Posters: The Big Heat (TCM)

So TCM is doing a summer special called Summer Under The Stars, where they spotlight a certain actor or actress. This is really nothing new for TCM, but they have had posters created for each celeb and a specific film they were in. The posters are all great, but this one really got me.


Yes, it's for Gloria Grahame in Fritz Lang's masterpiece The Big Heat (1953). This is a great design, but the real kicker is the coffee pot. For those of you hwo haven't seen the film, shame on you, it's a perfect way to characterize Grahame's character in this movie. The poster, in context, is almost darker than the film itself. It's just twisted. I'd love to have a full size poster of this sucker.

I'll admit, the steam creating her face fives it a look like she stepped out of Doomsday (2008), but I love Doomsday, so I appreciate it even more.

Check out the other posters here to find your personal favorite and make sure you watch The Big het if you haven't seen it before. Prepare for a dark tip.

Not On DVD: The Crimson Kimono

The Crimson Kimono (1958)
dir. Sam Fuller

If you are a true lover of movies, then you are a fan of Sam Fuller. Fuller, a movie maverick, former newspaper man and thrilling raconteur gave us films that were entirely original. Every frame stamped with his mark. Just a hint of his dialog, framing or direction of the actors screamed a Sam Fuller movie. Some may find it over the top, more over though, it's a cinematic gut punch that the audience has to be willing to take.

Fuller was always forward looking and decided to take on the theme of race and racism from a very different perspective. The Crimson Kimono flip-flops the ideas so it is the minority of the picture who cries wolf. It's an interesting idea and deeper look into the human psyche than any Sidney Portier fist pumping portrayal could deliver.

A great opening scene, like all Fuller films, we get a stripper who is gunned down in the streets of Los Angeles. Homicide detectives Charlie Bankroft and Joe Kojaku are assigned to solve the murder. They were buddies in Korea and Joe even saved Charlie's life, so these guys are tight. They both fall for the same girl, Christine, who is a witness in the case. It beocmes an awkward love triangle, but it is Joe that Christine loves and end up breaking Charlies heart. When Charlie confronts Joe, Joe plays the race card. The film goes from murdeous melodrama into a tale about how we see ourselves through the faces of others. Luckily the murder plot and human issues are able to solve themselves in tidy little wrap up in the end.

It's an excellent addition to the Fuller cannon, but has let to see the light of day on DVD. It's not too shocking to know this is a Columbia Pictures release who seem to put nothing out on DVD unless it's new or an Oscar winner.

If you see this title floating around on TCM late at night, grab a drink and settle in for what Fuller would descibe as, "One hell of a yarn!"

Review: Chéri

Chéri (2009)

starring: Michelle Pfeiffer, Rupret Friend, Kathy Bates

dir. Stephen Frears

Meh. Which is an awful thing to say about a movie with this kind of pedigree. Directed by Stephern Frears, written by Christopher Hampton and starring Michelle Pfeiffer with subject matter about courtesans during the Belle Epoch, should be the perfect mix. These folks have come together previously for the brilliant Dangerous Liaisons (1988), so any film lover is wringing their hands in anticipation.

Well, it just doesn't come together this time. You have a great performance by Pfeiffer, some solid direction, some solid writing, but it never really clicks. It lacks an energy, or a balance that never lifts this up to even a good movie. It's a disappointment which is more than depressing.

The biggest flaw for me came in the choosing of Rupert Friend. Nothing about him is appealing. He isn't attractive, the performance is one note, never allowing for any kind of depth. Sure, that may be the point of the character, but Friend is charmless as Chéri. It's that lack of charm that makes him repulsive and impossible to understand the attraction that Pfeiffer's character Lea has for him. He's just a pain in the ass, why or how could a woman who has so much sophistication fall for this selfish child. It's not like she needs his money. Maybe he has a huge dick? They never say either way.

There are moments that really shine, but in the end it is a slightly sub-par movie that tries to deliver a dramatic punch with a final shot, that is very similar to Dangerous Liaisons, accompanied by a piece of narration that seems more fitting than tragic.

6 out of 10

Review: The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker (2008)

starring: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Ralph Fiennes, David Morse, Guy Pierce

dir. Kathrine Bigelow

This is my favorite film of the year so far. I've seen it twice and one of the most impressive things that a movie can do is maintain its tension on a second viewing. This film does that in spades.

It's like the Alfred Hitchcock theory on suspense. Show a person set a timer on a bomb and place it under a table. Then watch unsuspecting people sit down at the table and have a conversation. The audience will be on the edge of their seat wondering if the bomb will go off while the people sit there unknowingly. The Hurt Locker is a two hour version of that theory impeccably executed.

This is a film that also works on quite a few levels. Yes, it's an indictment of war and the soldiers on the ground. it is a film about urban warfare and how everyone is suspect. It's a film about decisions and how one wrong move can have great effect on everyone around you. But at it's heart, it is about addiction. This is a movie that uses the war genre as a metaphor for addictive behavior and how that will not only kill the abuser, but leave a trail of wreckage that the abuser never even acknowledges that he or she is responsible for.

Our addict in this case is Jeremy Renner giving an amazing performance as Staff Sergeant William James, the head of a bomb disposal unit. He's an adrenaline junkie, always looking for the next hit to supply those endorphins that keep him up. What really makes his performance so great is his willingness to remain completely ignorant of what is really going on inside of him. There are a few moments of clarity, but they pass, because he's a junkie and junkies only love one thing... Junk.

One of the better and very understated moments in this movie is his "quest for revenge". He ventures out of the base, after curfew, to look for the people responsible for killing a young boy he befriended. His pacing, nervous ticks and chain smoking feel and take on the appearance of a junkie looking for a hit. It's uncanny, but fits in so well within the context of the war film that it could easily be overlooked. This entire sequence isn't about revenge, but about the rush and when Renner's character discovers there will be no rush, his dealer is dry, he slinks away settling for a moment of physical abuse done to him by unknowing soldiers.

Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty are pitch perfect as soldiers who see the danger of their situation and can't get out of it. They understand that one wrong decision could get them killed and are frightened by the addict that leads them, but also have a certain admiration and want to be more like him.

Bigelow is at the top of her game as she builds sequences that are taut and riddled with tension on all sides. There isn't a single moment when you don't feel that something could go wrong or someone could easily die. It's filmmaking at its finest and Bigelow proves she is not only a great female filmmaker, but better than other action directors like the incompetent Michael Bay or the clueless Mc G. Though I do suspect that Bay has quite a few things in common with Renner's Staff Sergeant.

Maybe with the Academy upping the number of best picture nominees, this film will break through and find the much larger audience that it deserves. It's genre filmmaking with a heart and a head that outweighs anything that has come out this summer and will easily be up there at the end of the year.

10 out of 10

Review: Transformers Revenge Of The Fallen

Transformers Revenge Of The Fallen (2009)
starring: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, CGI robots
dir. Michael Bay


This has two moments that I enjoyed:

1. Shia Labeouf screaming like a girl as he's being attacked in his dorm room.

2. A couple shots on the Pyramid in Egypt as robots fight and the pyramid crumbles around them.

These two things equal about 45 seconds in a film that runs two and a half hours.

Fuck this movie, fuck Michael Bay and fuck you fools who walked out of the show I was at claiming that this is a good movie. Wake up you zombified morons.

1.5 out of 10