One Day in September

1999 narrative documentary

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Eight Palestinian terrorists, angry that they had put in so many hours training for a bobsled competition that didn't even exist because it was the summer games, kidnap some Israeli athletes and trainers and demand that an impromptu bobsled competition happen immediately. The media and German security helps them out but can't get the bobsledding set up in time to make them happy. Things end badly.

This is a suspenseful narrative documentary in the same vein as Man on Wire. Michael Douglas narrates, but he's used sparingly. I think he's almost completely unnecessary because when this story really connects, it's utilizing the actual images from the tragedy, the news reports, and the interviews with the family members of the victims and one of the terrorists. That last one there--one of the terrorists, a guy hiding somewhere in Africa--gives this documentary a little more force. Without that guy's perspective, the story would have been incomplete. It doesn't exactly make you sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, but it does make the story more well-rounded. The news footage succeeds in supporting the idea that the media is filled with fools who often get in the way and do more harm than good. It's best demonstrated in the scene where the poorly-trained German security men dressed in 70s athlete garb are positioning themselves for a sneak attack-and-rescue mission, a mission that is thwarted because the terrorists are watching it all unfold on television. It's tragically comical. I really liked how this makes the story personal, especially with the interviews with the wife of one of the victims. It also makes it perfectly clear that the terrorists weren't the only bad guys in this story. They were the baddest bad guys maybe, but the ineptitude of the Germans in handling a crisis like this and the lack of sympathy displayed by the Olympic organizers (the decision to continue the games while all of this was happening) puts them in the bad guy camp as well. This succeeds because it manages to create all this suspense even though you know how it all ends. And despite already being given the knowledge that none of these people are going to survive, you still are forced to root for them, optimistic about their chances. I did get really annoyed during a montage of horrifying images set to some rock 'n' roll at the end. Completely unnecessary.

The King's Speech

2010 best picture

Rating: 17/20 (Jen: 17/20)

Plot: In this hilarious remake of Harold Lloyd's Girl Shy, Harold is a future king of England who conquers his fear of public speaking (glossophobia, if you care) after driving a trolley ridiculously fast through New York City's busy streets and climbing a 12-story building. Thankfully, he lives to tell about both so that The Queen with Helen Mirren can happen sixty years later. I just don't know what I'd do if The Queen with Helen Mirren didn't exist. This also, I believe, rips off The Karate Kid. Not the original. No, the remake with Jackie Chan. I'm not sure how the Oscar people didn't catch that.

The only gripe I have here is the same gripe I have for any movie featuring a character who stutters: Mel Tillis of Cannonball Run and Cannonball Run II fame didn't get his chance to shine in a serious role. The King's Speech is that sophisticated sort of movie made so that people can throw awards at it. Not that they aren't deserved. Colin Firth's excellent as George VI. Realistic stuttering, I imagine, is difficult to pull off. I'm not a professional actor or anything although I do frequently act out scenes from my own screenplays while standing in front of a full-length mirror. And I've tried to pull off realistic stuttering, admittedly to practice in case I'm ever in a situation where I can make fun of people who stutter. Can't do it. So Colin Firth's ability to not only pull off a realistic stutter while simultaneously showing off the range of emotions that he does (quietly showing them off, I should note) is impressive. His isn't the only impressive performance--Geoffrey Rush matches Firth classy word for classy word while Helena Bonham Carter's really good as the queen. I like the way the movie is shot, too. Backgrounds are used to accentuate the characters' emotions, and there's a crispness to the picture that I really like. The movie's also not all stuttering all the time either. The natural development of the friendship between George and Lionel is just right, and there are some humorous moments in the dialogue, my favorite being during a dinner scene when somebody farts and both men point at each other before Guy Pearce's character pokes his head through a hole in the ceiling and reminds everybody that "the smeller's the feller" before blowing a raspberry, winking awkwardly, and disappearing to bugger a tart or something.

I'm starting a petition to get Colin Firth in either Cannonball Run III or a television remake of the 1970's sitcom Alice, by the way. Let me know if you're interested in signing it by leaving a comment below.

Edit: I had spelled Colin Firth's name incorrectly four times. Luckily, I fixed it before he saw it because that's the sort of thing that could ruin his year.

Witchfinder General (The Conqueror Worm)

1968 period drama

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Matthew Hopkins appoints himself "Witchfinder General," travelling the countryside with his thuggish assistant Stearnes to falsely accuse and and put to death people thought to be witches. Soldier Richard Marshall's girlfriend's dad, a priest, is accused, and Richard goes AWOL, risking treason to come to her aid.

Vincent Price said that this was his best horror movie performance. It's a more serious Vincent Price, menacing and ruthless. It's a solid performance, strange when juxtaposed with his campy run as Lionheart in Theater of Blood. This isn't a scary horror film at all, but it's got this creepy tone with a strange period details similar to movies like Blood on Satan's Claw or even The Wicker Man. The horror has more to do with what actual people--indeed, characters whose thinking is sadly inspired by actual historical thinking--are capable of than the more fantastical ideas we get in most horror films. The ending earns a big wow with its ability to shock and horrify. Oh, by the way: I don't know what the American title (The Conqueror Worm) has to do with anything or if it's really based on an Edgar Allan Poe story. I don't think it is, but there is something literary about the dialogue, and a lot of the dialogue between Hopkins and Stearnes drips with a dark irony. "Men have strange motives for what they do." "We're doing God's work." Price recites a poem at the beginning of the movie, and that might be one of Poe's. I could look it up if Angie wouldn't have stolen the "Complete Works of" book that I used to use as a doorstop. All I know is that this movie has a Vincent Price sex scene, and my life will never be the same again. Or did I just imagine that?

Little Big Man

1970 big little epic

Rating: 18/20

Plot: A 120 year old bag of wrinkles shares his life story--raised by Indians, lived with a preacher and the sultry Faye Dunaway, worked with a snake oil peddler, drank with Wild Bill, became a gunslinger, married an immigrant, lost his wife, married an Indian, became a hero, became a drunkard, and was the lone white survivor at the Battle of Little Bighorn. But he might be fabricating a bit.

You know, it just occurred to me when I typed the above that the climactic moment takes place at Little Bighorn and Dustin Hoffman's character is Little Big Man. I love this epic Western funk despite some flaws. Every time I see this, I laugh the first time Hoffman's character speaks in the flashback. His deep, nasally voice just doesn't seem to fit his appearance. I'm not sold on his old man voice either exactly, but even kind of pulling off playing the same character as a teenager and a 120 year old is impressive. One could accuse Little Big Man of being too episodic or a little jumpy, but the narrative structure works as it lends credence to the idea that Jack Crabb could be making the whole thing up. Plus, there are plenty of parallel episodes to pull it all together by the end. Little Big Man is often very funny and often very poignant and sometimes both simultaneously which really makes the movie special. As much as I love what Hoffman is doing here, it's Chief Dan George who really steals the show as the wise and goofy grandfatherly Cherokee chief. It seems like every single line he has in this movie is either hilarious or beautiful, delivered with perfect timing and cadence and hitting you just right. I loved his reference to "the black white man," his inquiry about whether Hoffman's white wife shows "pleasant enthusiasm when [he] mounts her," and his explanation of why he calls his snake wife Doesn't Like Horses. But my favorite line in this (and maybe any movie) is when Chief Dan George says, "There is an endless supply of white men, but there have always been a limited number of human beings." Beautiful. Oh, I also like how General Custer pronounces the word gonads, but that's just because I'm immature.

I gave this movie a gonads bonus.