We had thought to go see something new in the theaters this weekend but between the ever higher ticket prices and the ever lower quality (friends and reviewers have warned us away from such anticipated flicks as Troy, Van Helsing and even Shrek 2) that we just said screw it.

So I found myself watching Stalag 17, a 50 year old classic instead; like any true classic, one can watch this film time and again and find new bits to enjoy, and this was far from my first viewing. Written for the screen and directed by Billy Wilder, I would rank this as possibly the best comedy made about the Second World War and one of the Top 10 in both the WWII and war comedy categories overall. If you want to know where all the stereotype personas of that era come from, watch this film.

William Holden plays the lead, a scrounger of the first order, who no one likes (except his sidekick, of course) and who everyone suspects of collaborating with the Nazis. Otto Preminger, usually found in the director’s chair on a movie set, here plays the camp commandant. There is even a Sergeant Schultz, played well by Sig Ruman. Peter Graves, Harvey Lembeck, Robert Strauss and Richard Erdman played the other memorable POWs.

Wilder throws in nearly equal amounts of tension and whimsy, at times in the same scene, but the audience is never allowed to forget precisely where these men are and how serious the consequences of a bad decision can be. But if you’re wondering, yes, this has to be the direct inspiration for the ’60s sitcom Hogan’s Heroes.

definitely recommended

I have to admit, we watched What a Girl Wants at dinner time tonight. A pretty cute little movie, if more than a bit predictable. I was surprised to see Colin Firth in it but then came the scene where he dances in front of a mirror wearing black leather pants and a t-shirt, playing air guitar to Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo I understood. Oddity: the movie was based on a play written in 1958 by William Douglas-Home whose brother was Britain’s Prime Minister back in the day and Firth’s character’s run for Parliament is the underlying external event driving the film’s main conflict.

mildly amusing

I laughed quite a bit at the 2003 remake of The In-Laws but I still am not quite sure why they bothered. Films like this just don’t do big box office–IMDB shows a final US gross of just over $20M–but then Michael Douglas, who stars as the CIA agent here, has a big name but little recent track record of delivering results and Albert Brooks, cartoons aside, never has.

Most people would probably prefer the 1979 original, with Peter Falk and Alan Arkin in the roles played by Douglas and Brooks here, and I can’t argue that too much. Today’s bigger budgets and better special effects technology are nice but in some ways they make things too easy, too smooth. And Falk just has a little bit more in the way of cranky idiosyncracies that draws one into his clutches than the slick as a used car salesman Douglas.

mildly amusing

The third collaboration between Joel and Ethan Coen, 1990’s Miller’s Crossing is perhaps the most realist, the least fantastic, of any film they’ve made. Gabriel Byrne stars as the “bright young boy”/right hand to political/crime boss Albert Finney (who sports an odd reddish blonde ‘do for his part). Getting in between them are Marcia Gay Harden as a grifter with her eye on the prize and Jon Polito (Homicide: Life on the Streets) as a rival fed up with the situation.

When I saw this on the program grid I figured the time had finally come to grab the chance and see it; after all, I’ve been hearing great things about for years and usuallyoften enjoy the Coen Brothers’ work. But while Byrne and Gay Harden were pretty good, the visual were very moody and well-suited, the movie as a whole didn’t really strike me as highest level.

Good, mind you, just not great. My biggest issue, as it so often is, concerns the dramatic tension and the lack thereof. There are plot twists and clever transitions but the last act doesn’t ratchet up tight enough to really kick things over the top.

recommended

Lots of coming of age movies are set in some wilderness, probably so the character count can be kept to a minimum and to provide more natural obstacles for the character(s) coming of age. Some place south of a tiny town a long bus ride out of Sydney, Australia, in 1979 probably fits the bill all around.

So you won’t be surprised that director Peter Collinson makes heavy use of the scenery, sounds and wildlife in 1980’s The Earthling, in which a very young Rick Schroder sees his parents die as their minibus slides off a cliff and is rescued by William Holden, hiking through the area on his way home to die. Both actors, alone onscreen for most of the film, do decent jobs.

There are too many cliches and glossed over bits to make this memorable, though, and the horrific death of Schroder’s parents probably puts this out of bounds for the younger children who’d otherwise make this a perennial. Collinson was an experienced director–this was his last movie and he died of cancer shortly after the release–but the screenplay by newbie Lanny Cotler (an environmentalist from Mendocino) really doesn’t give him enough material to work deeper.

not recommended

You know a film is all about the artsy when most of the characters use accents that aren’t their own and the dialog is denser than TGI Friday’s Death by Chocolate dessert. 2002’s Laurel Canyon, written and directed by Lisa Cholodenko, is just such a film.

Christian Bale and Kate Beckinsale (an Englishwoman sporting an American accent) are engaged and move to his mother’s supposed to be empty house in Laurel Canyon; he’s starting a medical residency and she’s finishing her doctoral thesis. Mom is played by Frances McDormand, a legendary rock and roll producer now finishing up an album with raunchy English rocker Alessandro Nivola (despite the name, born in the USA); despite the 20-ish year age difference producer and singer are lovers. The final key player is Natascha McElhone, English-born playing an Israeli one year ahead of Bale in the residency program and his carpool driver.

Mom and rock band show up, unexpected of course, to use the house’s outbuilding recording studio. Bale has always resented and felted abandoned by her, as she pursued a life of hedonistic pleasure and music rather than being his parent (Dad is neither mentioned nor seen) and her presence is a stiffling imposition–she has another home in Malibu and is supposed to be staying there. Both Bale (by McElhone) and Beckinsale (by McDormand and Nivola) are tempted to stray.

Mainly the characters talk. And talk and talk. There’s a moderate amount of mostly-covered flesh flashed. Some minor interesting emotional revelations. Cholodenko seems satisfied with a stolid, languid pace and does find some interesting visuals, including the very last shot of Bale in the house’s pool.

mildly interesting

This movie was, um, totally fetch! Oh my god, do not even go there! See, it’s all about this new girl and these bitches and how the new girl thinks she’s going to teach the bitches a lesson but then she, well, she falls off the wagon and–oh my god–becomes the queen bitch herself. But she totally comes to her senses, learns her lesson, and remembers that being good feels good. We sure do get to laugh watching, girlfriend!

We went to see Mean Girls because it was written by Tina Fey from Saturday Night Live. Not at all because the film features four teenage hotties in the lead roles. Nah, that had nothing to do with our decision, and I’ll sue you if you say otherwise! Director Mark Waters also featured Lindsay Lohan in last year’s Freaky Friday but I was less impressed with his influence in this movie, the transition and pacing, not to mention the visuals, weren’t nearly as interesting.

The movie is an adaptation of Rosalind Wiseman’s Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends & Other Realities of Adolesence, which was apparently not the easiest job since the book is non-fiction and without story. As one reviewer wrote (about the book, not the movie): “This reads like a chess manual for social interactions (or more accurately dysfunctional interactions) of teenage females with their peers. The goal of this book is to give parents insight into why certain situations occur and how to help their daughters address them.” So props to Mrs. Fey (yeah, guys, she’s married) on her initial produced screenplay for giving us an actual story with interesting characters.

recommended