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mouton1890
Reviews
The Wild Westerners (1962)
Worthy of consideration
I realise that the "10 then there's 10" review is an attempt at humour but its silliness goes too far. Worse than "Plan 9 ..."? Hardly. Sure, the acting is generally on the wooden side but Guy Mitchell's villain is good and a cut above the average for a B western. "Wild westerners" has other merits - for example. 1 - location: anyone tired of watching exteriors shot at Alabama Hills, Lone Pine is tired of life. All that granite! 2 - colour: OK, not Technicolor, but good Eastmancolor. 3 - Duane Eddy's guitar music: an influence on Ennio Morricone? 4 - Jerome Thoms' editing: an Oscar nominated editor, Thoms' work is exemplary and his cutting between medium shots of the stars and long shots of the stunt people is worthy of inclusion in a film editing course.
Of Time and the City (2008)
Splendid
I saw this, a few days ago, at the Sydney Film Festival - it's very good indeed. What a pleasure to find a documentary director who believes in movement! No "talking heads" doco this. The whole picture positively seethes, and the beauty and ugliness of Liverpool are contrasted in a way that keeps the viewer in a state of constant expectation.
It's equally good to find a director who has strong views and is not worried about expressing them. The commentary on such things as the Pope and the British royal family are quite blunt but are saved from any suggestion of offensiveness by the humour that accompanies them.
The use of music is generally very fine; eg Handel's "Royal fireworks music" for a loving examination of St George's Hall and Peggy Lee's "Folks who live on the hill" for a view of the grim isolation of high-rise living. I must add, however, that the use of Mahler's 2nd symphony for the section on urban renewal is a bit obvious.
Older viewers will be taken by the fact that some of the best jokes are in Latin but young-uns need not be put-off by this. If ever there was a documentary on a specific topic (in this case Liverpool and Mersyside) that was also universal in the impression it makes, this is it.
21 Days (1940)
Well-worth watching
Although released in 1940 this picture was made in 1937, well before Leigh and Olivier were married. Producer Alexander Korda intended it as a career-boosting role for Leigh but, for whatever reasons, it was put-aside. Columbia bought the property in 1939 and released it after Leigh's success in "Gone with the wind".
The 1937 date explains what must seem to be an anomaly for modern audiences - the sympathetic treatment of the "Axis" characters, ie the German landlord and the Italian grocer.
Well-worth watching - the depth of talent in the supporting roles (Francis L Sullivan, Hay Petrie, Robert Newton etc) is notable.
Ladder 49 (2004)
A good try, but ...
Given that firefighters are among the most admired people in the world and that the opportunity for special effects with such a topic is large, it's a pity that this effort falls so flat. Good performances and impressive settings are not enough - the picture needs a better plot structure and a director who understands the dynamics of tension and relief of tension.
Plot: Once we've settled-in to the flashback structure, we know which of the characters are going to make it "into the present", so to speak. Despite the dramatic goings-on, there's not a great deal of suspense.
Direction: Frequent tension/relief of tension is hard to pull-off. By about half-way the fires start to have a dramatic sameness and the off-duty buddy scenes are very predictable.
The fires do look wonderful, but are they realistic? The exteriors are fair enough but the interiors look exactly like what they are - carefully lit studio sets. Inside, there's not enough smoke. In the real world, that's what fires are about - smoke, smoke and more smoke. Diificult to do on film, of course, but let's not pretend that an effort such as this is realistic.