R.I.P. Dennis Hopper

Dennis Hopper was a true original, a radical Maverick with a capital "M". He could be quiet and brooding, or over the top and down right weird, but he was always interesting.

Hopper was a direct link between new and old Hollywood, having small parts in some pretty classic films of the 50s like "Rebel Without a Cause" and "Giant", both with James Dean.

In that magical year of 1969, Hopper helped ring in a new era of cinema with his youthful "Easy Rider" which crashed the Cannes party that year.

In later years he was Marlon Brando's wacked out disciple in "Apocalypse Now", Gene Hackman's drunk but loyal assistant coach in "Hoosiers" (His only Oscar Nomination), and of course Frank Booth in David Lynch's "Blue Velvet".

By the time the 90s came around, Hopper was the go-to villain in blockbusters such as "Waterworld" and "Speed". He balanced that with edgy indie movies like "Red Rock West", and "True Romance".

Hopper always was a powerhouse, even when he was reduced to appear in shit, he often made in more appealing. let's not forget his accomplishments as a director, choosing tough projects that no one else would do or would ever do.

Hopper was an individual and a hell of an artist, he will be missed.

40 Inspirational Speeches in 2 Minutes

It Happened One Night

"It Happened One Night" is one of those films that even if you haven't seen it, you'd swear that you have, it has that certain familiarity to it. It has scenes such as "The Walls of Jericho", or "The Hitchhiking" scene that have been re-done, or paid homage to in countless other films, it's like they have always existed. But there is always an original, and like most, the original is the true classic, and the one that remains the most true, the most fun, and the most charming.

To describe the basic plot of "It Happened One Night" is to describe any other romantic comedy that came after it. A runaway heiress escapes her father in order to marry the man she loves, one the way to meet him, she runs into a newspaper reporter who wants nothing more than to write a story about her. She hates him, he hates her, but in the end you know they are going to end up together.

The heiress in this film is played by Claudette Colbert, and the reporter is played by Clark Gable. The two won Oscars for their performances, and you can sense by their chemistry that one made the other look better and vise versa. Their on-screen relationship is a true partnership, they are the heart and soul of it. The film is really a series of misadventures they share, and how they fall in love in the process, it's as simple as that.

Colbert's character Ellie Andrews is seen as a spoiled rich girl in the beginning, who disobeys her father by running off to be with the man she loves. This man is a famous aviator who is described by everyone but Ellie as a phony. Gable's character is Peter Warne, a man of principle, who is very down to Earth and sees Ellie as nothing but a "brat" which he calls her on more than one occasion. In order to hide from Ellie's father, she and Peter pose as a married couple to most places they know. This requires them to share a motel room where "The Walls of Jericho" come into play. This is where Peter ties a rope between his bed and Ellie's then throws a blanket over it so they don't see eachother undressing. This gesture is both a funny and truthful example of Peter and Ellie's relationship, and soon the walls must tumble.

"It Happened One Night" remains a touchtone in romantic comedies, it is sometimes regarded as the first of its kind although that's not necessarily true. What I do know is this is a film that got it right, it still remains fresh and modern to this day. The difference between "It Happened One Night" and the romantic comedies being made today is simple: you can actually see these two characters gradually falling in love with one another. The comedy is never broad, I found it to come from situations that seemed real such as the wonderful hitchhiking scene which is really a wonderful compact comedic moment where Gable tries to show Colbert the right way to hitchhike, when it is in fact she who has the fool proof way.

"It Happened One Night" was directed by Frank Capra, who had a knack for putting in the right amount of humanity in his films, and you can really see that in a lot of the scenes, which make you fall in love with these characters even more. However Capra had a great and unique sense of humour, they were always based on character traits and motivations, it all rings so true. The film would be the first of only three to win all five major Academy Awards, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay, you can sort of tell by that just how irresistible this it was back then.

"It Happened One Night" holds up as a classic because it never seems old, I've watched it since I was a kid and the characters and situations always seem new to me, even though I can probably recite the film line by line. The romantic comedy is a dying breed these days. that's because they have taken scenarios like this film and stripped it of its essence. The elements are always there but the magic isn't, "It Happened One Night" keeps its magic by remaining so effortless, and charming, it's hard not to fall in love with it.

Barton Fink

"I'll show you the life of the mind!" (Charlie Meadows)

I'm not gonna pretend to know everything there is to know about "Barton Fink", sometimes a great movie can reveal only what it should, the rest is a mystery. This is the kind of effect "Barton Fink" has on me when I watch it, a film that begins as it should and ends as it should, even though you're not quite sure what it all means. This is called ambiguity, it leaves a lot of questions open and unanswered, perhaps for you to ponder, I wish more films had the courage to do this.

"Barton Fink" was the fourth film from Joel and Ethan Coen, made in 1991, it swept the Cannes Film Festival that year going home with awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor. Up to this time, this was probably the most complex and I would say personal film the brothers had made.

Barton Fink (John Turturro) is a playwright, he's been deemed a new and important voice in the theatre world in 1941. The film opens with his first real success on Broadway which wows the critics. Barton doesn't quite know what to make of this new found success, he finds it best to believe to not listen to what the critics have to say and just write what he feels is important. He has ambitions that his writing could usher in a new type of theatre full of realism, and a new focus on the common man, however his plans change when Hollywood beckons.

Barton decides to take a contract with a studio company. The studio's head is Jack Lipnick (Oscar nominee Michael Lerner), a man who talks fast and gets business done, yet he has no eye for talent really. He hasn't even seen Barton's play, but heard it was a success, so he puts Barton to work on a Wallace Beery wrestling picture. Lipnick wants it to have that certain "Barton Fink feel".

It becomes obvious that Barton has indeed been given the job of writing for a B-movie. He moves into The Hotel Earl, one of the most imaginative and strange hotels in all of movies. Barton's room is rundown, with walls that keep becoming unglued, and a mosquito that gives him some vicious bites every night. There only seems to be two people who work at the hotel, there's the always helpful front desk boy Chet (Steve Buscemi) and an elevator operator who seems to just sits there motionless.

But Barton also has a neighbour Charlie Meadows (John Goodman), a very neighborly guy with a very down home feel to him who sells insurance. Charlie comes off as the exact guy who Barton wants to write about, the common man, it isn't long before the two become friends.

Throughout the film, Barton is continuing to suffer from writer's block, only having the opening scene of the film, he looks for help from a celebrated novelist W.P. Mayhew (John Mahoney) and his assistant (Judy Davies) on where to get started, but even that becomes a disappointment when he discovers Mayhew is nothing but a drunk. As the film goes on, Barton becomes more and more isolated, his hotel room becomes a living nightmare, and things start to happen to him that go beyond the unexplainable.

So what does "Barton Fink" really all mean? Some argue that this is the kind of film The Coens make just to confuse or isolate their viewers, that it is just them being too clever. What it really is, is the Coens being master filmmakers by not revealing too much. "Barton Fink" is about a lot of things, I think it's about a writer coping with fear. Fear of success, fear of failure, fear of compromise, and fear that what you thought was truth turns out to be an ugly lie.

Barton is very much a flawed character, he's a man battling his own demons inside, he believes writing comes from a great pain, but he's also someone who is not aware of what is going on around him. He's caught up in his noble persuit as a writer, he can't make sense of the reality surrounding him. Practically everyone Barton encounters in this film is a phony, particularly his good friend Charlie who we find out carries a disturbing secret. Barton cannot comprehend reality yet he feels he can write about it, I suppose it's a writer's worst fears come true.

"Barton Fink" came at a golden age for The Coens, it was just after they finished another masterpiece "Miller's Crossing", and not too far behind their most popular film "Fargo". The success of the film at Cannes was a way to show this filmmakers had come into their own and even more success was on their way.

To this day, "Barton Fink" remains one of the Coens true masterpieces, it's a Gothic comedy come to life. I still wonder about it, it remains a mystery, and I'm sure it will continue to always be one to me as long as I keep exploring it.

Raising Arizona

"Raising Arizona" is a film so far out of this world, it may be hard to believe it's a film with true insight in what it takes to make a working American family. The characters are so wild, and the situations are so extreme, but they all have their place within the point being made by its filmmakers.

"Raising Arizona" was the second film directed by the filmmaking wunderkinds The Coen Brothers, and it was also their first in a long line of highly original screwball comedies.

The story is about Hi (Nicholas Cage)a convenient store robber who is multiple times convicted, and Ed (Holly Hunter) the police woman photographer who he meets everytime he's arrested and she has to take his picture. The two fall in love and get married, Hi swears to go straight, and things go well for the first little bit, that is until Ed decides she needs a baby. After attempting to conceive themselves, they find out Ed is barren, but like a miracle, they see on the news one day that a millionaire furniture salesman and his wife have given birth to quintuplets. Hi and Ed take the logical step and decide to steal one of the quints, because like Ed observes "They got more than they can handle".

The plan seems so simple for Hi and Ed, and so logical. Sure the mother will be upset, but she'll get over it. Hi and Ed are optimistic, they are living in a fool's paradise, where nothing could go wrong. Of course, thing's obviously go wrong.

Pretty soon, Hi's jail mates (John Goodman and William Forsythe) break out of jail. They want to hide out in Hi and Ed's place, which Ed is not very pleased with. It isn't too long before the baby's parents find out they're missing one and soon a deadly manhunter is on their trail.

All these screwball elements are in place, and The Coens have fun leading the viewer around by their nose. The plot is very unpredictable and unconventional, I often wonder why critics of the Coens don't appreciate this more.

At first, it may be hard to follow a story concerning people who are strange beyond belief, Cage's character even has a tattoo of Woody Woodpecker as if to say he was inspired by a cartoon. However within all this craziness, The Coens hit on a real truth. They don't really judge Hi and Ed, in fact they are the ones who gets the most sympathy in the film. In many ways, they are made out to be the victims of this film, who only resort to crime after society deems them unworthy to have a baby.

An interesting scene comes up when Hi and Ed entertain a so-called normal couple. They are Hi's boss Glen (Sam McMurray) and his wife Dot (Frances McDormand). The Coens do a 360 when this couple comes along, they are perceived by society as a normal family, but we soon learn that they are much more immoral than Hi and Ed, it is a grotesque picture indeed.

The film ends surprisingly on a note of cautious optimism as Hi, the narrator of the story recounts a dream. In the dream, we see a hypothetical conclusion with Hi and Ed growing old and having the family they had hoped for. There are other happy endings for the other characters in the film, but we are left to wonder if this is again a fool's paradise.

"Raising Arizona" is probably my favorite of The Coen Brothers' comedies, it's very unconventional and goes towards the absurd to get to their point. It's broad and screwball and I don't understand why more people don't embrace it like they do with the older comedies that were also broad, screwball, and unpredictable.

The Coens have a distinct style that has served them well over the years, and it's in vein to preach to the non-converted, but their films remain more and more interesting each time I view them. A main criticism that is heard about their films it they only seem to make fun of their characters and have no real sympathy towards them. If you look at the situation Hi and Ed are in, it could be said that under different hands, they could've come off as unlikable, but The Coens make us care for them, and they turn out to be two of the most lovable characters in their entire oeuvre. Credit can also go to Cage and Hunter who find the humanity in their far out roles. Even Cage with his wacky hair and wired facial expressions can make you feel a little sorry for this man who's trying to do his best to do good for his family.

"Raising Arizona" is a film that asks you to take a leap of faith, and if you do, the rewards are their in high doses. The Coens have concocted a screwball masterpiece, it's flamboyant, unsubtle, and maybe a little crude at times, but in it's own dark way, it is also heartwarming and poignant. There's something endearing about Hi and Ed and their situation, they're good people who society has ruled as outcasts, much like The Coens themselves, it may be a wishful thinking, they could find acceptance with everybody.

Late Spring

Yasujiro Ozu's "Late Spring" ranks as one of the great director's masterpieces, to me it has become as familiar as an old shoe. I no longer turn on "Late Spring" to look for intricacies of the plot, although there is always something I find surprising about it. I now watch it as a form of comfort, as I do with practically every Ozu film. There is something always soothing about his movies, even the sad ones, they deal with life in a way that isn't devastating, but only as something that is. Ozu's films have to do very much with the passage of time, how things exist in the present, but are soon gone.

"Late Spring" is one of the many films Ozu made about a daughter who must marry, and how her leaving effects the family. In this case, the family only consists of the widowed father, who coaxes her into marrying for fear that she may end up alone. The daughter on the other hand prefers life with her father, but he knows he won't be around forever.

Of all the films Ozu made about a girl being married off, thus leaving her family, "Late Spring" remains the great director's most poignant, even more so as the actors playing the father and daughter are Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara. These two stars made a name for themselves particularly in Ozu's films, and they would often play a father daughter.

Hara plays Noriko, a young woman who is 27 year old single woman, at her age, she is considered to be getting on in years and is encouraged to find a husband before she becomes an old maid. However, she is content with life, she enjoys looking after he father and being there for him. The father also seems content with this, the thought of marrying her off doesn't even occur to him, until it is suggested by Noriko's Aunt. The Aunt soon finds a prospect for Noriko, he's a man we never see in the film, but is described as resembling Gary Cooper. Ozu never makes this film about the man or the impending marriage, this is a story about a father and daughter having to give up their life because society demands it.

Had no one interfered with their lives, the father and Noriko probably would've continued living their own way. This is really a tragedy seeing this happen, but as Ozu reminds us, this is the way life is. In the final speech delivered by the father to the daughter, he talks about marriage not being about happiness, but about finding your own happiness within it. The speech is not a ringing endorsement about marriage, it culminates with him talking about when he married Noriko's mother, and she spent their wedding night in tears. However the point is clear, life is about change, and we must accept it.

Watching "Late Spring" again, I saw something I hadn't even noticed before, or at least something that hadn't even occurred to me. It's in the way Ozu films an empty space, which wasn't a new idea for him. There's something quietly moving about how he shows a person fill a space and then exit, he leaves the camera on the empty space once they are gone, as if you're almost expecting something to come along and fill this void. One such instance comes when Noriko is sitting by a mirror by herself, she is happy flipping what looks to be a cloth on her hand, talking to her father and a friend of his. Suddenly for no apparent reason, she gets up and leaves, suddenly the space she occupied is left empty, and soon everywhere the father looks in his house will be nothing but empty space.

The final image of the father is among Ozu's saddest shots he ever filmed, which makes it one of the saddest shots in the history of cinema, it is of the father after marrying off his daughter, alone in his house peeling an apple. When he finishes the peel, a look of great sadness comes over him as he is will fill the remainder of his life alone.

Like "Tokyo Story", "Late Spring" is a film about life, and because it is about life it isn't all sadness, but about joy, humour, compassion, and humanity. The reason I love Ozu is because his characters are so human, I turn them on because they are like friends, and you see their lives unfold in front of you. Ozu cares deeply for these characters and these situations, they're problems may sound trivial, but in Ozu's hands they become universal and transcendent.

I have yet to see another director like Ozu who can make the mundane seem so poetic, or can turn the smallest situation into such an important film, I said it before and I'll say it again, to see his films, is to see life unfold in front of you.

Tokyo Story

Shukichi: Look how big Tokyo is.

Tomi: Yes isn't it. If we got lost, we may never find eachother again.

Time and time again, I am drawn to "Tokyo Story". When I revisit it, it's like going to see an old friend, a calming friend who can take away my anxieties, and lets me live in peace for a few hours.

It's been awhile since I have written anything about "Tokyo Story", for those of you loyal to this blog since its very beginning, you should know how high I regard this masterpiece. I turn to this film at least twice a year, I turn to its director Yasujiro Ozu almost constantly.

In my mind Ozu was a master, and for me the greatest of all filmmakers. Ozu's unique style challenged and renewed my whole perception of cinema. No one has made a film, or can make a film quite like Ozu. I feel if you dared to try, you would only fail. Ozu liked to strip down his films to the bare essentials, keeping his story and his characters purposely within the world of the mundane, (It has been said, you could sum up the plot of an Ozu film with just one sentence). Although his situations could've been exploited for the use of melodrama, Ozu rarely went down that road, he stuck with the realism within the situation, that's why there is rarely a false note within his films.

As his theme, Ozu mainly stuck with one subject, the family in dissolution, and "Tokyo Story" is the best that represents this. It's the story of an elderly couple named Shukichi and Tomi who travel to Tokyo to see their children. At the beginning, we get the sense that Shukichi and Tomi don't get to see their children all that much anymore, and this visit may very well be the last chance they get to see them.

When they arrive, they stay with their son, who is a neighbourhood doctor, he isn't very successful, but he has a family of his own with a wife and two kids. The parent's visit eventually become a bit of an inconvenience. One of the children is unhappy to give up his room for them to stay in, then the son must cancel their outing one Sunday due to a sick patient.

Later the couple stay with their daughter, who runs a beauty salon, again they become a burden to her daily life, and she decides to turn them over to their daughter-in-law Noriko (the beaming Setsuko Hara). Noriko was married to the couple's son who was killed in the war, yet it is she, and not their blood relatives who shows Shukichi and Tomi the most compassion.

The couple soon become too much of an inconvenience for the children to handle, so they are sent to a spa. As if like a bad joke, the spa isn't at all relaxing, with noisy occupants making it unbearable. The couple soon decide to leave for home early, only then do we discover with the slightest of tremors, something isn't right.

"Tokyo Story" is a rewarding film, it touches on so many things that are universal, you can only start to understand it after multiple viewings. This is a story about family, it could be any family anywhere, it's about our hopes, and our disappointments, and about our missed chances and opportunities. This is a profoundly sad film, but it is also a life affirming one. Life is full of disappointments, but Ozu shows with the gentle compassion of his characters that it is also full of humanity, and that's a beautiful thing.

When I first saw "Tokyo Story", I proclaimed to myself that this was the way movies should be made. I thought for the first time, I had actually seen life as it really was, depicted on screen. I had this personal bias for a long time, especially as I was discovering more of Ozu's films, it felt as if I had just seen my very first real movie, it was exciting.

To paraphrase something Roger Ebert said about Ozu, "all movie lovers eventually make their way to his films." For me that's just what it was for me, I had just finished film school thinking I had seen everything, and suddenly I came to Ozu, and "Tokyo Story", and a whole new chapter in my life began. I think if there was a film I would want to share to the world, it would be this one, for I would want them to feel the same way I did when I first saw it, and hopefully you would.

Superman Returns

Does the world need Superman? That's one of the questions posed in Bryan Singer's majestic, and often unfairly maligned super hero movie "Superman Returns".

"Superman Returns" is often cited as a box office failure, with a cool critical reception. It was low on action, and slow on story, in many people's minds, it dies a quick death. For the record, it was critically acclaimed for the most part and did make all its money back. It may not have been the box office darling the studio was hoping for, but let's try to forget for a moment that dollars mean anything.

With this film, Singer goes back to where Richard Donner left off with his original "Superman", (which in my mind is still the best super hero movie ever made). Superman (Brandon Routh an uncanny double for Christopher Reeve) has been gone for five years, abandoning his post as Earth's hero to go out and find any remnants of his home planet of Krypton. When he comes back, he finds the world in rough shape with war, death, and crime still running rampant. As Clark Kent, he comes back to his job as mild mannered reporter to find his sidekick Jimmy Olsen (Sam Huntington) still the same go-getter and his boss Perry White (Frank Langella) still the same hard-nosed boss. However Clark has discovered his one and only true love Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) has moved on without him. She is now engaged to Perry's nephew, has a new son, and if that wasn't enough, is about to win the Pulitzer Prize for an article entitled "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman".

To top things off, The Man of Steel's arch enemy Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) is out and about stealing crystals from Superman's Fortress of Solitude in order to create his own tropical paradise, and just so the man in blue won't be knocking he's sprinkled a little krytonite into the mix.

"Superman Returns" brings a heavy weight on its shoulders, and Bryan Singer must've known this. This film was an attempt to bring the most recognizable super hero back into movie theatres after a long absence. Since the last "Superman" film with Christopher Reeve, the movie climate changed. Tim Burton went on to make the stylistically noirish "Batman" and "Batman Returns". Singer himself, joined in when he made "X-Men", the the ball really dropped when "Spiderman" came on the scene, followed by Christopher Nolan's "Batman Begins" which jump started a new film series.
Super heroes were soon to be seen all over, and they became their own genre. Of course, Superman, the one that started it all could not be left in the dust.

Much of "Superman Returns" is about what makes Superman so great, why we love him, and why he's really the superest of the super heroes. Bryan Singer obviously felt an influence towards Donner's earlier film. Aspects of the original film can be found all over this one, right down to having Marlon Brando come back in a cameo as Jor-El.

Also like the original, the Superman as Christ allegory is used, even more so than before. Superman is often seen high in the sky, looking down as an omnipotent being. One of the most astonishing images is him above the Earth, being able to hear everything and everyone down below. In the film, Superman is often regarded as a "Saviour", so perhaps Singer is asking a more spiritual question than "Does the world need Superman?". Maybe, although perhaps he might not be totally successful, I admire Singer for actually making the attempt to draw on religion in a super hero film.

As I look at "Superman Returns", I see a film that struggles to be something more than what it is, and that takes guts to do. It doesn't become stuck in its conventions of it's genre like so many other less memorable super hero movies are. There are moments of true poetry and majesty in the way we see Superman's world through his eyes, this was something even the Donner film didn't even do as well. Many of the images are vivid such as Superman's spying on Lois as she goes into the elevator. She is elevated in his eyes as the doors are removed with his see-through vision, and it looks as if she is ascending like an Angel, it's quite romantic if you think about it.

Singer tries a lot with "Superman Returns", and I would say most of it works, there are things in it that no one has ever tried in a super hero movie, in my mind, it's the best of the modern ones.

It's a shame "Superman Returns" has gotten the reputation by fans and studio execs as a failure, it's really a great movie with more going for it than most other mainstream films even try to attempt. It's been reported that Christopher Nolan has taken over the "Superman" franchise as a producer, in order to update the character for a new audience. What Nolan and his collaborators have in mind I don't know, but it shouldn't diminish the pure cinematic experience of Singer's version, he had more going on than meets the eye, he attempted something beyond its genre trappings and made a memorable film in my mind.

Dirty Harry

To look at "Dirty Harry" today is like looking at a time capsule, it evokes a simpler past in movies, where things such as consequences for your actions weren't examined as much as they are now. Clint Eastwood's Harry Calaghan is an iconic character where he comes in to get the job done. Harry lives in a world where police and politicians cower under bureaucracy and red tape. They are too by the book, they fall under submission to a sick serial killer, while Harry is the only one who stands for the victims of his heinous crimes.

"Dirty Harry" isn't the kind of crime film to deconstruct, or analyze too in depth, it has an agenda and isn't subtle about it, sometimes a man like Harry Calaghan is necessary. This is a revenge film, about a vigilante cop who listens only to his own code and conscience, to hell with the red tape, if it takes a .44 magnum to get a creep off the streets, he's going to do it.

The plot of "Dirty Harry" is ripped right off the headlines, inspired by the Zodiac killer of the time. In the film the killer calls himself Scorpio, he's a sniper who in the beginning of the film shoots a woman swimming in her pool from a rooftop. He sends a threatening letter to the mayor of San Francisco asking for a sum of $20,000 or he will kill again. Harry is assigned to the case, he's tough no-nonsense, he disagrees when The Mayor decides to play Scorpio's game and collects him money. It's not long before Harry goes after the killer his own way, knowing full well the only way to get this guy is to get him off the streets, permanently.

When first released, "Dirty Harry" came under some fire politically, it looked to promote vigilantism and anarchy in the police force. You could say it does that, but that is also why Harry is such a compelling and charismatic character. To me he resembles much of John Wayne's character Ethan Edwards in "The Searchers", both men are loners who don't seem compatible with the world around them, both are driven by revenge out of a loved one they have lost, and both represent a certain bleak aspect of the tough guy male. "The Searcher" is far more complex and I would say hopeful in showing that such a character can find some redemption and peace in the end, while "Dirty Harry" finishes with its character with even more contempt and bitterness than he had at the beginning. In a reference to the western "High Noon", Harry chucks his police badge into the river and walks off screen, is blunt.

Since "Dirty Harry" came out, a new special brand of action hero was born, and was done to death pretty much in the 80s. Action stars like the Stallone's Schwartchengger's, and the Willis' created indestructible action heroes who's sole purpose seemed to be running down a bunch of bad guys and leaving leaving a slew of dead bodies in their wake. In the inevitable sequels, Harry Calaghan couldn't help but become somewhat of an aged dinosaur, and like all characters who refuse to change, the world did grow up around him.

Clint Eastwood must've known this when he made "Gran Torino" a couple of years ago, which many considered to be an elegy to his "Dirty Harry" character. In it Eastwood plays an aging man of action of sorts who protects a family from gang violence. Eastwood let his character end on a note of sensitivity and integrity, he was the man who played Harry Calaghan and he was a filmmaker who understood the complexity behind that kind of man better than anyone else.

"Dirty Harry" remains an interesting film, it's not only a top notch crime drama, but an interesting character study. Despite what you think of Harry's actions, he remains a pivotal archetype in film, there will always be a need for him, and sometimes that could be a good thing.

The Thin Man

"The Thin Man" belongs to the annals of golden age cinema, that type of cinema that is now lost to us, the one where they say, "They don't make 'em like they used to". We search desperately for a film that is as witty, and as entertaining as "The Thin Man", but it is all in vein, for there will never be another Nick and Norah Charles, so why bother to try?

"The Thin Man" is a cheer up film for me, I may not be down or depressed when I view it, but no matter how I'm feeling, it makes me feel better than I was before. There is no trick as to why it makes me feel this way, it's designed to do it, that's what movies from the 30s were supposed to. They may have been going through a depression, but at least they didn't have to worry about feeling bad when going to the movies.

"The Thin Man" has a bit of a legendary history, it was made on a B-movie budget, it was directed by W.S. Van Dyke, a man known as "One take Woody", yet despite all it had against it, it became a classic. This is mostly because of William Powell as Nick Charles and Myrna Loy as his wife Norah. The film became so successful, its two stars went on to make five more "Thin Man" sequels.

The plot is a goody convoluted detective story based on the book by hard boiled novelist Dashiell Hammett (He wrote "The Maltese Falcon" among others). It concerns the disappearance of a temperamental scientist who had many enemies. When many of those enemies end up dead, the trail leads back to the scientist. Nick Charles is a former detective brought in reluctantly to help with the case, he's retired now and his wife is rich so he would much rather spend his time spending her money and drinking her liquor.

The suspects are all colorful and suspicious, you have the scientist's estranged ex-wife, his book keeper who was a former jailbird, a stool pigeon for the cops, and his lawyer among others. The only climax that fits in this screwball murder farce is to bring all the suspects together in an elegant dinner party hosted by Nick and Norah.

You can't really say "The Thin Man" belongs to the film noir element, even though there are a number of murders, much of it takes place in dark spaces, and its hero is a hard boiled, hard drinking detective. "The Thin Man" doesn't belong in film noir, because it doesn't wallow in despair, it's light, it's funny, murder is used mostly as a plot device to drive the story forward. What we have here is a comedy, dependant upon the repartee of its two stars. "The Thin Man" wouldn't be the classic it is today if it weren't for William Powell and Myrna Loy. Along with "The Thin Man" films, the pair appeared in a number of films together including "The Great Ziegfeld", "Manhattan Melodrama", and "Libeled Lady", despite their many appearances, they aren't as fondly remembered as Tracey and Hepburn or Astaire and Rogers, and that's too bad.

I always found Powell and Loy to have a very playful relationship, and with Nick and Norah they have a nack for not taking things too seriously. Even when Nick is attacked by a shooter in their bedroom, he punches Norah in the face in order to remove her from any danger. She wakes up disappointed not having seen her husband defeat the bad guy.

In reality Nick and Norah would be poster children for alcoholic's anonymous, but their amount of drinking fits perfectly in movie reality. At times Nick appears tipsy, but he always remains clear, precise, and logical. As for Norah when she finds out Nick has drunk six martinis she quickly catches up with him. This never seems to be destructive behaviour since they themselves never become destructive, who are we to argue? It makes for a more entertaining film.

I'm not condoning alcoholism, obviously we all should take a step back and remind ourselves this is a movie. This is why Nick and Norah can never be again, they were never prudes, they always were themselves, and they are irresistible that way. If "The Thin Man" were to be remade today, I fear their drinking would be toned down, because today drunks can no longer be heroes, they must remain drunks. Nick and Norah would deplore any such remake.

I just finished watching "The Thin Man", and I feel better than I did two hours ago. I wasn't feeling particularly bad, but I'm happier now than I was, that's what "The Thin Man" can do, that's what Nick and Norah can do, that's what a really great movie can do. Do yourself a favour, watch "The Thin Man" and lighten up.