My Week 5/18 - 5/24
Fruitvale Station - 2013 - Ryan Coogler
On New Year's morning 2009, Oscar Grant was shot and kill on the platform of the Fruitvale BART station. This movie sets out to put a human face on the victim. Oscar was just a guy trying to get by like the rest of us. He was not a hero as much as he was not a villain. Michael B. Jordan is this movie. He brings truth to every moment, even when the screenplay or director reach for the lowest hanging fruit possible e.g. the dog scene. Jordan is charismatic and likable but he is able to show a believable dark side without going over the top. Jordan is a star. He should have, at the very least, been nominated for an academy award for this role and he will be likely be the best part of the upcoming Fantastic Four movie(s).
Sightseers - 2012 - Ben Wheatley
A couple go on a Ben Wheatley style camping holiday through the British countryside. I guess this would be considered a romantic comedy of a sort. A little darker than average due to all of the murder.
To Have and Have Not - 1944 - Howard Hawks
This is where the legend of Bogie and Bacall began. The two leads have as much chemistry as any couple in screen history. If that was all this movie had going in it's favor, it would be worth a watch. Based on an Ernest Hemingway novel adapted by, among others, William Faulkner giving the screenplay a double Nobel pedigree and directed by the great Howard Hawks, this movie had just about everything going for it. The story takes place on the island of Martinique shortly after the fall of France in 1940. Bogart play Harry Morgan fishing boat captain that would like nothing more than to not get involved with France politics. And that is the character that Bogart played best, the reluctant hero. The man that would talk all day about how it was none of his business but who would always be there when the chips were down. One night after an unsuccessful fishing trip with a client he meets a young women at the hotel he is staying at. She is an American, newly arrived on the island, whom Harry, and everyone else, calls "Slim" (Bacall, making one hell of a screen debut). Frenchy, the hotel's proprietor, tries to get Harry to assist some French resistance members. Harry refuses and as the men are leaving the Hotel the police arrive and start shooting. In the commotion Harry's client is hit by a stray bullet and killed before he has a chance to pay Harry what he owes. Now in need of money Harry agrees to help the surviving resistance members. A couple of encounters with the police and two shootouts later Harry and Slim get off the island and we get a happy ending.
If "How Little We Know" was anywhere near as good as "As Time Goes By" this could be the World War 2 Bogart romantic drama that everybody knows instead of Casablanca.
You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.
The Breaking Point - 1950 - Michael Curtiz
The second screen adaptation of Hemingway's novel To Have and Have Not. John Garfield is Harry Morgan fishing boat captain. Morgan retains the same name as in the Hawks version but now he has a wife and two little girls. Chartered by a man named Hannagan to go fishing in Mexico, Harry ends up stranded when Hannagan flies home without paying. Left with no money for gas or dock fees, Harry meets with a man called Duncan about a smuggling job. It turns out the job is smuggling Chinese people from Mexico into the United States. It does not go well. The coast guard seize Harry's boat and Duncan gets it back for him but, of course he wants something. Harry agrees to pick up a group of men and take them out not knowing what the destination will be. The men knock off a horse racing track and use Harry as a getaway. In the end Harry does make it home but the price paid is high. The final shot on the dock is heart wrenching.
The acting and dialogue are not up to the Hawks version but the story being told is more interesting.
The Gun Runners - 1958 - Don Siegel
Another adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway novel, To Have and Have Not, this time staring Audie Murphy as Sam Martin, a fishing boat captian that gets caught up in the Cuban revolution. Siegel's take on the story has the client failing to pay for his fishing trip after he is arrested for passing bad checks. Left with no money to pay for moorage or gas Sam take a couple, a man called Hanagan and a young lady, out fishing and then agrees to take them to Cuba. Sam does not want to make the next trip to Cuba but Hanagan buys the note on Sam's boat to force him into making another trip, this time to sell guns to the revolutionaries. Hanagan's plan is to rip-off the revolutionaries rather than sells them real guns. After a shootout on the Boat we get an bit of a nebulous ending with the boat returning to Key West with Sam shot and wounded to an unknown extent. The last shot is of Sam's wife on the beach looking to the sea awaiting Sam's return.
Not as good as the Hawks version but crisp and entertaining in the way most of Siegel's work is.
Night Train to Munich - 1940 - Carol Reed
A Czech armour scientist and his daughter are taken by the Nazis just before the outset of the war. A British agent goes undercover as a Nazi officer in an attempt to and get them out of Germany. A romantic comedy war thriller produced at the beginning of the war, before the full horror of the Nazis was known. Not as heavy as Hitchcock would have done, Reed provides plenty of dry British humor.
The first adaptation was the best.
Best of the Week: To Have and Have Not - 1944 - Howard Hawks
On New Year's morning 2009, Oscar Grant was shot and kill on the platform of the Fruitvale BART station. This movie sets out to put a human face on the victim. Oscar was just a guy trying to get by like the rest of us. He was not a hero as much as he was not a villain. Michael B. Jordan is this movie. He brings truth to every moment, even when the screenplay or director reach for the lowest hanging fruit possible e.g. the dog scene. Jordan is charismatic and likable but he is able to show a believable dark side without going over the top. Jordan is a star. He should have, at the very least, been nominated for an academy award for this role and he will be likely be the best part of the upcoming Fantastic Four movie(s).
Sightseers - 2012 - Ben Wheatley
A couple go on a Ben Wheatley style camping holiday through the British countryside. I guess this would be considered a romantic comedy of a sort. A little darker than average due to all of the murder.
To Have and Have Not - 1944 - Howard Hawks
This is where the legend of Bogie and Bacall began. The two leads have as much chemistry as any couple in screen history. If that was all this movie had going in it's favor, it would be worth a watch. Based on an Ernest Hemingway novel adapted by, among others, William Faulkner giving the screenplay a double Nobel pedigree and directed by the great Howard Hawks, this movie had just about everything going for it. The story takes place on the island of Martinique shortly after the fall of France in 1940. Bogart play Harry Morgan fishing boat captain that would like nothing more than to not get involved with France politics. And that is the character that Bogart played best, the reluctant hero. The man that would talk all day about how it was none of his business but who would always be there when the chips were down. One night after an unsuccessful fishing trip with a client he meets a young women at the hotel he is staying at. She is an American, newly arrived on the island, whom Harry, and everyone else, calls "Slim" (Bacall, making one hell of a screen debut). Frenchy, the hotel's proprietor, tries to get Harry to assist some French resistance members. Harry refuses and as the men are leaving the Hotel the police arrive and start shooting. In the commotion Harry's client is hit by a stray bullet and killed before he has a chance to pay Harry what he owes. Now in need of money Harry agrees to help the surviving resistance members. A couple of encounters with the police and two shootouts later Harry and Slim get off the island and we get a happy ending.
If "How Little We Know" was anywhere near as good as "As Time Goes By" this could be the World War 2 Bogart romantic drama that everybody knows instead of Casablanca.
You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.
The Breaking Point - 1950 - Michael Curtiz
The second screen adaptation of Hemingway's novel To Have and Have Not. John Garfield is Harry Morgan fishing boat captain. Morgan retains the same name as in the Hawks version but now he has a wife and two little girls. Chartered by a man named Hannagan to go fishing in Mexico, Harry ends up stranded when Hannagan flies home without paying. Left with no money for gas or dock fees, Harry meets with a man called Duncan about a smuggling job. It turns out the job is smuggling Chinese people from Mexico into the United States. It does not go well. The coast guard seize Harry's boat and Duncan gets it back for him but, of course he wants something. Harry agrees to pick up a group of men and take them out not knowing what the destination will be. The men knock off a horse racing track and use Harry as a getaway. In the end Harry does make it home but the price paid is high. The final shot on the dock is heart wrenching.
The acting and dialogue are not up to the Hawks version but the story being told is more interesting.
The Gun Runners - 1958 - Don Siegel
Another adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway novel, To Have and Have Not, this time staring Audie Murphy as Sam Martin, a fishing boat captian that gets caught up in the Cuban revolution. Siegel's take on the story has the client failing to pay for his fishing trip after he is arrested for passing bad checks. Left with no money to pay for moorage or gas Sam take a couple, a man called Hanagan and a young lady, out fishing and then agrees to take them to Cuba. Sam does not want to make the next trip to Cuba but Hanagan buys the note on Sam's boat to force him into making another trip, this time to sell guns to the revolutionaries. Hanagan's plan is to rip-off the revolutionaries rather than sells them real guns. After a shootout on the Boat we get an bit of a nebulous ending with the boat returning to Key West with Sam shot and wounded to an unknown extent. The last shot is of Sam's wife on the beach looking to the sea awaiting Sam's return.
Not as good as the Hawks version but crisp and entertaining in the way most of Siegel's work is.
Night Train to Munich - 1940 - Carol Reed
A Czech armour scientist and his daughter are taken by the Nazis just before the outset of the war. A British agent goes undercover as a Nazi officer in an attempt to and get them out of Germany. A romantic comedy war thriller produced at the beginning of the war, before the full horror of the Nazis was known. Not as heavy as Hitchcock would have done, Reed provides plenty of dry British humor.
The first adaptation was the best.
Best of the Week: To Have and Have Not - 1944 - Howard Hawks
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