My gal pals have never seen Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot so we went to go watch it at the infamous Cinespia! Some Like It Hot must be Wilder's most popular and beloved film. It was certainly my first film of his and it's undeniably one of the most funny and witty films I've ever seen. We ate our favorite snacks, snuggled up with some blankets, and laughed for days! That last line in the film is one that will forever be engrained in my memory for life. It's a classic!
T.E. Lawrence: A thousand Arabs means a thousand knives, delivered anywhere day or night. It means a thousand camels. That means a thousand packs of high explosives and a thousand crack rifles. We can cross Arabia while Johnny Turk is still turning round, and smash his railways. And while he's mending them, I'll smash them somewhere else. In thirteen weeks, I can have Arabia in chaos.
The Girl: Your imagination! You think every girl's a dope. You think a girl goes to a party and there's some guy in a fancy striped vest strutting around giving you that I'm-so-handsome-you-can't-resist-me look. From this she's supposed to fall flat on her face. Well, she doesn't fall on her face. But there's another guy in the room, over in the corner. Maybe he's nervous and shy and perspiring a little. First, you look past him. But then you sense that he's gentle and kind and worried. That he'll be tender with you, nice, and sweet. That's what's really exciting.
Hildy Johnson: I suppose I proposed to you? Walter Burns: Well, you practically did, making goo-goo eyes at me for two years until I broke down.
[impersonates Hildy, flutters his eyelashes] Walter Burns: "Oh, Walter." And I still claim I was tight the night I proposed to you. If you had been a gentleman, you would have forgotten all about it. But Not you! Hildy Johnson: [hurls her purse at him] Why, you - ! Walter Burns: [ducks and her purse barely misses him] You're losing your eye. You used to be able to pitch better than that.
Rhett Butler: No, I don't think I will kiss you, although you need kissing, badly. That's what's wrong with you. You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how.
Stanley Kubrick's sophomore feature Killer's Kiss displays the first layer of the strikingly visual blueprint of his iconic film styles, foreshadowing the unparalleled and multi-faceted films of a future brilliant auteur. Killer's Kiss is a simple film noir that outshines it's usual mold by the uncharacteristically naturalistic and stylistically immersive depiction of a Boxer Davy Gordon (Jamie Smith) who falls in love with nightclub dancer, Gloria Price (Irene Kane). They make plans to leave New York City but Gloria is lusted after her ex-employer, Vince Rapallo (Frank Silvera) who won't take no for an answer. With a measly budget of 40,000 that Kubrick borrowed from his uncle, this black and white film noir was shot mostly at night and on location. Like a documentary, the events unfold with uncanny realism on the rugged and bustling streets of the New York night. It is clear that Martin Scorsese took some points from Kubrick when shooting Raging Bull(1980) as Kubrick pulled the audience from their secure seats and into the chaotic and freewheeling ring, letting the audience get knocked and bruised right next to the boxer. Kubrick lets the camera run free in his usual iconic voyeuristic style but in a warm-up fashion, penetrating into the confort zones of these two characters to reveal their most withheld secrets and insecurities. The story doesn't go any deeper than two men fighting over a woman but it is the elegantly unique and distinct eye of Kubrick that creates unlikely depth to this simple story. B-
Kitty Weaver: Am I really doing this? Me, Kitty Weaver? Secretary to the PTA? Den mother to the cub scouts? Am I really going to San Francisco to spend the weekend... with the husband of my best friend?
Planet of the Apes is a brilliant piece of science fiction that analyzes the evolution of man with intricacy that it's no wonder it's been remade and rebooted so many times. Based on the 1963 French novel of the same name by Pierre Boulle--it is a timeless story of a space explorer George Taylor, (Heston) who crash lands on a foreign planet only to discover that apes can talk, think, and reason. This barren planet comes to life when he encounters humans that are seemingly disguised as inarticulate primates who are treated like animals. During the Ape's manhunt, Taylor and his men get jumbled into their pursuit and eventually Taylor gets shot in the throat and captured. Without the power of his voice, the apes treat him like a savage strapping his neck and hands in chains like an uncontrollable beast. But when the ape leader Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans) discovers that Taylor, nicknamed Bright Eyes, can speak, he reacts in horror and deems that he is a freak of nature who must be executed. Sympathetic ape scientists Cornelius (McDowell) and animal psychologist, Dr. Zira (Hunter) risk their lives to save Taylor and uncover the truth of his existence.
The film is an astounding and mesmerizing look of what occurs if the roles of the revolution of man was reversed and if apes obtained the power of speech while man's growth regressed into a primate state. I already watched Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) that gave insight to the beginning and reason to ecelerate development of the apes' but without the prequel, Planet of the Apes doesn't give an explanation to why our distant ancestors have now become the superior evolutionary being. The film forces the audience to examine the definition of man and our environment as a whole. Without speech and reasoning, humans are nothing but savages who express their shortcoming only through anger. Taylor is boiling with frustration as he tries to communicate with Dr. Zira through the means of writing in sand or sounding out words. Although the apes have evolved into talking, thinking, and reasoning beings, their inability to see beyond their ignorance is their downfall. Except Dr. Zaius, who uses his ignorance to shield Taylor and his fellow apes in discovering the meaning of their true existence. While Cornelius and Dr. Zira are trying to progress the evolution of man, Dr. Zaius' lack of action and acknowledgement retracts their advancement as superior animal and beings, ironically to a form less than man.
Hands down, this film is one of the first and best twist in film history. The film stick to your bones, rattling your brain, searching for any clue to the apes' uprising. When the story doesn't throw you a bone, it substitutes it with a twist so grand, if I didn't already know the ending, I would have thrown my hands up in the air too and screamed "Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!" Heston continues his streak of playing the archetypal heroin with conviction and poise even in his barbaric state that helps him effortlessly carry the film on his shoulder. For a film that got rebooted, franchised, and remade too many times to count, the film has come a long way from it's golden days of on location shooting and natural lighting. With Tim Burton's failed attempt (which I need to re-watch!) and 2011's The Rise of the Planet of the Apes, I hope this humanistic story never dies. But no matter how many times the story gets mashed and molded anew, Planet of the Apes is a timeless adventure tale that is nicely paced, unrelentingly entertaining, and most importantly, philosophical about what it truly means to be a man. B+
When people think of classic horror films, two things come to mind: Dracula and Bela Lugosi. Horror films wouldn't be what it is today without these two crucial elements that forever changed the era and genre. Living in this kind of digital age where music is used to create suspense and the accompaniment of CGI is wholly prevalent and a necessity, Dracula comes off as bleak and minimalistic. But in this simplicity, the film does something that most horror films attempt and fail to do today, which is ignite tension and anxiety with just a glare. Bela Lugosi is Count Dracula, he lives in a remote castle in Translyvania with his three wives. Renfield (Dwight Frye) is an English real estate agent that visits Transylvania and desperate enough to make a sale, disregards the rumors the townspeople have told him about Count Dracula. Renfield is greeted with uneasy hospitality which ends with him passing out from the "wine." Aboard the boat route to England, Renfield is now a raving lunatic and a slave to Dracula. When the ship arrives, Renfield is discovered to be the only living person in it, where he is then sent to Dr. Seward's sanatorium. Meanwhile, Dracula begins to prey upon a young women name Mina.
Dracula is based on the stage play of the same name by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston, which is based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. Tod Browning had a solid reputation as a silent film director and never totally felt confortable with sound films. Even though Dracula was filmed with sound, the shots and style of the film stream along like a silent film, employing shots of extended period of silence, intertitles, and dramatic close-ups. Dracula had a major influence by it's predecessor F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922). It is Lugosi's uncanny and powerful presence as Dracula that leaves a lasting impression on it's audience. And what I mean by an lasting impression is as in more than a hundred years! His momentary stares and glances prolong and persist long enough that forces you to lose the staring contest due to sheer uneasiness. It doesn't hurt that he didn't know how to speak English during the filming of Dracula that contributed to his ghoulish speech pattern. The film floats on in an eternal eerie atmosphere that creeps it's hands around your neck and stays there to forever haunt you. The classic naturally has flaws but as a milestone of horror films, those minor errors are permissible.
