debarshithecinemaniac

The film covers nearly three decades in the life of American screenwriter and noted Communist Dalton Trumbo (the 1940s-70s), with the title character played impeccably by Bryan Cranston. But three decades of such a richly lived life is a bigger bite than most 2-hour movies can chew.  Trumbo was one of the Hollywood Ten, artists (mostly writers) connected with the Communist Party in 1947 refused to betray other comrades during the hearings of the Committee on Un-American Activities led by Senator Joseph McCarthy so they had to purge several months in prison and were prevented from working in the industry.   Trumbo’s friend Edward G. Robinson (Michael Stuhlbarg), who supports the cause, sells the Portrait of Père Tanguy to raise money for their legal defense fund. The unexpected death of Justice Wiley Rutledge ruins Trumbo’s plan to appeal to the Supreme Court. In 1950, Trumbo serves 11 months in Texarkana prison, where he meets former HUAC chairman J. Parnell Thomas, who was convicted of tax evasion.
An old-school Hollywood screenwriter who did a fair amount of his best work in the bath, typing with a glass of Scotch in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other, Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) was what they call a “card-carrying member of the Communist Party,” unafraid about his political views — which had earned him acclaim in the literary world as the author of “Johnny Got His Gun.” Trumbo attracted the attention of Los Angeles Times columnist Hedda Hopper, whose idea of patriotism involved abolishing the threat of communism in the industry. On the personal front, there’s wife Cleo (Diane Lane) and three kids — the oldest of whom we watch grow into a confident young woman (Elle Fanning). Then, in the ’50s, we are privileged with scenes of Trumbo’s professional relationship with Frank (John Goodman) and Herman King (Stephen Root), producers of hilariously titled B-movies that provided Dalton with a living undercover. And there are even more characters who come and go, including some famous faces like David James Elliott‘s John Wayne and Christian Berkel‘s Otto Preminger, who are more caricatures than characters, but still undoubtedly memorable.
The film shows the screenwriter’s professional evolution, from blacklisted Hollywood writer and face of the notorious “Hollywood 10,” to a thankless life of writing under fictional names and winning Academy Awards on the couch. McNamara’s screenplay is filled with mighty one-liners, which everyone’s clearly having fun with. Gems like “I’m a screenwriter; if I couldn’t write shit, I’d starve,” or Louis C.K.’s one-of-a-kind delivery of beauts like, “he’s trying to sell his soul, but he can’t find it.” At times, it almost becomes too many good lines too fast (like in most every scene featuring Goodman), which halts the film’s rhythm and leaves little breathing room.  Director Jay Roach knows a thing or three about entertaining audiences. He’s directed “Meet The Parents,” and the “Austin Powers” movies, but “Trumbo” is probably his best film, by virtue of association to the strongest ensemble he’s worked with, and an impeccable script. The film becomes particularly good once we enter the blacklisted segment of Trumbo’s career, when theatricality starts to take a backseat to a deeper insight into the egocentrical and self-righteous side of this man. He’s no longer just a cartoonish figure, chain-smoking in his bathtub, but a father screaming at his daughter on her birthday, a friend ignorant to the pain of others around him, and a husband bullying his wife out of arguments.
 

Charles Bronson is Paul Kersey, a New York architect whose wife is killed by a group of muggers ransacking their apartment, an attack that also leaves his daughter unconscious. He takes a job working for a land developer in New Mexico to get his mind off his troubles, and while there his long fascination with guns is revived when his client Ames Jainchill (Stuart Margolin) shows off his personal collection and lets him crack some shots off.  He also witnesses a mock gunfight at Old Tucson, a reconstructed Western frontier town used as a movie set. Kersey soon arrives back in New York. But the streets are still filled with thugs, and Kersey knows that Manhattan is not the best place to be at night. He discovers that Jainchill has given him a .32 revolver as a present, and subsequently uses it to kill a man trying to mug him. He begins deliberately to tempt muggers, whether in an alley, on a subway train, or in a park and that he mechanically guns them down.
This made him the ‘avenging angel,’ a true phantom ‘one-man crusade.’ In the eyes of the public, Bronson became a national figure—the vigilante. “Death Wish” was a highly controversial film when initially released. At the time, major cities were facing a deadly crime epidemic, and this film tapped into the fears and unspoken desires of many viewers, giving them a chance to live out their secret fantasies. Yet, it is undeniably compelling; one of these movies that makes you wonder, “what if this happened to me?”  Bronson is highly effective here; while not one of the great actors, he has a very strong screen presence. Vincent Gardenia is effective as the police detective assigned to his case. He unwillingly admires Kersey’s resolve, although he is sworn to put a stop to the killings. Rather than Bronson’s performance Death Wish has its significant themes and screenplay components which were used at almost every action/crime movie later on, thus became clichés of their genre.

Play Misty for Me is a 1971 American psychological thriller film, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, in his directorial debut with Jessica Walter and Donna Mills  as co-stars. The story-line was originally set in Los Angeles, but at Eastwood’s insistence, the film was shot in the more comfortable surroundings of the actual  Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.
The girl (Jessica Walter) calls up every night at about the same time and asks the disc jockey to play “Misty” for her. Some nights he does. He’s (Clint Eastwood) the all-night man on a small station in Carmel who plays records, reads poems, and hopes to make it someday in the big city. ” Later, he meets the woman at a bar he goes to often, and they go back to her house together and make love.   The next morning, he leaves, figuring it was just a one-night stand, but when he gets home, the woman, Evelyn Draper (Jessica Walter) shows up with groceries and starts to make herself at home. Dave decides to go with it, and later sees that his old girlfriend, Tobie Williams (Donna Mills), is back in town, and the two become close again. Evelyn begins stalking him through the middle part of the movie but don’t let that keep you away; she pops out when you least expect it. Even Eastwood’s friends and workers are not unsusceptible from her violence. Things get even worse when she damages his house and attacks his cleaning lady with a butcher’s knife. Evelyn’s admitted to a psychiatric hospital and this enables Dave to re-establish his relationship with Tobie Williams (Donna Mills). Tobie, who has recently returned to the Carmel area, is the woman he loves and their relationship develops well until further complications follow when Dave is told that Evelyn has been released from hospital. 

 

 
The acting performances are consistently very good in this movie but Jessica Walter is outstanding in a role that requires her to be ultra scary. Her capacity to fly into a rage at the flick of a switch is astonishingly good and the way in which she portrays the manipulative side of Evelyn’s character also works well. Clint’s smooth, late-night D.J. is powerless in the face of Jessica Walter’s stalker, as she sets out to turn their one night stand into a lasting, meaningful relationship. Eastwood is quoted as saying that he was unsure of how his directing debut would be received. He disguised himself and went to a theatre showing Play Misty For Me, where he was pleased at the audience’s frightened reactions.  With this film, he began a pattern of bringing his pictures in under budget and ahead of schedule. Departing from tradition Eastwood opts out using a musical score in keeping with traditional suspense thrillers. Play Misty for Me’ may feel more dated than the 70’s fashion in some areas, markedly the violent sequences which seem amateur in this day and age, but the excellent foundations in plot, script and acting mean the film remains a good watch some 40 years on.

Holiday is a 1938 film directed by George Cukor, a remake of the 1930 film of the same name. Set in New York, it stars Cary Grant as Johnny Case, an emerging businessman who is more concerned about making a career out of something he wants to do, and not what he should do in order to make money.  While he takes a holiday, he meets Julia Seton ( Doris Nolan), the two fall in love and go back to New York to tell Julia’s father. What he doesn’t know is that Julia comes from an extremely rich family, and while he is shocked and amused by the fact, he finds himself taken with the other members of Julia’s family; Linda Seton (Hepburn), Julia’s free-thinking and dramatic sister, and brother Ned Seton (Ayres) a kind but stern alcoholic.   He has a plan: save up a little money then retire young, experience the world and then, when he’s run out of money and has an idea of what he wants to do with his life, come back and go to work doing what he wants to do. Now all he has to do is explain it all to Julia. And to her father. And all while trying to deny the fact that he’s attracted to Linda.  Cukor takes a lighthearted approach to this story, which keeps it cheerful and entertaining, and he laces it with warmth and  humor that’ll give you some laughs and put a smile on your face.

 

But beyond all that, Cukor shows some real insight into human nature and the ways of the world. But what really makes this one special are the performances of Grant and Hepburn. Grant is as charming as ever, but just a bit looser and slightly less stylish than he is in most of his later roles. He bestows Johnny with youthful enthusiasm, good looks and personality, as well as a carefree yet responsible attitude that makes him someone you can’t help but like. And Hepburn fairly sparkles as Linda, a role she was born to play; this young woman filled with a zest for life and an indomitable spirit.
Like certain other comedies of its time, Holiday stands out due to its noteworthy serious streak in the midst of the comic funniness and silliness. The film’s underlying themes of rebelling against claustrophobic conformity and convention, the rejection of materialistic lifestyles and class struggles are particularly poignant in a current day context, as it becomes extremely clear how ahead of its time such messages and the film in general were.

 

 

When Willie Comes Marching Home is a 1950 World War II comedy film directed by John Ford and starring Dan Dailey and Corinne Calvet. The film begins in Punxsutawney, West Virginia.  Dan Dailey (William ‘Bill’ Kluggs) plays a brave guy who is the first in town to volunteer to go to war when WWII breaks out in America. The whole town sees him off. Willie tries to become a pilot but washes out. Although he proves to be so efficient at aerial gunnery that, he is made an instructor and assigned to a base near his hometown. While other boys go off to war, Kluggs becomes the local laughingstock. However, when a bomber pilot falls ill, Kluggs replaces him on a secret mission that will become his once-in-a-lifetime chance at a heroic destiny. Dailey is here at the top of his comic form. Mr. Dailey plays through this picture in a way that will make him everyone’s friend. Colleen Townsend and William Demarest are also good as his parents .Though it’s certainly a minor entry in the Ford oeuvre, it shows off his underestimated capacity for humor and warmth. During a fertile period of great westerns, John Ford also focused on war films, from a distance with dramatic comedy of manners.  It is this sub-genre in USA called “Small-Town Comedy. It mocks the stupid desire for heroism as assertiveness and social and family recognition in a small town.