THE TREE OF LIFE (TERRENCE MALICK, 2011)

The Tree of Life, USA, 2011
Dir: Terrence Malick
Cast: Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain, Hunter McCracken



What is The Tree of Life? In biblical terms, it is the plant from which Eve was enticed to eat the apple from, who later seduced Adam into breaking God’s first request of them, which was not to touch apples from the tree. In modern terms, it is the title of renowned director Terrence Malick’s new film. The Tree of Life is many things. It is a quiet and unnerving movie experience. At some points it is magical and at others it is at a standstill. The film finally showed its face last night at the Cannes Film Festival, a screening that has been highly anticipated and consistently postponed for several years. Filmed in 2008, Malick chose to take his time on post-production, working on several complex sequences that featured CGI.

The Tree of Life, in simple terms, is a simple film disguised as a multi-layered one. Malick has been directing since 1973, yet this is just his fifth film. He broke out onto the scene in the 1970s with Badlands and Days of Heaven and then didn’t make another film until 1998, when his epic Vietnam-set film The Thin Red Line garnered seven Academy Award Nominations, including two for Malick. His next film didn’t take quite as long to make, although it was seven years before he released The New World, a visually-stunning and lyrical variation of the tale of Pocahantas.

The Tree of Life stars Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain as parents bringing up their three boys in the 1950s. We learn early on that one of the children dies at nineteen, and then we are transported back to the beginning of it all. And I mean, literally, the beginning of the world and life itself. What follows is the highlight of the film, and what I would call the cinematic equivalent of pre-ejaculation. It is a fifteen-minute long sequence that will remind audiences of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, a film that dealt with the origins of life and the meaning of time and space. Malick uses this amazing, mind-altering sequence to tie together his meditation on God and faith with the story of fatherhood, and adolescence.

Unfortunately for the audience, once the sequence is over, the film continues by going back to the beginnings of the family at the center of the film, and does not return to more ambitious storytelling. Malick, after all, is a visionary, not a storyteller. He is the intellectual’s version of James Cameron, a filmmaker who wants to amaze you with beautiful images never seen before. If this was his goal in the past, then he succeeded with flying colors. He has succeeded again, presenting a film that has such rapturous, dreamy cinematography, one must remember to completely clear one’s mind before entering the theater, in order to make room for the dizzying array of images one is about to encounter. The Tree of Life is a film that requires patience and, more importantly, an open mind from its audience.

Disappointment came when the film immensely slowed its pace down, and when it was clear that Sean Penn, despite being in all the posters and trailers for the film, only had the most minor role in the film. Don’t be fooled by his name in the credits, he is featured in the film for about ten seconds, and has absolutely no lines. Call it a silent cameo, if you will. The real stars of The Tree of Life are Chastain, who plays the mother of the boys and Pitt, who plays a disillusioned husband and father. Pitt’s character is a manager at a factory who had ambitions to be a musician that dissipated over time, and whose various patents are continuously rejected. He raises the boys with an iron fist and is undermined routinely by the eldest boy, the one who eventually dies years after the action in the film concludes. Chastain portrays the emotional, young wife and mother of three with poise and elegance. In between the action, we see images of Sean Penn, one of the sons all grown-up, presumably in present day, working at his office, and then wandering around a desert, perhaps in a dream-state, looking for his brother and parents. Hunter McCracken is also excellent, playing the younger version of Sean Penn's character.


Malick has always been known to be a perfectionist, a filmmaker who focuses on what the eyes see and the ears hear. The music used in the film, all classical, is beautiful and makes one feel like they are watching a film from another time period or another planet altogether. The fact that Malick had the audacity to make such a film is commendable. It is slow, thought –provoking, surreal, and enigmatic. Of course, Malick, being from another generation of filmmakers, uses his name and recognition from the past to create a film that encompasses more than the sum of its parts. I am excited to see the reaction of the public and critics once it is released. It will certainly stir emotions and create debates that will last a lifetime.

EYES WIDE SHUT (STANLEY KUBRICK, 1999)

Eyes Wide Shut, USA, 1999
Dir: Stanley Kubrick
Cast: Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sydney Pollack


In the twelve years since its release, Stanley Kubrick’s final film, Eyes Wide Shut has developed a substantial cult following, in spite of, or maybe thanks to a rocky reception from critics and audiences during its release in July 1999.

It is an incredibly complex film, but screams out to be picked apart like a piece of meat devoured by vultures. I read Michael Herr’s brief memoir “Kubrick” recently and outside of the fact that it is an incredibly positive and optimistic view of Kubrick and his personality and particularly his films (Herr practically jerked himself off to every single one of Kubrick’s films, attempting to hide his overwhelming prejudice by calling several of his movies ‘flawed masterpieces’), he also commented heavily on Eyes Wide Shut in the last chapter of the book. His comments were interesting, particularly because I am a fan of the film, so its nice to see someone defend it, but he also said that Kubrick undoubtedly would have continued to fine tune the film even until the week of its release, because that’s just how he edited his films, until the last possible moment.

There are some who say that Kubrick loved Eyes Wide Shut and considered it his best work, others say its an impossibility that he would have held it in such high regard because it was unfinished and the first official final cut was completed days before his death, meaning in the months between this initial completion and the time of its release four months later, its unquestionable that Kubrick would have made further edits, cutting it down from its 159 minute release length to possibly something in the 140 minute range (similar to what he did with 2001: A Space Odyssey, a film originally running at a 160 minutes, and ending at a 141 after cuts following test screenings).


Kubrick was too smart, and more importantly, too much of a perfectionist, not to make further edits. The film that stands is indeed a flawed masterpiece, because it is a film that contains too much detail, and too much detail creates false tension, and false tension only drags the story along like a carriage dragging a dead body behind it through a dusty city street in the old west.

It is most definitely a Kubrick film. It’s a mind bogglingly enigmatic movie, with more questions than answers, perhaps because there are no answers to the questions that Kubrick invents for the audience. Whether he did this intentionally or because, as an artist, he was past his prime, is up to debate. It has been twelve years since the film’s release, and while there has been much debate over the film’s mystery and intrigue, it still has not generated the interest that his previous films have, such as Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, or Full Metal Jacket.

Kubrick never lived to respond to his critics or to audiences after the release of Eyes Wide Shut. Nor was he around for the backlash to the movie and its lack of sex, which is what everyone expected out of the film. The interesting part is that there is plenty of nudity and sex in the film, and it is highly erotic. Even though there are no sex scenes between its stars, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, Kidman is nonetheless nude for half the time she is on-screen. There are countless scenes of female nudity, and even an extended sequence of non-stop fucking at an underworld orgy party held for the rich and famous at a secluded mansion.


Kubrick’s main mistake during the making of this film is excess. Even though he had employed extreme measures in the makings of all his films since he moved to England in the 60s and started making movies there. He had spent four years making 2001, he spent three years making Barry Lyndon (his consolation project after the failure to make Napoleon, dubbed “The greatest film never made”). He shot The Shining, a movie set in Colorado, in England, his choice of place for filming. It took Kubrick nearly seven years to direct Full Metal Jacket, a Vietnam war film that he once again painstakingly shot in England, where he literally transformed a sect of London into a Vietnam look-alike.

It was a dozen years before Eyes Wide Shut was finally completed. Filming took place over the course of an excruciating 18 months, an insane amount of time for a movie’s filming. The movie takes place entirely in New York City, a very distinct, and unique and large metropolis that cannot be duplicated, not even by the greatest master of filmmaking and art. This was one of the most common complaints by critics, that the sets were poorly designed, and the city landscape was not believable enough.

Of course, that might just add to the surrealistic tone of the film, the fact that the whole city set was only two or three blocks, so you would see the same street signs and stores in the background even though the character has supposedly traveled many miles to a different location. The film is based on Arthur Schnitzler’s Dream Story, and dreams are a theme that runs constant during the film. Many say that the movie is entirely a dream; some argue it is just a skewed, somewhat unrealistic version of reality. The only person, who can properly answer this question, and others, died nearly half a year before the film’s release.


Stanley Kubrick was 70 years old when he passed away. Kubrick was not a big believer in God, but he was born Jewish and in Jewish history, the number 70 has a large significance. Most importantly, it is the age at which King David, a savior of the Jews, died at. In fact, David was not supposed to live at all. Adam, the first man created was supposed to live forever, but after sinning by eating the apple, God only granted him 1,000 years of life. Adam foresaw a great man who had the potential to save the Jewish people but was going to die at birth, and decided to give this man 70 years of his own life. Thus, Adam lived to be 930 years, and allowed David a life until 70. This is not meant to be a comparison to David or Adam or any religious figure, or man of God. It is simply a coincidence that the two men both lived to be 70.

Stanley Kubrick is probably the greatest filmmaker that will ever exist. It is because there exists more questions than answers, not only in the filmmaking world, but also in the world of the general population. But for Kubrick, it was the other way around. He had more answers than questions, and it’s a reason why he tortured his writers and actors during the production of his films. He knew something they didn’t, and that’s the entire issue at hand. We want to know exactly what it was he knew that we didn’t. It might explain his movies a little better. It might also explain this world a little better, a world that perhaps he figured out, and was trying desperately, and frustratingly to explain to us through his work.

MENTAL MASTURBATION PART VI

Once again, if a film has a * symbol next to it, that means that the selected choice is an exceptional stand out. Rarely will I assign this symbol, but I feel that certain films deserve the extra special mention.


Cabiria (Giovanni Pastrone,1914)
Blackboard Jungle (Richard Brooks 1955)
Purple Noon (Rene Clement, 1960)
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (Karel Reisz, 1960)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962) *
I Am Cuba (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1964)
Diary of a Chambermaid (Luis Buñuel, 1964)
Women in Love (Ken Russell, 1969)
Bed and Board (Francois Truffaut, 1970)
The Man Who Would Be King (John Huston, 1975)
A Little Romance (George Roy Hill, 1979)
Somewhere in Time (Jeannot Szwarc, 1980)
Breaker Morant (Bruce Beresford, 1980)
Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (Vladimir Menshov, 1980)
An Officer and a Gentleman (Taylor Hackford, 1982)
The Keep (Michael Mann, 1983)
Matador (Pedro Almovodar, 1986)
Nobody’s Fool (Robert Benton, 1994)
Spanking the Monkey (David O. Russell, 1994)
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (Ki-duk Kim, 2003) *
My Life Without Me (Isabel Coixet, 2003)
L’enfant (Jean-Pierre Dardenne, and Luc Dardenne, 2005)
The Raftman’s Razor (Keith Bearden, 2005)
Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold, 2009)
Carlos (Olivier Assayas, 2010)
I’m Here (Spike Jonze, 2010) *

PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE (BRIAN DE PALMA, 1974)

Phantom of the Paradise, USA, 1974
Dir: Brian De Palma
Cast: William Finley, Paul Williams, Jessica Harper


Phantom of the Paradise is a bizarre and beautiful film by auteur Brian De Palma. Beyond any measure, it is a fantastic blend of horror, and cheesiness, 50s du-wop nostalgia, and biting musical satire. It pays homage to countless classic films like Psycho, The Manchurian Candidate, The Picture of Dorian Gray, as well the story of The Phantom of the Opera and Faust. De Palma’s restless, uncompromised vision was a failure, both critically and financially when it was released on Halloween, 1974, just a year before The Rocky Horror Picture Show, another cult musical film that closely resembled Phantom of the Paradise.

Speaking after a screening recently, producer Edward R. Pressman said what drew him to produce several of De Palma’s films was his “intellectual eroticism and charm.” It’s scary to think that nearly 40 years already passed, but the film has developed quite a cult following in that time. Perhaps not as large as The Rocky Horror Picture Show or Eraserhead, another 70s cult film, the crowds that gather together to view the film four decades after its release is still quite respectable. De Palma himself refuses to attend retrospective screenings of the film, but its star William Finley attends every one that he’s invited to be present at, along with his wife, who choreographed several of the dance sequences in the film.


The plot is a twist on the classic Phantom of the Opera story. In De Palma’s wonderfully depraved version, a shy composer is deceived and sabotaged by an incredibly charismatic, and wealthy music producer, played by Paul Williams. According to Mr. Pressman, the megalomaniacal character is based on infamous music producer Phil Spector. Meanwhile, the same shy pianist suffers a terrible accident which renders his face horrific and obscene to others around him, thus forcing him to wear a mask to protect himself, and falls in love with a sweet young singer who he wishes to work with. The singer, played by Jessica Harper in her debut role, has spunk and charm and talent that the other ladies lack.

It’s easy to see why this film has become such a fan favorite over the years. It’s a pre-cursor to Rocky Horror, the Phantom's costume was the inspiration for the Darth Vader get-up in Star Wars, and the film also served as the inspiration for the band KISS, who saw the film and took its glam-rock approach to music and have created a rich musical empire that has lasted four decades and continues to grow.


This was De Palma’s final film entry before he hit it big in mainstream pictures with Carrie in 1976. He followed it up with another throwback horror film, Dressed to Kill in 1980, and directed another movie that has found immense success past its release date, Scarface, in 1983. He went back and forth between Hollywood and independent fare for the remainder of his career. He found success with Body Double in 1984, The Untouchables in 1987, which won Sean Connery an Academy Award, and re-teamed with Al Pacino in 1993 for Carlito’s Way. De Palma turned 70 last year and has not directed since 2007’s Redacted, a controversial socio-political film that dealt with accounts of soldiers in the Iraqi War.

De Palma’s influences such as Hitchcock, Welles, Eisenstein, and others play a large role in De Palma’s more offbeat work, such as 1973’s Sisters, and more so in Phantom of the Paradise, which mocks the music industry, and the price that some musicians pay so dearly to achieve a taste of fame.

Phantom of the Paradise is not a film ahead of its time. Rather, it is a film that came before its time. Perhaps that is the reason why it has taken so long for it to achieve cult status amongst fans.

One last juicy tidbit: The film begins with a mysterious voiceover, delivered by none other than Rod Serling, creator of the The Twilight Zone.

MENTAL MASTURBATION I (Re-Issue)

NOTE: This was originally posted in January 2010. The first of several lists of films and their basic information. Since most of the first few posts on this blog have gone unseen, I'd like to re-post this first list. I think the films are brilliant and should be given more attention.


These films are essential for any movie buff, aspiring filmmaker, and pretty much anybody interested in great cinema. Most of them are not very well known, and others are greatly underappreciated.

In Chronological Order:

Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren, 1943)
Los Olvidados (Luis Bunuel, 1950)
Bellissima (Luchino Visconti, 1951)
Rocco and His Brothers (Luchino Visconti, 1960)
Il Posto (Ermanno Olmi, 1961)
Mamma Roma (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1962)
Simon of the Desert (Luis Bunuel, 1965)
A Man and a Woman (Claude Lelouch, 1966)
Portrait of Jason (Shirley Clarke, 1967)
Funeral Parade of Roses (Toshio Matsumoto, 1969)
Lenny (Bob Fosse, 1974)
The Passenger (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1975)
The Tennant (Roman Polanski, 1976)
All That Jazz (Bob Fosse, 1979)
Nosferatu The Vampyre (Werner Herzog, 1979)
Cruising (William Friedkin, 1980)
Heavy Metal (Gerald Potterton, 1981)
Tender Mercies (Bruce Beresford, 1983)
The Pope of Greenwich Village (Stuart Rosenberg, 1984)
Once Were Warriors (Lee Tamahori, 1994)
Bang (Ash Baron-Cohen, 1995)
Freeway (Matthew Bright, 1996)
Roger Dodger (Dylan Kidd, 2002)
Simone (Andrew Niccol, 2002)
The Return [Vozvrashcheniye] (Andrei Zvyagintsev, 2003)
Mean Creek (Jacob Aaron Estes, 2004)
Reprise (Joachim Trier, 2006)
The Box (Richard Kelly, 2009)

FILMMAKER PROFILE: ALAN PARKER AND ADRIAN LYNE

Acclaimed filmmakers Alan Parker and Adrian Lyne have shared many similarities in both style, theme as well as the people they have worked with. Both men were born in Britain in the 1940s. They both started in advertising in the 1960s and 70s. Parker elected to be a copywriter; Lyne went the commercial directing route. Both also worked extensively with cinematographer Peter Biziou, and 80s megastar Mickey Rourke. Parker made his theatrical film debut in 1976 with the all-children musical Bugsy Malone. Four years later, Lyne made his own youth-themed debut with the female teen drama, Foxes.


Parker and Lyne are both very intellectual filmmakers with an innate sense of the intimacy that is shared between two individuals. In 1978, Parker had his first international success with Midnight Express, a drama that centered on an American imprisoned in Turkey for drug trafficking. Oliver Stone won an Academy Award for his original screenplay. Parker achieved success again in 1980, with the musical Fame, which spawned a TV series and a theatrical remake in 2009. He followed it up with the unusual, music-themed film Pink Floyd The Wall, which has maintained a cult following due to the nature of the film which is an adaptation of Pink Floyd's enormously successful 1979 album The Wall. In 1984, he directed Birdy starring Matthew Modine. In 1987, he directed the noir thriller Angel Heart, which starred Mickey Rourke as a 1950s detective and Robert De Niro as the devil who makes a deal with him. In 1988, he received the second of two Oscar nods for Best Director for the film Mississippi Burning, a highly acclaimed and controversial film during its release.


Three years later, Parker continued experimenting with music and film and directed The Commitments, a wonderful movie centered around the formation and success of a band put together through a random process. This is in fact the way it was done in real life. The producers of the film chose several young aspiring musicians as the members of a new band The Commitments, both a musical group and the stars of the film. The band turned out a great album together, but most of the cast chose not to continue in film and have not starred in any movies since. In 1996, Parker directed another musical, this time starring Madonna, called Evita. The movie was a box office flop. Parker capped off the 90s with Angela’s Ashes based on the acclaimed novel of the same name. He has only directed one other film since, and that is the 2003 drama The Life and Death of David Gale, a brilliant thriller starring Kate Winslet and Kevin Spacey. Parker is now 67 years old and has no plans to make subsequent films.


Adrian Lyne made a splash in the movie industry around the same time Parker did. He directed the 1983 smash hit Flashdance, and Lyne found his first big global success. He revolutionized the stylized and musical approach to film during this time, and Flashdance would win an Oscar for Best Original Song. He followed it up with one of his most controversial films, the 1986 romantic thriller 9 ½ Weeks with Mickey Rourke, and Kim Basinger. The film was infused with raw sexuality, and rich with dreamy sequences of the splicing of food and intimacy.


Lyne was nominated at the Academy Awards the following year for his most successful film to date, Fatal Attraction, which also received Oscar nods for its female lead Glenn Close as well as for Best Picture of the year. Lyne continued pushing boundaries with his dark thriller Jacob’s Ladder, a paranoid horror film that told the tale of a Vietnam war vet haunted by dreams of another life. The 1990 film starred Tim Robbins, and remains one of the more underrated movies of its genre.


In 1993, he directed the box office hit Indecent Proposal starring Robert Redford, Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson. He next directed the second adaptation of the controversial Vladimir Nabokov novel Lolita, the first adaptation being of course the 1962 version directed by Stanley Kubrick. In 2002, Lyne returned to the romantic thriller genre one more time and made the adultery drama Unfaithful, starring Diane Lane and Richard Gere. This was Lyne's final movie, although there are plans for him to direct Back Roads, currently slated for a 2012 release.


The impressive body of work the two have compiled is something that has to be noted and praised. Their incredible sense of visual worth is astounding and evident in almost ever film they've made. Both men have received sizeable criticism and an underwhelming positive response to many of their films. Lyne’s debut, Foxes, is a great example of a little-seen gem that has gone under the radar over the years. Lyne has also managed to create many films with style, and panache, something that was attempted by countless directors but only rarely achieved successfully. Parker also had a period of about two decades where he continuously made worthy films but only won acclaim for a few of them.

Over the course of time, after viewing the majority of their films, it became clearer to me that the remarkable output during their careers is something that simply should not go unnoticed. While they are not the greatest filmmakers that ever lived, certainly never achieving the enormous success of directors like John Ford, Roman Polanski, Alfred Hitchcock or Martin Scorsese, they still have released numerous films of note, and should deservedly be amongst the top of the lists of best directors of the 80s and 90s.

L'APPARTEMENT (GILLES MIMOUNI, 1996)

L’Apartement, France, 1996
Dir: Gilles Mimouni
Starring: Vincent Cassel, Monica Bellucci, Romane Bohringer


L’Apartement, or The Apartment in English, is a taut, suspenseful, almost Hitchcockian type romance thriller that you probably have never heard of. The film stars Vincent Cassel, and Monica Bellucci, as star crossed lovers right out of classic Shakespeare. Combining many genres into one mold is a very difficult thing to do. Writer/director Gilles Mimouni, does it and does it in style. Eerily enough, this is the only film that Mr. Mimouni has ever directed, written, or involved with in his entire career. It has been 15 years and he has yet to be associated with any other production.

The film was remade in America in 2004, as Wicker Park, starring Josh Hartnett and Diane Kruger. The movie was a failure at the box office and did not achieve the same critical success as its predecessor. Produced in 1996, L’Apartement is the production in which Cassel and Bellucci met on and began their relationship. They are now married and have two children. They have become a power couple in France, and have both achieved sizeable fame in America and all over the world as well. Bellucci starred in the last Two Matrix films in 2003, while Cassel was last seen in Darren Aronofsky’s successful throwback horror film Black Swan.


It seems peculiar that the filmmaker has not been involved in other work, and a hopeless romantic might think it has something to do with the surreality of L’Apartement. The story surrounds several people, who, unbeknownst to all but one of them, are indirectly involved with one another. Max, played by Cassel, is engaged to be married. On his way to a business trip, he bumps into an old flame, who never managed to say goodbye properly years before. He follows her but then is trapped in a game that he has no control over. Because while on the search for Lisa, the former flame in question, he bumps into another girl, supposedly also named Lisa, and suddenly everything turns into Single White Female, but in a much more sexy and mysterious way.



L’Apartement is a film that only the French could produce. This type of storytelling is bizarre and unusual and rarely do filmmakers succeed with such methods. It is not the typical, simple thinking film. It is quite complex, and even though it is not flawless, it earns many points with its boldness and risk taking. The film also stars Romane Bohringer and Jean-Philippe Écoffey as the mysterious “other Lisa” and Lucien, Max’s best friend. The film garnered much acclaim during its release and it managed to win the BAFTA for Best Foreign Film. It also helped shoot stars Cassel and Bellucci into the mainstream subconscious. If you haven’t seen L’Apartement, I seriously recommend you check it out. It is not a film which disappoints.

TWO FOR THE ROAD (STANLEY DONEN, 1967)

Two For the Road, USA, 1967
Dir: Stanley Donen
Cast: Albert Finney, Audrey Hepburn


Sometimes, a movie will not age well, and in time, become a misrepresentation of itself. Stanley Donen’s 1967 classic Two For the Road is exactly that. The film stars Albert Finney, in one of his finest roles, and Audrey Hepburn, in what would be one of her last performances on film. It trails the funny, sad, and turbulent relationship between them over a ten-year period. During that time, they fall in love, they start a family, they move up the social ladder, they have affairs, they separate, and inevitably end up at a crossroads together.

It is an extremely well written film, whose author, Frederic Raphael won an Academy Award in 1965 for the Julie Christie satire, Darling. Raphael also achieved notice in the late 1990s, while collaborating on the adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s 1926 novel Traumnovelle, or Dream Story. The screenplay that followed resulted in the film Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick’s final masterpiece.

Raphael even wrote a book about the experience of working with such a master director in the novel Eyes Wide Open, a play on the title of the film it’s experiences are associated with. Kubrick died in March of 1999, several months before the film and book were released, thus not given the chance to refute the travesties written in Raphael’s memoir.

Two for the Road however is a brilliant analysis of a relationship from start to finish. That’s the thing with a film. It is born when you press play. It dies when the screen is black again. It doesn’t die per se, it simply sails off into the sky and you usually never hear from it again unless there’s a sequel. Brilliantly filmed and edited by a group of all-around talented Brits, and starring two enormously talented performers in Finney and Hepburn. Audrey did not make another film for nearly a decade after the release of this film. When she returned to acting, she starred in only four more films, before passing away in 1993. Finney meanwhile has collected five Academy Award nominations along the way to present day. His last high profile role was in the Tim Burton film Big Fish.

Two for the Road is a brilliantly well-crafted examination of two people who fall in love and marry and endure many hardships along the path to happiness. It is therefore not surprising that Kubrick chose Raphael for Eyes Wide Shut. Mr. Raphael has a unique sense of the emotions of people and the up and down lives of married couples who’ve been together for some time. He wrote Two For the Road when he was only 35, meaning his insights into love and sex and marriage were way ahead of his experiences, which means he simply possessed a rare talent, which I think is front and center in this piece.

After careful examination, you might even call this one of the great wit-infused romance dramas ever made, alongside other films like His Girl Friday, Annie Hall and When Harry Met Sally. It has an incredibly bold and radical style of filmmaking, alongside a story that broke barriers that went unnoticed because it was released the same year as other barrier-breaking films like The Graduate and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

Two for the Road is most importantly a fearless movie. It was not afraid to discuss openly the sex lives of a married couple. It had no reservations about demoralizing marriage in the modern day. It of course benefited from being released in the late 60’s which was an era of radical moviemaking and helped give birth to intelligent films like this one. One that, with retrospective in hand, can be clearly seen as an inspiration for a generation of filmmakers that followed.

FLASHDANCE (Adrian Lyne, 1983)

Flashdance, USA, 1983
Dir: Adrian Lyne
Starring: Jennifer Beals, Michael Nouri


There is something unique about the 1980s in regards to the movies being produced, the music being recorded and the fashion and culture popularized during the time. The decades that preceded the 80s, the 1960s and 70s produced some of the great artists of the 20th century including The Rolling Stones, John Lennon, Woody Allen, and the Bee Gees. The culture of the 80s washed away everything old and introduce something new and radical. The technological boom of the decade gave us game boys and walkman's, big hair bands and the franchise movie. Flashdance is one of those movies that tries to wash away the music of the 70s, the southern rock bands, and the disco ball, and showcase the music of the modern era which was synth-infused, energized pop.

The soundtrack is one of the most impressive assets of Flashdance, and film won an Academy Award for best original song for “Flashdance… What a Feeling.” The cinematography and editing also received nominations. Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Adrian Lyne, this was his breakthrough and he would go on to direct other well-regarded movies such as 9 ½ Weeks, Fatal Attraction and Jacob’s Ladder. Despite being a huge box office hit (it grossed nearly $100 million in the United States alone), Flashdance remains an underrated flick that’s mostly known for its music and dance scenes. There is a lot more than makes up this film. It is evident that the filmmakers were trying to create something different and it ended up being that and much more.


Lyne and co. took a derivative plot and turned it into an iconic film. Flashdance is the story of a young woman who works as a welder in the day and dances at a bar at night, and retains hopes of being a professional dancer one day. Meanwhile, she is courted by her handsome, older boss, and practices for an audition with a top dance school. All you have to do is look at the images and you will see how shockingly distinctive this film is. The movie is a lot darker than it lets on. There is a lot of crude sexual imagery, such as when Beals removes her bra from underneath her infamous collarless shirt while on a date with her boss, or the scene in which she dines at a table, and erotically sucks on pieces of lobster meat. This is the work of a very stylish director, and Lyne had much practice as a commercial director in his native England before moving on to feature films.

Lyne’s movie career began in 1980, when he directed Jodie Foster in the female coming-of-age film Foxes. He followed it up with Flashdance, and soon turned to more serious fare. In 1987, he was nominated for Best Director at the Oscars for Fatal Attraction. He continued to make thoughtful, adult-themed films throughout the 90s including Indecent Proposal and Lolita. His last film, Unfaithful, scored its star Diane Lane the first Academy Award nod of her career. He has since taken a break from filmmaking and his first project in 10 years is said to be in production right now, Back Roads, based on the novel by Tawni O'Dell.

Flashdance is more than just a time capsule of the 80s. It is a musically-themed picture infused with eroticism, spandex and pop music. Most importantly, it’s great entertainment that can never fade away.

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (Robert Aldrich, 1962)

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, USA, 1962
Dir: Robert Aldrich
Starring: Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Victor Buono


In one of my previous entries, a reader remarked how surprising it was that certain films, chosen by me, were amongst other films that were categorized as being underrated or generally unrecognized. Today, I’m going to discuss a little bit about a film holds a certain infamy, and some might question the authenticity of it being a film that holds place as an understated one, when in fact, it is a much celebrated and Oscar-winning production. The reason why I think this movie deserves mention as an underrated film, is because it has been miscategorized as a melodrama, when it should really be categorized as a horror film. In fact, I would probably list this film as one of the most frightening horror movies ever made. The movie I am referring to is Robert Aldrich’s 1962 film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

The film stars two classic, golden age actresses, Bette Davis, and Joan Crawford. The two legends were in the twilight of their careers when this film went into production and studio chief Jack Warner even remarked that he "wouldn't give a plugged nickel for either one of those two old broads." The two old broads, however, were cast in the lead roles and the film, on release, became a hit and scored several Academy Award nods including one for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Bette Davis.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? deals with the Hudson sisters, one a former child performer and the other a former Hollywood actress who retired early due to an accident, supposedly perpetrated by her jealous sister, leaving her paralyzed for life. Baby Jane, the former child star, is now an old maid, with a gloomy, wrinkly face, whose lips cover a glass of whisky at every moment of the day. Blanche, her sister, is dependent on her, even though she is to blame for the accident and the end of her career. There are more secrets to reveal before the curtain falls on this picture, but be sure that this is a rather difficult film to watch. Although not initially recognized as such, this is a highly unnerving horror film.

This is, however, a horror film that does not depend on physical violence to scare audiences. This is not a horror film in the way we've become accustomed to it. This is not a slasher film like Halloween, it is not a sci-fi horror film like The Thing, or a tentpole film like Saw. This is a horror film of the mind. It is a psychologically disturbing film. At several moments, I simply could not watch, giving me a sense of claustrophobia, because I was unable to change the actions on screen, there was no way to right the wrongs because what I was experiencing was a fantasy, a piece of cinema, a piece of fiction, nearly 50 years in age.

In real life Davis and Crawford were bitter enemies, a known fact all throughout the world of celebrity and press. In one scene, Davis’ character had to kick Crawford’s character in the face. Bette Davis did it for real. Crawford, in retaliation, would put heavy stones in the pockets of Davis’ costumes making scenes more difficult for her. On Oscar night, Crawford promised fellow nominee Anne Bancroft that if she won, she would accept it on her behalf in case she could not make it. Crawford ended up accepting the award, and walked past castmate Davis telling her shrewdly “I have an Oscar to accept.”

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is a shocking film that left me perturbed, and uneasy. The images are hard to forget, the actions are hard to visualize again. But it is an essential film for the serious film student or aspiring filmmaker. This is cinema at its best.