The Writer's Poke

This is one of those crime dramas that has the weird feeling of U.S government propaganda. I say that just because, at the beginning of the film, Senator George Smathers (Florida, 1951-1969) sits behind his desk and gives a brief pep talk about how the Government is working hard to stamp out crime. I mean, that's fine and everything, but I've seen other films where a government official says a few words at the beginning of a film, and that just seems odd to me. Like crossing the line between church and state -- in this case, Hollywood and state. Just don't. The narrator, too, has the sound of an old-school documentary film narrator. This is a film. Not a documentary. Not a government-produced film. But those would be minor concerns if I connected more to actual content of the film, but I don't. Basically, the good business leaders of Miami want to take action, and they heavy-handedly force an ex-Chicago gangster (now father and overall good guy -- yes, he was a Chicago ...

  Marta Toren died at 30 in early 1957, and finding the films on DVD that she was able to make before her untimely death isn't the easiest task. But after watching her and Bogart in Sirocco (1951), I realized I had left this DVD sitting unwatched for four years. I guess I left it unwatched because it's a newspaper cold war drama, with no stars who stood out to me... But since I now know Toren, I was anxious to give this a watch.  Overall, pleasant surprise. Jimmy Race (Dana Andrews) falls for Jeanne (Toren), and one wonders if a romance will ensue. She seems a little unsure about that, and meanwhile, he needs to go to go to Hungary to follow a story. Unfortunately, he sends back information, gets arrested, suffers torture, and is sentenced to death.  A swap takes place, and Jimmy returns to France. But he's not the same man. He comes back a shell, and we are left wondering if he will be able to recover. That, to me, is the "weird ending" element, because we're...

Some movies automatically click, and others don't. Why? Deanna Durbin, now pretty much a forgotten actress in 2026, except for hardcore movie buffs, was the top paid actress in 1945. Her salary per movie at that point was in the $400,000 range. That still seems like a lot of money today, but keep in mind that in today's dollars, she was making $8 million per movie. Unfortunately for me, this movie doesn't ever click. I want it to, but it doesn't. What I really like about the film is the lighting. This movie has perfect black & white noir lighting. Just perfect. It's fun to see Durbin hit her mark and just watch as her face enters that perfectly prepared lighting. But after the introduction of the original problem -- she sees a murder happen as she's reading a murder mystery and then chances to glance out her train window at just the right moment -- I don't find myself connecting much to the story being told. Maybe it's a problem of splattered genres....

This is the 4th movie version of Jane Eyre that I've watched this month. Zeffirelli does what most of the other screenwriters adapting this novel tend to do... skip quickly through the early chapters, get to the meat of the story, and then at the end, end quickly.  I don't mind that the film skips most of Jane Eyre's childhood. Perhaps Charlotte Bronte should have skipped that part as well. Maybe she should have started the novel with Jane entering Rochester's life as governance.  The romance. That's what people are paying to see.  William Hurt. I liked his performance as Rochester. Some reviewers suggested that he and Charlotte Gainsbourg didn't have any chemistry. I disagree. First, Rochester and Jane Eyre: Are they really supposed to have oodles of "real chemistry"? They from different social classes, and let's face it, they really have nothing in common. But when she saves him from the first fire, and he professes his debt to her, the camera cl...

How do Monsters learn how to be Monsters? They go to college, of course. In Monsters Inc. (2001), I think we just assume that Monsters intuitively know how to be scary, or they have internships and on-the-job training through simulator training sessions, and so on. The prequel, however, develops the idea that Monsters receive more formal academic training. In fact, going to school to learn how to scare is a very prestigious field -- maybe like going to school to become a lawyer or doctor -- and not everyone that begins the program will finish.  Both Mike (Billy Crystal) and Sully (John Goodman) fail the program. Mike is book smart, but he's never going to be scary. Sully is naturally scary, but he's not book smart. They apparently meet as freshman, and I point this out solely for the continuity error (in Monsters Inc., Mike mentions that Sully has been jealous of him since 4th grade).  When Mike and Sully are dropped from the program, they have one chance at redemption: They, ...

What produces more power? Screams or laughter? It's an odd question, but the answer is laughter, and it changes the way that the Monsters in this universe operate. No longer do they work to scare human children; rather, the less scary monsters work to entertain them and make them laugh.  At the beginning of the film, for example, we see monsters working in pairs. Sully (John Goodman) scares, and Mike (Billy Crystal) takes care of the canisters, orders the doors, and write up the reports. Once laughter replaces screams as the Monsters' renewable resource, one assumes that the jobs Mike and Sully perform are reversed. But is Sully very good at paperwork? (Not that Mike was the best, but...) I like this film. It's funny that at the beginning the Monsters are just as scared of human children (and maybe more so) as the children are of them. Monsters have the belief that children are "toxic" and deadly. In fact, entire contamination crews exist just in the event that a ...