Category Archives: Movie Reviews

Robert Krohn: Movies are not reality, of course.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s take on Sunset Blvd. (1950) was the last film released before his death at age 37 and one of his best.

The setting is 1955 Munich.  Veronika Voss (Rosel Zech) was a star at UFA during the Nazi regime.  Since then, she has faded from view due to a combination of aging and drug addiction.  One evening she meets sportswriter Robert Krohn (Hilmar Thate) while she is breaking down in a park in the pouring rain.  He offers her an umbrella and rides home with her on a bus.

Although he has a live-in girlfriend and is younger than she, Vernonika easily seduces him and takes him for 300 marks.

Robert becomes fascinated with her and snoops into her personal life.  He finds that she spends most of the time in the home of a “nerve doctor” who specializes in supplying morphine to addicts.  The motives of the doctor are strictly financial.  We follow Veronika’s sad life story to its end.

This film combines excellent acting, innovative directing, and beautiful B&W imagery. It is based on the true story of Sybille Schmitz, also a famous UFA actress who fell on hard times. Fassbinder himself died of a drug overdose and I’m thinking it was partially autobiographical as well. I’m so sorry the director will no longer be part of my journey through film. He completed 44 projects between 1966 and 1982. Highly recommended.

I have recovered my site but not my formatting.  I will have to attempt to recreate it.  Please forgive me for any annoyance.  I will however return to posting.

Amazing Grace

Rev. Franklin: I went in the cleaners one day in Detroit to pick up some clothes, and Aretha had appeared on a recent television show. And she told me, “I saw your daughter Aretha last night.” I said, “Yes? How did you like it?” She said, “It was all right. But I’ll be glad when she comes back to the church.” I said, “Listen baby, let me tell you something. If you want to know the truth, she has never left the church.”

This concert film captures a two-day session that produced the tracks for Aretha Franklin’s  “Amazing Grace” album (1972), which remains the best-selling gospel album of all time as well as the best-selling album of Franklin’s career.  It was filmed at the New Bethel Baptist Church in Watts, Los Angeles on Jan. 13 and 14, 1972, with a crew of film and sound engineers and five 16mm cameras, all directed by Sidney Pollack.  She was backed by Rev. James Cleveland and the Southern California Community Choir.

Unfortunately, Pollack had never made a concert film and the editing process was beset with technical difficulties.  Pollack turned it over to Alan Everett in 2007 when he was dying of cancer.

If you love Aretha Franklin, as I do, you will not want to miss this.  She really pulls out all the stops.  Recommended.

Neil Young: Heart of Gold

Neil Young: [singing] I want to live, I want to give, I’ve been a miner, For a heart of gold, It’s these expressions, I never give, That keep me searching, For a heart of gold, And I’m getting old…

Jonathan Demme (Stop Making Sense) gives us another excellent concert film.

This beautiful film was shot during a two-night performance by Neil Young at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium.  We also get interviews of Young and the members of his band.  Emmylou Harris is one of his backup singers.

How much you like this will depend on how well you like Young’s music.  I like his old songs, which thankfully he includes, better than his newer material.

My new baby kittens like to help with typing!  Now I have an excuse for all my typos.  The orange male is Bowie and the tabby female is Havarti.  Havarti was her shelter name but I’m leaning toward Nefertiti, Titi for short.  They have brought me so much joy in one short week.

The Day After Trinity

J. Robert Oppenheimer: [on the proposal for talks to halt the spread of nuclear weapons] It’s twenty years too late. It should have been done the day after Trinity.

We get a much different impression of J. Robert Oppenheimer in this excellent documentary than we did in the latest Best Picture winner Oppenheimer.

This is a biography of the man who oversaw the development of the atomic bomb.  We see him progress from idealistic student to brilliant physicist, to lionized inventor, to disgrace during the McCarthy era.  He is far different from the vain womanizer portrayed by Cillian Murphy.

This is a very well-done documentary with interviews of people who knew the man and I learned a lot.  It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Oppenheimer

J. Robert Oppenheimer: Albert? When I came to you with those calculations, we thought we might start a chain reaction that would destroy the entire world…
Albert Einstein: I remember it well. What of it?
J. Robert Oppenheimer: I believe we did.

i can understand why people would like this movie without liking it much myself.  Maybe I’m just getting old.

The story chronicles the life of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy); his association with far left-wing politics; his leadership of the development of the atomic bomb; his character assassination during the McCarthy era; and the eventual accolades he got as the Father of the Atomic Bomb.

In between we learn of his career as a womanizer including a bunch of gratuitous nudity and sex.  We are shown his fraught relationship with his wife Kitty (Emily Blunt).  Finally we explore the political ambitions of Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey, Jr.), the former head of the Atomic Energy Commission, who was seeking the advice and consent of the Senate for appointment as Secretary of Commerce.

I was predisposed to like this movie and to sympathize with Oppenheimer.  In the event, I didn’t find him or any of the characters all that likeable and did not care all that much what happened to any of them. I thought the running time could have been trimmed  by half an hour or more with no harm to the story.  I did not think that the out of order exposition or the constant transitions between past and present and color and black and white worked.  In short, I was cranky and the whole experience left me flat.  I’m probably in a minority of one.

Oppenheimer won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Cinematography, and Best Film Editing.  It was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, Best Makeup, Best Original Score, Best Sound, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Production Design, and Best Costume Design.

The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg

Dr. Jüttner: Boy, do you know what it means to go to Heidelberg?

I had never seen an Ernst Lubitsch silent movie before and now I want to see all of them.

The story is basically a fairy tale.  Prince Karl Heinrich is the nephew and heir to the throne of the King of Karlsburg.  A nanny has raised him until maybe age 8 and then he is shipped off to the court where he is kept behind palace walls until he graduates from secondary school and grows up to be Ramon Navarro.  Uncle is cold and very formal as are all of his retainers.  Karl’s loneliness is relieved by the arrival of Dr. Juttner (Jean Hersholt), possibly the most lovable and warm tutor ever.  It is feared that he will return to his lonely existence when he passes his exams.  Instead, it is decided he will go to university in Heidelberg accompanied by Dr. Juttner.

Upon arrival, Karl decides to live in a simple inn after first glimpsing the owner’s lovely, charming daughter Kathi (Norma Shearer).  He is accepted immediately into the company of his school comrades and falls deeply in love with Kathi. He is able to live a normal life at last. He vows never to leave Kathi. What will happen when he is called back to the palace to take over from the dying king?

The best word to describe this film is “delightful”.  It is loaded with the Lubitsch touch and full of subtle innuendo.  I don’t think I have ever seen Norma Shearer this feminine and enchanting.  I always like Jean Herscholt and this was no exception.  Ramon Navarro was perfect.   The production values were pure MGM and the print on YouTube is stellar.  I was engaged enough to be yelling at my screen during the last ten minutes.  Warmly recommended.

None of the clips was in a print worth watching so here is a tribute to Ramon Navarro

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I’m going to Costa Rica tomorrow to look at birds.  Hope to be back March 12.  I think I’m on a movie watching roll.

Wishing one and all joy in the New Year!