Cinema 100

Just caught up with this one. I was born the year this was made so its only taken me 61 years to do so.

Synopsis:

At overcrowded Westgate Penitentiary, where violence and fear are the norm and the warden has less power than guards and leading prisoners, the least contented prisoner is tough, single-minded Joe Collins. Most of all, Joe hates chief guard Captain Munsey, a petty dictator who glories in absolute power. After one infraction too many, Joe and his cell-mates are put on the dreaded drain pipe detail; prompting an escape scheme that has every chance of turning into a bloodbath.

I couldn't help compare this to the Green Mile as the evil warder in that film was surely based on Hume Cronyn's wonderful portrayal of the psychopathic captain. I think his role is allegorical for Hitler and the prison population perhaps for concentration camp victims.

There is some criticism that the only psychopath in the film is a warder and none of the prisoners seem to be bad. Also the flashbacks are a bit sugary and meant to showcase some starlets of the time although the one featuring the cool con man and his femme fatale noir girlfriend Flossie is a hoot.

Even so this a tough film even by today's standards and the gripping build up to the confrontation between Lancaster and Cronyn masterfully done by the great director Jules Dassin, who recently passed on.

Its a great tribute to Dassin who directed other great noir movies like The Naked City and Rififi. It also made a star of Burt Lancaster.

Imdb: 7.8/10

I had never heard of Phillipe Petit or his exploits until I saw him interviewed by Australian Andrew Denton on his show Enough Rope. This French high wire artist has achieved the most scary guerrilla feats including crossing Notre Dame, Sydney Harbour Bridge and most famously the Twin Towers.

This film sets out in almost thriller terms using real footage and seamless recreations his crossing of the Twin Towers not once but eight times. Being afraid of heights its just unbelievable to me somebody could not only do this but also not want to stop. I was afraid for him the whole time although I knew he survived.

"Man on Wire" won the Audience Award and was named best documentary at Sundance 2008. Ebert gave it 4 stars and its score is 8.3 on IMDB.

Highly recommended.

Woody Allen used to be one of the best directors of comedy around. But somewhere in the 90s he got old and had a bust up with Mia Farrow and started churning out what I think are fairly uninteresting almost misonygistic movies. One of the last I found hilarious was Bullets Over Broadway where the Woody Allen part was played by John Cusack to great effect.

Anyway one movie I saw over 20 years ago was Zelig and after years of searching I finally found a copy. It predated the Forrest Gump trick of putting the anti hero in old newsreel footage to great comedic effect. It effectively is about a human chameleon who is so bereft of character that he just imitates anyone he meets even to the extreme of assuming their physical characteristics.

Its done in the famous Woody Allen mock documentary style with interviews with relatives and asssociates and his female psychiatrist with whom he of course falls in love. My favourite scene is where he appears on a balcony with Hitler and causes a commotion which Hitler appears to turn around and watch.

A little known British gangster movie from the 80s. I didn't know anything about this movie until I recently watched it. Tarantino must have watched this. It has one of his favourite actors (Tim Roth) in an early role and the dialog and general air of nothing much happening except for loaded conversation, violent interludes and then a bloody resolution is typically Tarantinoesque.

The movie is basically a road movie set in Spain with some twists.

The actors are superlative with Roth, Hurt and Terence Stamp all inhabiting their roles. Stamp is the most impressive and his sudden character change is one of the shocks of the movie as is his unexpected demise. The characters are all unredeemingly tainted and there are no changes of heart along the way. Laura Del Sol is also impressive and I don't know if she's been in many other roles but she is memorably sexy and feisty in this movie.