Classic Movies – Page 2 – LFM: Libertas Film Magazine

LFM Reviews The Newly Restored Enter the Dragon @ BAM Cinematek’s Wing Chun Classic Film Series

By Joe Bendel. It is the first true martial arts film selected for the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry. Bruce Lee’s first Hollywood star vehicle and his final fully completed film represents kung fu cinema at its most cross-overiest, yet it is still legit to the bone. In honor of Ip Man and Wong Kar Wai’s The Grandmaster, Bruce Lee & director Robert Clouse’s Enter the Dragon begins a week of restored DCP screenings today, as part of BAM Cinematek’s Wing Chun classic film series.

Lee’s namesake is a Hong Kong Shaolin standard bearer knocking on the door of complete martial arts enlightenment. While glory in the ring hardly interests him, he agrees to compete in the triannual martial arts tournament sponsored by Han, an international vice lord and general megalomaniac. Sent in by British Intelligence sans back-up, Lee is to reconnoiter around Han’s pleasure palace and hopefully fight his way out of any trouble he might encounter. It is not much of a plan, but it will suffice.

The stakes turn out to be unexpectedly personal for Lee. Shortly before embarking, he learns Han’s thugs were responsible for the death of his sister, Su Lin. As one might expect of Lee’s kin, she put up a heck of a fight. Han’s chief enforcer O’Hara still bears his scars from the encounter. He is due for some more pain. However, Lee will meet some friendly Americans en route, such as the well heeled Roper, who is looking to hustle some action to pay off his gambling debts, like a kung fu Fast Eddie Felson. In contrast, Roper’s former Army buddy Williams seems more interested in hedonistic pleasures supplied nightly to the fighters.

Enter might not sound earthshakingly original, but that is partly a function of how widely imitated it has been, especially the iconic hall of mirrors climax. Scores of movies have copied its general template of the ostensibly upright kumite going on above ground, while armies of henchmen in color-coded gis labor towards nefarious ends below. Without it, there is no way we would have guilty pleasures like the Steve Chase beatdown, Kill and Kill Again, which is a thoroughly depressing thought to contemplate.

All the elements come together, but there is still no question this is Lee’s show. Almost supernaturally intense and charismatic, Lee was clearly at the peak of his powers throughout Enter. It is a massively physical performance (featuring some impressive acrobatic feats), yet Lee still takes care to convey the philosophical side of Wing Chun. The restored print includes more scenes of Lee as a spiritual teacher that work quite well.

Even with Lee’s overpowering presence, Enter is the film that really put Jim “Black Belt Jones” Kelly on the map. As Williams, he contributes attitude and energy that further distinguished Enter from its genre predecessors. In fact, the cast is loaded with notables, including John Saxon, hamming it up with relish as Roper. Fans often wonder why so little was subsequently heard of Betty Chung, but she has some nice rapport with Lee as Mei Ling, a fellow undercover operative.

There are also plenty of established and future action stars, most notably Angela Mao absolutely crushing Su Lin’s brief but pivotal flashback scene. Bolo Yeung also appears in exactly the sort of role that would make him famous. Sammo Hung has a briefer turn as a Shaolin martial artist who fairs poorly against Lee—but not nearly as badly as blink-and-you-missed-him Jackie Chan, whose meat-for-the-grinder henchman gets his neck snapped by our hero.

But wait there’s more, including a classic funky eastern fusion soundtrack by Lalo Schifrin that opened up a lot of ears up to the Argentinean composer and former Dizzy Gillespie sideman. Without question, this is a historically and culturally significant film, well worthy of being selected for the National Film Registry. Logically, it anchors BAM’s Wing Chun series in honor of Lee’s revered master, Ip Man. Highly recommended beyond martial arts enthusiasts, Enter the Dragon begins a week long run (8/30-9/5) today at the BAM Rose Cinemas.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on August 30th, 2013 at 1:24pm.

On Location with Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo

For you classic movie lovers out there: Klara Tavakoli Goesche of the blog Retro Active Critiques recently put together this wonderful short video walking tour of the San Francisco locations of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, a video which recently debuted at Turner Classic Movies’ Movie Morlocks blog, together with an interview with Goesche conducted by classic movie blogger Kimberly Lindbergs. Check the video out above.

Posted on May 16th, 2012 at 11:57am.

For Easter & Passover: A Review of The Ten Commandments on Blu-ray

[Editor’s Note: We want to wish everyone a Happy Easter & Passover. Below is a re-posting of LFM’s Blu-ray review of Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1956), from March 27th, 2011. Also: Turner Classic Movies is showing Easter- and Passover-themed films all day today. Check the TCM website for details.]

By Jason Apuzzo. The new Ten Commandments Blu-ray comes out this Tuesday, March 29th (see the trailer for the Blu-ray at the bottom of this post). Paramount will be releasing a 2-disc Blu-ray set of the classic film, and also a Limited Edition 6-disc DVD/Blu-ray Combo set, that features both Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 and 1923 versions of the film – and a host of goodies, including a handsome archival booklet that may be worth the price of the set on its own.

The Ten Commandments is a special favorite of mine. Not only is the film one of Hollywood’s greatest epics of the 1950s, the film is also a timeless and enduring ode to human freedom – and one which seems to grow only more timely and urgent as the years go by. The Ten Commandments is a film that will always remain powerful and ‘relevant’ so long as there are souls yearning for freedom – even, as we’ve seen recently, in contemporary Egypt and North Africa where so much of The Ten Commandments was filmed.

We had the pleasure of showing what was then the best existing print of The Ten Commandments at our first Liberty Film Festival in 2004, when we invited cast member Lisa Mitchell to talk about her recollections of Mr. DeMille – and how influential he was in her life. Several years later Govindini and I spent time with Cecilia DeMille Presley, granddaughter of Cecil DeMille and a caretaker of his legacy – who shared some wonderful memories of her grandfather with us. Most special, however, was the opportunity Govindini and I had years ago to meet Charlton Heston himself at The Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, when he introduced a special screening of The Ten Commandments. (We actually sat right behind him during the screening – and watched his reactions to the film, which he still seemed to take great delight in so many years later.) It was an extraordinary thrill to meet him; even late in life, he was still handsome and rugged, with a biting wit – but also a warm and generous spirit. He was the consummate gentleman.

heston1 — Charlton Heston in "The Ten Commandments."

The Ten Commandments is without a doubt one of the best films Hollywood has ever produced, and a carrier of important ideas about freedom, so I thought we’d take a little look back at it today. It also happens to be a magnificent showpiece for the Blu-ray medium – with the film’s rich, saturated colors, beautiful costumes and production design, endless desert vistas, and iconic visual effects sequences. To put it mildly, The Ten Commandments is not only an emotional spectacle of the heart … it’s also an eyeful.

Interestingly,The Ten Commandments happens to be the fifth highest-grossing film of all time, adjusted for inflation. When the film was released in 1956, theater tickets cost about 50 cents – and the film still grossed over $65 million. What this means is that at today’s ticket prices, The Ten Commandments would have grossed over $1 billion at the domestic box office. In the history of American moviemaking, only Gone With the Wind, Star Wars, The Sound of Music and E.T. have fared better at the box office than did DeMille’s extraordinary film.

I don’t mention The Ten Commandments‘ box office success because that denotes anything in particular about the film’s merits – success at the box office can always be misleading – but to suggest the kind of powerful bond this film has with the public. The Ten Commandments is, as it turns out, a beautifully written, directed, acted, photographed and scored film – a majestic and emotional voyage into one of the primary myths of Western religious life. It’s also the crowning achievement of one of America’s greatest moviemakers. At the same time, The Ten Commandments is something else: it’s a part of American popular mythology, as important to America’s filmic conversation about freedom and individual dignity as Casablanca, Gone With the Wind or On the Waterfront. Continue reading For Easter & Passover: A Review of The Ten Commandments on Blu-ray

LFM’s Jason Apuzzo at The Huffington Post and AOL-Moviefone: The Oscars, The Battle of Los Angeles & The Top 10 Movies in Which Aliens Attack L.A.

TransformersLA — From the downtown LA battle of "Transformers" (2007).

[Editor’s Note: The post below appears today on the front page of The Huffington Post and AOL-Moviefone.]

By Jason Apuzzo. Celebrities will invade Los Angeles this weekend for the 84th Academy Awards ceremony. Searchlights will blaze and flashbulbs will pop as Hollywood stars will descend from the heavens — or maybe just the Malibu hills — to touch the ground that regular Angelenos walk on each day.

They’ll smile and snarl our traffic. They’ll toss their hair and forget to thank their husbands. They’ll praise each other for their bravery, while collecting $75,000 gift bags.

L.A. is accustomed to such strange invasions, of course. If you’re a movie fan, you already know that L.A. has been invaded over the years by everything from giant atomic ants (Them), to buff cyborgs (The Terminator), to rampaging 3D zombies (Resident Evil: Afterlife). So Angelenos take invasions from movie stars in stride.

But this weekend marks an anniversary of an invasion you might not know about: L.A.’s first alien invasion.

A surviving image from The Battle of Los Angeles.

This February 24th-25th is the 70th anniversary of The Battle of Los Angeles, also known as The Great Los Angeles Air Raid, one of the most mysterious incidents of World War II — and also one of the key, oddball events in U.F.O. lore that’s still inspiring movies and TV shows to this day.

Between the late evening of February 24th, 1942 and the early morning hours of February 25th, the City of Angels flew into a panic as what were initially believed to be Japanese enemy aircraft were spotted over the city. This suspected Japanese raid — coming soon after the Pearl Harbor bombing, and just one day after a confirmed Japanese submarine attack off the Santa Barbara coast — touched off a massive barrage of anti-aircraft fire, with some 1400 shells shot into the skies over Los Angeles during the frantic evening.

Oddly, however, the anti-aircraft shells hit nothing. Despite the intense barrage, no aircraft wreckage was ever recovered.

Indeed, once the smoke had cleared and Angelenos calmed down (the public hysteria over the raid was mercilessly satirized by Steven Spielberg in 1941), no one really knew what had been seen in the sky or on radar. Were they weather balloons? German Zeppelins? Trick kites designed by Orson Welles?

Many people believed the aircraft they’d seen were extraterrestrial – one eyewitness even described an object he’d seen as looking like an enormous flying ‘lozenge’ – and some accused the government of a cover-up. Conflicting accounts of the incident from the Navy and War Departments didn’t help clarify matters.

As if to confirm public fears of extraterrestrial attack, one famous photograph emerged (see above) from the incident showing an ominous, saucer-like object hovering over the city. This much-debated photograph, which even appeared in some trailers for Battle: Los Angeles last year, inspired America’s first major U.F.O. controversy — a full five years before Roswell.

To this day, no one knows for sure what flew over Los Angeles that night and evaded the city’s air defenses. (The raid itself is recreated each year at Fort MacArthur in San Pedro.) But since it’s more fun to assume that it was aliens than weather balloons, we’ve decided to honor The Battle of Los Angeles by ranking the Top 10 movies in which aliens attack L.A. (See below.)

To make this list, a film must feature aliens on the warpath — no cuddly E.T.’s here — and their attacks must take place in L.A. proper, rather than out in the suburbs or desert (eliminating films like Invasion of the Body Snatchers).

As the list demonstrates, no city — other than perhaps Tokyo — has suffered more on-screen calamity at the hands of extraterrestrials than Los Angeles. At the same time, there’s no apparently no other city that’s easier for aliens to hide in.

1) The War of the Worlds (1953)

Producer George Pal’s adaptation of the H.G. Wells’ novel is the granddaddy of ’em all, and still the best L.A.-based film about alien attack. Gene Barry plays Dr. Clayton Forrester, a natty scientist at ‘Pacific Tech,’ who along with his girlfriend Sylvia van Buren (a perky USC coed, played by Ann Robinson) struggles to prevent Martian invaders from destroying human civilization. Highlights of the film include a boffo attack on downtown L.A. (which Pal initially wanted to film in 3D) by the graceful, swan-like Martian ships, and an Air Force flying wing dropping a nuclear bomb on the Martians. Filmed in vivid Technicolor, The War of the Worlds was a huge hit, broke new ground in visual effects technology, and helped kick off the 1950s sci-fi craze.

Best exchange of the film: “What do we say to them [the aliens]?” “Welcome to California.”

2) Independence Day (1996)

Director Roland Emmerich’s funny, exhilarating and patriotic summer hit from 1996 borrows key elements from The War of the Worlds, but adds a few of its own: 15-mile-wide flying saucers, a president who flies fighter jets … and Will Smith. In the role that made him a megastar, Smith plays a trash-talking Marine fighter pilot paired with an MIT-trained computer wiz (played by Jeff Goldblum, channeling Gene Barry) who fights an alien saucer armada out to demolish humanity. ID4 is easily the best of Emmerich’s apocalyptic films, largely due to its tongue-in-cheek humor. Watch as ditzy Angelenos atop the Library Tower cheerfully greet an alien saucer, only to be zapped into oblivion a moment later. Only in L.A.

Best line of the film: “Welcome to Earth.”

3) Transformers (2007)

There’s mayhem, and then there’s Bayhem. Michael Bay’s Transformers redefined sci-fi action cinema in 2007, featuring a spectacular climax in downtown Los Angeles — a riot of colossal urban warfare and aerial strikes as the U.S. military and Autobot robots unite to fight Decepticon robots out to enslave Earth. A key sequence showcased Autobots and Decepticons ‘transforming’ at 80 mph on a busy L.A. freeway, swatting aside cars and buses while fighting each other — living out the fantasy of every aggressive L.A. driver. Unlike the stately saucers of ID4, or the graceful war machines of War of the Worlds, Bay’s Decepticon robots are fast-moving, anthropomorphic and nasty. Like certain Hollywood celebrities, they trash talk, strut and propagandize as they smash through buildings and otherwise inflict as much collateral damage as possible. The film that made stars out of Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox, Transformers delivers heaping doses of humor, curvy women and robot carnage; it’s Bayhem at its best.

Best line: “You didn’t think that the United States military might need to know that you’re keeping a hostile alien robot frozen in the basement?!”

4) V (1983)

These alien ‘Visitors’ look just like us, and they come in peace … except that underneath their false skins they’re actually lizards and want to eat us. That’s the premise of Kenneth Johnson’s apocalyptic NBC miniseries from 1983, a show that leans heavily on references to Nazism, communism and other pernicious forms of group-behavior. V is also the show that first gave us gigantic motherships hovering over major cities, years before ID4. The best part of V, however, is the scene-chewing performance by Jane Badler as the alien leader Diana; somebody should put that woman in charge of GM. Otherwise, in V the human resistance movement against the aliens centers around Los Angeles — possibly because it’s hard to cop a tan while saucers are blocking the sun.

Best line [about the alien leader Diana]: “That damn dragon lady can bend people’s minds around. What the hell does she need a blowtorch for?!” Continue reading LFM’s Jason Apuzzo at The Huffington Post and AOL-Moviefone: The Oscars, The Battle of Los Angeles & The Top 10 Movies in Which Aliens Attack L.A.

Classic Movie Journal: Lillian Roth, Fragments of Lost Films, and a Brand New Silent Movie!

By Jennifer Baldwin. A few weeks ago I watched my new Warner Archive DVD of Madam Satan, a 1930s Pre-Code oddity extravaganza that was Cecil B. DeMille’s first and only musical. It’s famous (infamous?) for the wild costumes, Art Deco sets, bizarre musical numbers, and a spectacular finale that includes a zeppelin crash and the sight of parachuting party-goers landing in trees, Turkish baths, and the lion cage at the Central Park Zoo.

But what I really loved about the movie was that it introduced me to Lillian Roth. I didn’t even realize as I was watching it that the sexy, saucy Trixie was played by Lillian Roth of I’ll Cry Tomorrow fame. I knew that Susan Hayward played a woman named “Lillian Roth” in that 1955 biopic, but since I’d never actually seen it, I knew nothing about the real Roth. She must have been someone famous or else they wouldn’t have made a movie about her, but what exactly she was famous for I had no idea.

Well, now I know. The minute Trixie appears on screen in Madam Satan, the film starts to pop. If you want to know what I mean GO HERE TO SEE.

As the indispensable Self-Styled Siren puts it in her review of the film: “When she flings off her rumpled satin robe and twitches her pelvis to the Low Down number, the vaudeville energy of this rather plump, frowsy jazz baby ignites the entire movie.” AND HOW! I remember thinking that Lillian Roth’s Trixie was a million times sexier and spunkier than Kay Johnson’s “Madam,” the supposed “star” of the film.

So, of course, dutiful obsessive that I am, I started scouring YouTube for videos of Lillian Roth’s performances, just to see what else this sassy dame had to offer. Her voice has got the power and verve of Ethel Merman, but with a warmer tone and a bluesier, sexier bend. And she’s got charisma. Whatever that might be defined as, it shows whenever she’s on screen: she lights it up.

Which makes her brief movie career all the more tragic. This is a woman who should have been a bigger movie star, someone who could have been in the sexy/sassy comedienne ranks with Ginger Rogers and Jean Harlow. While her honest and unflinching autobiography is justly credited with raising public awareness about alcoholism and Alcoholics Anonymous, it’s really too bad that she’s more famous for beating her addiction (and having Susan Hayward portray her) than for her talent.

Madam Satan has kicked off a Pre-Code spurt in my movie watching these days (as I write this, Night Nurse, Ladies They Talk About, Two Seconds, and The Divorcee are on my desk waiting to be devoured), so I’m excited to see that Turner Classic Movies is featuring Pre-Code goddesses Ann Dvorak and Joan Blondell in their Summer Under the Stars tributes on August 9th and August 24th, respectively.

On Ann Dvorak day, Scarface and Three on a Match are must-sees, of course, both two of the defining films of the Pre-Code era. Three on a Match, in fact, is still quite shocking, and Dvorak’s performance as a drug addicted woman is stunning and unshakable. I’m also excited for The Crowd Roars (1932), a Howard Hawks film I’ve never seen before, starring Dvorak and Jimmy Cagney as a fearless race car driver. Continue reading Classic Movie Journal: Lillian Roth, Fragments of Lost Films, and a Brand New Silent Movie!

4th of July Classic Cinema Obsession: An American in Paris

By Jennifer Baldwin. I’ve been thinking lately about how art is often more “real” to me than real life. As Truffaut said: “I have always preferred the reflection of life to life itself.” One of the reasons I spend so much time watching movies, in fact, is because after I’ve watched a good movie I feel renewed. Beautiful art has that ability to renew and enliven the spirit. Highbrow, lowbrow, middlebrow – to me it really doesn’t matter as long as I get that kick of delirious pleasure.

An American in Paris gives me that kick. It’s everything that’s great about mid-century American popular culture, fusing elements of high art with low art to create a joyful, exuberant experience. American pop art at its best is confident, playful, eclectic, improvisational, and spontaneous. It has energy and rhythm, a freewheeling delight in its own creativity. An American in Paris, at its heart, is about our relationship to art, about our desire to be renewed and enlivened by it. Continue reading 4th of July Classic Cinema Obsession: An American in Paris