Penny Thoughts ’11: Mar. 18-31

3:10 to Yuma (2007) ****

Director: James Mangold

Writers: Halsted Welles, Michael Brandt, Derek Haas, Elmore Leonard (short story)

Starring: Christian Bale, Russell Crowe, Ben Foster, Logan Lerman, Dallas Roberts, Alan Tudyk, Peter Fonda, Kevin Durand, Gretchen Mol

This is the 3^rd or 4^th time I’ve seen the recent remake of “3:10 to Yuma”, this time taking it in with the man who developed my love of westerns, my father. I had read much about the movie since I first saw it in theaters. I had read about the homosexual overtones to the relationship between Ben Foster’s Charlie Prince character and Russell Crowe’s Ben Wade. I certainly can’t dispute them, however, to some degree I just want a good western to be a good western.

So my father turns to me after Charlie Prince’s first appearance and says, “Now, he’s gay, right?”  Not really wanting to go into that with my dad, I said, “Well, that’s one way his character can be interpreted.” As the movie churned on, I couldn’t get Charlie Prince’s role in the movie out of my head. Certainly, he could be gay. He loves Ben Wade. But is it because he’s gay, or is their relationship more like the way a mangy cur might love a person with the fortitude to pick it up off the street? It’s probably for both reasons.

Prince’s role in the gang is a little more complex than his simply being in love with Wade. He’s a leader to the men as well, even when Wade is around. While he takes control of the gang after Wade’s capture, he also takes care of Wade before he’s captured. He’s like the mother of the family to Wade’s strict father figure. When the situation calls for it, he executes dad’s rule. He also cautions the father about over stepping his bounds. There’s a sense when Wade invites a whore to join him in Mexico, it’s to avoid having to deal with the coddling Prince. That’ll let him know the marriage is over.

Anyway, while it’s interesting to look at the function of characters when they’re used in an untraditional way, it can be distracting in a western that is so good on so many other levels. However, it speaks to the strength of this western, which eschews the two dimensional characterizations that led to the once popular cinema genre’s demise.


Read my original review here.

You Only Live Twice (1967) ***

Director: Lewis Gilbert

Writer: Roald Dahl

Starring: Sean Connery, Akiko Wakabayashi, Mie Hama, Tetsurô Tanba, Teru Shimada, Karin Dor, Donald Pleasence, Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell, Desmond Llewelyn, Charles Gray

Watching the older Bond films is always a precarious balance between nostalgic admiration and cringe inducing filmmaking practices that have since gone out of date. In “You Only Live Twice” the notion that any white person, let alone Sean Connery, might actually pass for Asian is absurd. Also the little compact helicopter sequence might’ve seemed impressive at the time, but is a silly contrivance today.

What works in this fairly minor Bond film are the signature aspects of the series. Bond’s womanizing, the striking villain’s lair set by production designer Ken Adams, and Bond’s blasé approach to his job as an international spy and assassin make this rather typical Bond tale as enjoyable as any in the pantheon of the Bond legacy. This particular Bond is significant in that it marks the first time ever in the series that Bond’s arch nemesis Blofeld’s face is seen. The casting of Donald Pleasence in the iconic role is a good choice and the striking scar across his right eye makes his visual impact stronger than his actual role in the story.

Interesting fact: Actor Charles Gray, who played Bond’s first contact, Henderson, in this film, would later be cast as Blofeld in Connery’s eventual return to the series four years later in “Diamonds Are Forever”. His drastically different appearance from Pleasance and the next film’s Blofeld, Telly Savalis, is explained in the opening sequence of “Diamonds” where Bond appears to finally defeat his nemesis.

Vernon, Florida (1981) ***½

Director: Errol Morris   

Starring: Albert Bitterling, Roscoe Collins, George Harris, Joe Payne, Howard Pettis

Errol Morris’s second film takes its queue from his first. The basic idea is to film a bunch of eccentric thinkers to prattle on about their “deepest” thoughts and see what ridiculous things they say. The great thing about Morris’s approach is that he never judges his subjects. Judgment is left up to the audience. These are people being earnest and honest. They don’t necessarily hear what is coming out of their mouths. The guy talking about brains is priceless. The turkey hunter speaks so sincerely about the “sport” of turkey hunting, listening to the turkeys and not seeing them. I wonder if Morris filmed more of the actual hunting or captured a turkey or two on film and chose not to show them to make his subject seem a little more absurd, but I don’t think so.

A Hell of a Note (1977) ***½

Director/Writer: Eagle Pennell

Starring: Lou Perryman, Sonny Davis

Ever since I watched Eagle Pennell’s “The Whole Shootin’ Match” a couple of weeks ago, the cinematic language of his movie has haunted me. His images and characters are so raw and direct; I just had to return to his work. “A Hell of a Note” is the short film that preceded “Shootin’ Match”. Its story isn’t as deep as the latter film, but it proves Pennell is a dedicated storyteller, rather than just a documentarian.

The story follows a couple of friends trying to escape the mundane life of working for a living by drinking for a life. It stars Lou Perryman and Sonny Davis, the same cohorts as “Shootin’ Match”, as its central figures, who find that a life of escape can end with little fulfillment. Perryman’s pleas to his friend in the film’s final moments tell of the futility that follows all of us if we let it. 

Pennell did not make many movies. Many of them are difficult to come by, but they are well worth the search. I intend to seek them all out.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind  (1977) ****

Director/Writer: Steven Spielberg

Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, François Truffaut

I miss the days when Steven Spielberg wrote scripts too. His “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” must’ve saved him thousands in psychiatrist bills. I mean what better way to write off your childhood trauma of a broken family by writing a movie where dad leaves his family because he’s been called to be a guest on an alien spacecraft. You can hardly blame him for being irresponsible and acting like a madman and generally making a mess of his life and those of his wife and family if that’s the reason why, can you?

On top of that Spielberg gets to throw in all of his childhood fantasies and obsessions into the mix. There’s his obsession with World War II airplanes, his fantasies of aliens, a globetrotting problem solver who doesn’t even speak English and also made some of Spielberg’s favorite films that also worked out childhood issues, music plays an important role, and Spielberg really got a chance to develop his unique use of light and shadows. Did you notice how Truffaut actually looks a lot like Spielberg? It’s no surprise that he’s also the facilitator of all the action that takes place in the movie.

A few years ago I watched the Special Edition with a friend and one of his teenage kids. His boy told me that “Close Encounters” was the oldest movie he’d ever seen. How sad for him and me.