Gangboy (1935)

In 1935, a movie that shifts the tides of film history is released. That movie is Gangboy. The film follows the story of a man, played by Dick Powell, who starts off as a criminal cowboy but eventually gets phased out by the introduction of the automobile. He moves to New York City and ends up pursuing his dream of acting and singing in a broadway musicals by joining a theater troupe. Little does he know that the theater he works for is owned by the mafia, the boss of which is played by Paul Muni, and they pressure him to get involved. As he returns to his roots he becomes more distant with his love, the beautiful Bette Davis, who wants him to give it all up and start a family with her. He ends up doing just that, realizing that love, family, and most of all, integrity and morality, are the most important things in life. Combining elements of gangster and musical cinema, as well as a dose of a spaghetti western, this film combines popular genres of the time along with delivering a message for the audiences that do not just want mindless entertainment and strong underlying themes throughout. There is something here for everyone to enjoy. But with the Great Depression in mind, people need something to enjoy. With two directors who each have their own strong suits specialized to each genre, this movie has expertise on every aspect.

The cast and crew especially were chosen to play a very specific role suited for their talents. Dick Powell, the leading man, has had a lot of experience in the film musical genre, and is an overall very well-rounded actor. Paul Muni was chosen for his association with the gangster genre, even garnering attention from the Academy. Bette Davis plays her well-known role as the pretty woman. Busby Berkeley is well known for his camerawork while preserving the sound that comes with a musical, and William A. Wellman knows how to do a gangster film right. To help out with the sound aspects to maintain the integrity of the musical scenes, Hans Warren was brought in as a sound engineer, renowned at the time. Warner Brothers Studios was the perfect studio to produce this film, as they too are known for gangster films, as well as musical, and Gangboy is the ambitious project that brings the two together. With all strings pulled, the budget ran a bit too high for Warner Brothers standards, so the upgrade to color was ignored, it was not as if it added a significant amount to the movie as a whole. The Hays Code has been planned for, and the story will tell its more provocative moments metaphorically though the main characters' broadway show, therefore stylishly toning down otherwise violent or overly sexual scenes.

My group and I pretty much completely agreed on every decision and I had a great time doing it. When we put it all together we knew we had struck 1935 film gold.

MYST Post #1: A Clockwork Orange

This film was mentioned earlier this week in class as being particularly uncomfortable to watch, and I have tried to see this movie before, and well, being with my parents and all, movie night was cut short for me. The reason why is because, especially at the beginning parts of the film, there is some uncomfortably violent and particularly uneasy depictions of sexual abuse, the latter of which provoked my parents to turn it off, and until now, I had not seen what happened to the group of misfits in dystopian London. From the well-known Stanley Kubrick, this film from 1971, as the poster reads, entails the adventures of a teenager who loves rape, 'ultra-violence', and the music of Ludwig Van Beethoven, most of which is particularly heavy content for (most) people. A very controversial movie at the time of its release, (it was banned in several countries) it for the most part garnered heavy critical acclaim and was nominated for several Academy Awards.

I recommend that the trailer be watched (embedded below) because it really does a good job of capturing the craziness that goes on in the film. In what seems to be a dystopian England, the kind of things that Alex, our main character and humble narrator, likes to do are typical for a boy of his age, and as so, England has a serious crime issue. Dystopian fiction always has social commentary and here what is present is similar to that of in the Aldous Huxley novel Brave New World, where societal classes are made up of pre-determined and pre-conditioned 'people'. The society in the novel reflects the conditioning they are given as early as embryos to fit in their pre-determined place and the book comments on the fallacies of this kind of society and the inhumanity of doing so. In A Clockwork Orange, (Orang as it turns out, means Man in Malay, the author wrote the book the film in based on when he was in Malaysia) the main character undergoes a treatment to cleanse himself, and others to

follow, of his incessant need to perform "ultra-violence" and how Alex so pleasantly puts it, the ol' "in-n-out". This is done through what the scientists call the 'Ludovico' treatment, leading to one of movies most iconic images (right). Alex is conditioned to associate sex and violence with sickening things, so much so, that he can not think about either or he will become ill. SPOILERS This eventually drives him to attempt to kill himself in an attempt to stop the sickness brought on by one of his triggers. As the word breaks loose about this, the program is deemed inhumane and shut down.END SPOILERS Alex was stripped of his choice to act badly, and that is what the movie attempts the entire movie to say is wrong. It is our choice as humans to act, whether it be maliciously or altruistically, when we are stripped of those choices we are no longer men. Hence a "Clockwork Orange". The commentary here is well done, but by no means is a revolutionary piece of film in that standard, although I can not speak for the novel which the film was based upon.

The themes were very strong throughout the whole movie, and were excellently reinforced by a performance by the most polarizing main character I have ever seen, I am still confused on how I feel. As on par with Kubrick's other films, the movie has a distinctive style and feel, one that I particularly enjoyed and made an otherwise good film an absolutely great one. I can not put it more simply, but it is just so well done. Every scene had fittingly great cinematography and lighting, the best example of which I have linked to the right (WARNING: This scene is very disturbing, but it does cut out before the rape). This is my favorite scene of the movie, which I know seems strange due to how uncomfortable it makes viewers, but the camerawork is great (the dolly work seems like something from a Wes Anderson film)  and the singing that Alex does juxtaposes the brutality with Alex's happiness brilliantly solidifying our view of him and his friends as sadistic sociopaths. The color palette used is mostly bright and warm, which I think reinforces our perspective of Alex who in his head can justify his wrongdoing. Music comes up very often in the film, usually a Beethoven piece again juxtaposed against horrific violence or rape; it is so good in conveying the mindset of our psychotic narrator, which you can even see in the trailer. This leads me to my conclusion that this film is flawless on every aspect from a technical aspect, I am surprised we do not watch this is class, then again, the subject matter has been known to be even too much for adults.

Some moments of the plot near the end are a bit too coincidental for me, the last 30-40 minutes or so are definitely the weakest as they lack the certain strangeness that made the majority so good. It is difficult to say what exactly is missing. Whatever it may be, A Clockwork Orange is such an interesting film that I recommend it to anyone, especially a Kubrick fan, even if they are shy due to the subject matter, it is a technically flawless film with a substantial message that you should, at the least, try to see.

I give this film:

9/10 Glasses of Milk(+)*

*Watch the movie, then you'll get it

Review of the Reviews

       A film that is still somewhat fresh in my head from a recent viewing is Richard Linklater's (almost) universally acclaimed Boyhood. I had mixed feelings coming out of the theater, but I place most of that blame towards the general hype and the shocking consensus coming from a few critics that hailed it as, so far, 'the greatest film of this generation.' Rotten Tomatoes determines whether a review is 'fresh' or 'rotten' by drawing the line between a positive review and a negative review at a 6/10 or a 3/5. I have some strong opinions about the flaws of the aggregation systems of both Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, but this topic is for another time. Boyhood rotten tomatoes received a 99% (one of the highest ever seen), and an average score of 9.4/10 (that beats the average rating given by critics to The Godfather). However, two people decided to break away from the crowd writing 'rotten' reviews, one of which panned the film and dished the abysmal .5/4 rating.

Original Review

Matt Pais of Red Eye Chicago claimed the film was merely "impressive in theory". Which, I have to partially agree with, the sheer technical scope of the movie was my driving factor to go and see it, whilst the other high points reviewers mention are the 'sprawling examination of the human experience' which I thought to be disappointing. It simply never worked for me and when I walked out of the theater I felt poorly about myself for not having liked it as much as others have. The reviewer compares it to Gravity in that it was amazing that it was done, but it did not turn out that well. Although I thought the story was thin, the visuals in that movie (especially in IMAX 3D) were absolutely astounding and turned it into a great film, but again, I digress.

"None of the moments in “Boyhood” are bold in suggesting the experiences are universal. Linklater isn’t deconstructing our communal stepping stones; he’s merely reminding us of them. It’s easy to watch the film and recall similar moments in your own life. That’s not enough; the film needs to inspire reflection, not just recollection."

Here is where I have to disagree. The time period the main character in the film grows up in almost completely reflects that of my own, and that, along with the choices Mason makes throughout his life triggered nostalgic moments that I had never thought would be important to me, such as simply playing on my gameboy. Not only did I have nostalgic happiness throughout parts of that movie, some the choices that Mason actually made me think back to what I could have done differently, even the most minuscule of choices. That, in my opinion, is where the movie succeeded, but other movies have done that for me in the past so it did not determine to be one of my favorite movies of the past few years, or even this year for that matter. 

The reviewer also mentions the weak use of music to determine the time period, and I my opinion would most definitely correspond with that as they countless times blasted the hit pop song of the year to make you know that time had changed. However, in the end, Boyhood proved, at least, to be an enjoyable and worthwhile experience, and most definitely would not give the appalling low review score of .5 stars out of 4. It should be noted that the comments for the review are hilariously filled with hateful comments, as this guy took away the Rotten Tomatoes perfect score of 100%.

Original Review

 Our very own film critic Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune gave, like almost all the other reviewers, an overwhelmingly positive review for Boyhood with 4 out of 4 stars, AKA a perfect score. Now, I used to read Michael Phillips reviews, but have not in a long time since Rotten Tomatoes became more popular, so I do not know exactly what he deems a good movie and what is deemed a fantastic one. Also, I want to cut this section down because I seem to keep forgetting that this is not my own personal review of the movie.
Philips loved how the film realistically presented moments of life just as they are, moments, not playing up life's crises for an emotionally manipulative plot. To that I say, and brace yourself for somewhat of a rant, then why (SPOILERS) does Mason end up having two drunk stepdads, one of them physically abusive and the other emotionally abusive? Don't we all go through that? Do we all become hipsters with a huge philosophical quest to examine the meaning of life? (He literally says at one point during this 'phase', "What's it all about?", I got mad when I heard this) Well I know this has not yet happened to me, but I still have two more years to experience the whole hipster section of the movie, but that section still came off as pretentious, and maybe that is what they were going for, whatever it was, I did not think it worked. I remember my bigger problems with the film now. The whole premise of the movie requires the narrative to be improvisational in that the yearly segments are written when the time comes, so it can be disjointed at times, and some segments are clearly better thought out and more impactful than others.

"Some films fill 164 minutes with sound and fury signifying nothing. "Boyhood" (one minute shorter than the 165-minute "Transformers: Age of Extinction," for the record) opts for a different approach. In completing this simple, beautiful project Linklater took his time. And he rewards ours."

This is where Philips is absolutely correct. Not once throughout this morning-long of a movie did I get bored, sure, I had my issues with it, but it was a really great movie in terms of its pacing especially considering how low-key its subject matter was. It astounds me to think that I got bored of Michael Bay having fun with his money, blowing up things in the last Transformers movie, but I was thoroughly entertained by the story of two children making their journey through American life.  Not necessarily the Magnum Opus of two kids growing up or any film in recent history, however, a solid film and one that merits attention.