

The Strawberry Blonde excels in this notion of making its little guy a hero. Biff is someone who wants more out of life than what's normally dealt to Joe-Blows, but he doesn't think, even for a second, that it will be handed to him. He works his butt off in matters of both his career and the heart. When he falls big-time for the coquette-ish Virginia, he's briefly afforded a taste of what he thinks would be Heaven-on-Earth, but as the film progresses, she has her sights set on bigger things and she not only breaks his heart, but eventually, her true colours are revealed. She's as exploitative and manipulative as Biff's "friend" Hugo. Virginia and Hugo become a match made in Heaven - or rather, Hell. Biff, on the other hand, is saddled with a fifth wheel in the romantic roundelay - though eventually, Amy offers the sort of love and support he needs - this is no mere infatuation as it was with Virginia, but deep and soulful. Even when Biff is offered a high-paying, high-ranking position with Hugo, he desperately wants to work hard and learn the business and experiences considerable frustration that his only job appears to be reading the morning papers and signing contracts he doesn't understand.

The character of Amy is beautifully rendered and way ahead of both the times of when the movie was made and certainly during the times in which the movie is set. She works as a nurse, and on the first double date twixt herself, Virginia, Biff and Hugo, she shows up adorned in her nurse uniform. Virginia - dolled up in all her finery - scolds Amy, but the fifth-wheel will have none of it. She's proud to be a working woman, a caregiver and intends to go straight to a nightshift at the hospital after a night on the town. She's also surprisingly and delightfully straightforward (modern, if you will) with respect to sexuality and in one of the best scenes in the movie, she shocks a horrified Biff with her modern frankness in matters of amore.

In contrast, Virginia is a gold-digging tease - all talk, no action - and unlike Amy, Virginia's talk is bubbly and empty-headed. Amy displays her own brand of froth, but her sex appeal comes from open-mindedness, intelligence, a keen wit, political savvy and overall, a deep, genuine sense of caring. Virginia chides Amy for being a suffragette, but she's unapologetic - Amy is a firm believer and fighter for the rights of women, but at the same time, she wants to make a place for herself in the world with a man - not as her ruler and/or protector, but in an equal partnership founded in love, mutual respect and making a better life for both of them and those around them.

One of the aspects of this tale that resonates in contemporary terms is the notion of how the rich exploit and deceive the poor. A turn in the tale has overtones of tragedy. Once Biff is duped into joining Hugo's company, he becomes the fall guy in an illegal development scam. Even here, though, Walsh focuses on the indomitability of the working guy and we see strife metamorphosize into strength and Biff's character is deepened in his resolve to get free of the shackles imposed upon him by the dishonesty and thievery of the "ruling" class.

All of this is played by an astounding all-star cast. As Cagney proved time and time again, he was more than just a movie tough guy. Certainly in Footlight Parade and Yankee Doodle Dandy, he was a spectacular song and dance man and here, he's a terrific, (though pugnacious) romantic leading man with a great sense of humour. Olivia De Havilland offers up a snappy, sexy leading lady, far removed from the whiny, helpless, long-suffering Melanie Wilkes in Gone With the Wind. Rita Hayworth is her super-sexy self, while Jack Carson, George Tobias and Alan Hale lend the sort of magnificent support as character actors that the Warners stable always offered up.

Not only was Walsh endowed with an eye to championing the rights of the impoverished (or, in the cases of some, at least understanding when impoverishment led to socially deviant behaviour), but he was, thanks to producer Wallis, given magnificent material to work with. Based on a popular play, this was the second of three screen versions of this tale. Its screenplay was provided by the brilliant Epstein twins, Julius and Phillip (Daughters Courageous, Four Wives, The Man Who Came To Dinner, Casablanca) and with the outstanding Raoul Walsh at the helm, Strawberry Blonde is a truly delightful and intelligent romantic comedy - one for the ages and beyond.

THE FILM CORNER RATING **** 4 Stars

Strawberry Blonde is available on DVD through the on-demand Warner Archives.

THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU - Review By Greg Klymkiw - TIFF 2014 (TIFF GALA)

Boob Job Fonda,
Cuckold Bateman.
Dysfunctional
Shiva Sitters.
Rose Byrne
Cutesy-pies it up.

This Is Where I Leave You (2014)
Dir. Shawn Levy
Starring: Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Jane Fonda, Adam Driver, Rose Byrne, Corey Stoll, Ben Schwartz

Review By Greg Klymkiw

It would take a death in the family to get the Altmans under one roof again. Luckily the loving hubby of Hilary (Jane Fonda), a famous sex therapist with a new boob job, has just died. His last request, in spite of not being religious, is that his surgery-enhanced wife and his kids sit Shiva for him. Oy! The kids have their own problems. Judd (Jason Bateman) a recently-cuckolded radio producer, the unhappily married Wendy (Tina Fey), Phillip (Adam Driver) the womanizing baby of the family and Paul (Corey Stoll) the eldest son who's not only a dullard but drawing blanks with his wife to have their first child, all agree to seven days of mourning and reflection, and all living in their parents' house.

Needless to say, this dysfunctional family spars endlessly, but in so doing, they come to new understandings and discover how much they all really love each other.

Isn't that special?

Uh, not really. In spite of a few good lines sprinkled throughout and a uniformly fine cast, This Is Where I Leave You is pretty much a case of been-there-done-that. Playing like an extended TV sitcom episode, it even rushes to a climax where everyone and everything converges to tie up most of the loose ends into relatively neat bows. Director Shawn Levy, who surprisingly generated a solid science fiction action-adventure romp, 2011's Reel Steel and the fun fantasy of A Night At The Museum, falls back on his competent, but unexciting camera jockeying comfort zone from such unexceptional comedies as Cheaper By the Dozen, The Pink Panther and Date Night.

It would take an incredibly indiscriminate audience to swallow this with anything more exciting than the kind of blank passivity one reserves for time-killing, pure and simple. For me, the only thing that piqued my interest were some strangely coincidental items which inspired a bit of conspiracy theory conjecture on my part. I found it mildly annoying that this attractive cast living in an upscale environment were engaging in all manner of boozing and ingestion of both illicit and prescription drugs. At one point, Jane Fonda's character quips that she's popping Xanax like candies. My mind started to reel. Isn't Jane Fonda married to Ted Turner, I thought? He's the multi-zillion-billion-kajillion-aire who has been advocating all manner of culling poor people from the face of the planet in order to save it. I'm watching the movie and doing the math. Hmmm. Jane Fonda. Xanax as candy. Rich, attractive people engaging in addictive behaviour. TED TURNER. Population Reduction. Eugenics. Oh My God! Hollywood, the propaganda machine of the rich and famous.

All of this was floating through my head while watching this movie to alleviate the been-there-done-that boredom I was feeling, which certainly says A LOT about this picture's numbing mediocrity.

Then it occurred to me that Fonda and Turner divorced some time ago.

Still, I thought. Anything's possible.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *½ One-and-a-half stars

This is Where I Leave You is a Gala Presentation at TIFF 2014 and a Warner Bros. release.

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