The Circus (1928)

In The Circus Charlie Chaplin yet again demonstrates just why he is one of the most talented people to ever live. Chaplin was recognized as such for his work writing, directing and producing this film by the first Academy Awards in 1929. They bestowed upon him and honorary award "For versatility and genius in acting, writing, directing and producing The Circus". Chaplin also wrote the score, and sang the title song in the 1969 re-release.

Chaplin stars as his trademark character The Tramp. The circus is currently in town, and The Tramp is visiting. While he is standing watching a side show a pickpocket is doing his work. When the pickpocket is confronted, he slips the stolen wallet and watch into The Tramp's pocket. Later on, when The Tramp notices is spending some of his newfound wealth the wallet's original owner shows up and attempts to have The Tramp arrested. The Tramp flees, and the police officer chases after him through the circus in a bout of hilarity which is so humorous that the Ring Master (Al Ernest Garcia) offers him a job.

Since The Tramp has no job and no money, he accepts the Ring Master's offer and sets up a tryout for the following morning. Unfortunately since The Tramp was not intending to be funny when he was fleeing the law, he fails miserably at his audition and the job offer is revoked. But when the disgruntled property men quit, the Ring Master must find someone quick and the only man around is The Tramp. However every time The Tramp goes on stage to bring out a prop he fails and ends up flopping around and the crowd goes nuts with laughter. The Tramp has no idea, but he is the big draw to the shows and the big moneymaker for the circus.

The Circus then continues with comedic genius as The Tramp steals the show, falls for the girl (Ring Master's abused step-daughter played by Merna Kennedy) and fights the boss. This is really one of Chaplin's most underrated films. I personally enjoyed it more so than City Lights and almost as much as Modern Times. I certainly don't consider myself a Chaplin expert, but this movie is great. He not only comes up with a wonderful story of love and sacrifice, but he sustains a great amount of humor throughout the picture that is sure to bring a smile to anyone's face young and old, and at only 68 minutes long it's a much better hour spent than say watching an episode of CSI: Miami. Overall 3.5/4 Stars Grade = A

Free Money (1998)

I went in to Free Money thinking that it was going to be another bad comedy from the nineties, and I was actually quite pleasantly surprised. It’s really not that bad of a movie. Admittedly it is very dumb, and rather unoriginal but there was something about it that I really found rather charming.

The movie starts out with teenage identical twins daughters Inga and Liv (Christin and Holly Watson in their only roles, cinematic or otherwise) telling their father (Marlon Brando) that they are pregnant. The soon to be fathers are lifetime losers Bud (Charlie Sheen) and Larry (Thomas Haden Church). Bud and Larry are terrified of the girls' father, who is the warden of the state prison and nicknamed The Swede. The Swede has a reputation for his brutality, and is currently being investigated by beautiful FBI agent Karen Polarski (Mira Sorvino) for the death of an attempted escapee.

They throw together a shotgun wedding, and Bud and Larry are now in it for better or worse (pardon the PUN) with the twins and The Swede. The girls insist they move in with their father, and there are strict rules placed on the new husbands. Bud and Larry end up hating their lives living with The Swede so much that they hatch a plan to hold up a train coming through the area. The train is transporting old worn out money that is being taken out of circulation. The train engineers are local idiots Louis and Dwayne, and Bud is able to get inside information out of them because of their naivety and ignorance. Bud insists that his plan is flawless and that it will have them set for life so they can take Inga and Liv and get as far away from The Swede and humanly possible. Of course everything goes awry.

There are definitely a lot of things that this movie needs to improve on. For example director Yves Simoneau lacks any real directional skill. He has no distinguishing trademarks, he seems to just set up a camera and shoot. Absolutely no artistry. Also, as I mentioned before, the story is completely unoriginal. There are some new aspects to it, like the daughters still being in high school, but for the most part it's nothing we haven't seen before.

I think what really made me enjoy the movie though is the performance by Charlie Sheen. Personally I consider Sheen to be a great comedic actor, as he has proven in such movies as Major League and television programs Spin City and Two and a Half Men. Thomas Haden Church is also quite funny; he really does a great job in this film with outstanding comedic timing and a spot-on midwestern accent.

Free Money really has gotten a bad rap, undeservedly so in my opinion. I think that when people saw Oscar winners Marlon Brando and Mira Sorvino attached they went in expecting something great, but that's not what they got. If you go in to this movie just looking for a fairly good time then you won't be disappointed. Overall 2.0/4 Stars Grade = C

The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996)

John Frankenheimer's The Island of Dr. Moreau is not a terrible picture, as I had been led to believe by other reviews and an abysmal 3.9 rating on IMDb. It is merely a very mediocre film, with its good moments and it's bad moments.

David Thewlis stars as Edward Douglas, a man whose airplane crashed at sea and after the two fellow survivors murdered each other, he became the lone survivor. A boat transporting animals to an island picked up Douglas adrift and an American on board the ship then nursed him back to health. The man being an eccentric doctor (or veterinarian) named Montgomery (Val Kilmer).

When the ship reaches Montgomery's destination, Douglas is persuaded to come ashore and stay on the island in waiting to be rescued and returned home. However, it is not long after the ship is gone that Douglas realizes he is captive on the island as he is locked in his room by Montgomery from the outside.

After Douglas picks the lock in his room, he starts doing some exploring. He ventures his way into an old military hanger where he finds lots of cages filled with exotic animals. There is also some kind of surgery going on in the center of the room, and as Douglas gets closer he realizes that it is some kind of half-man half-animal mutant giving birth. Douglas is so disgusted that he allows himself to utter "Oh my God" which attracts the attention of the men performing the operation. You notice that these "people" are also mutations.

Douglas makes a run for it, and he is helped out by Aissa (Fairuza Balk, whom he had met briefly upon his arrival) who tells him that she can get him off the island so long as he doesn't do anything to hurt her father Dr. Moreau. Douglas agrees, and she leads him through the jungle to a community of these creatures living inside old WWII aircraft wreckage. He is lead to the Sayer of the Law (Ron Perlman), and it appears that the Sayer is going to help Douglas when Montgomery and Dr. Moreau (Marlon Brando) show up in search for Douglas. Douglas is lead back to the main compound where Moreau explains to him exactly what his experiment is and how he plans to save humanity with his results.

As I mentioned before, The Island of Dr. Moreau is not a terrible film. H.G. Wells' story is so strong that no matter what the cast and crew did to try to destroy it there were still remnants of quality left over. The story is so original and compelling that it is my belief that no matter what is done it is not possible to butcher it to the point of being unwatchable.

The make-up work in The Island of Dr. Moreau is superb. If it were not for the arms and legs you would have no way of telling that there was an actual human actor behind some of the creatures. If this film deserved any recognition, it should have been for make-up at the Academy Awards.

There is no doubt that John Frankenheimer has made far superior pictures (ie. The Manchurian Candidate, Ronin) and he didn't seem to have any control over the script or the cast of this film. I have read that he butted heads with both Kilmer and Brando who have been known to be very hard to work with and egotistical, and instead of really dealing with it the two of them were allowed to portray their characters in any way they saw fit and run wild on set. This is something that should have been righted, but was not and the film suffered because of it. I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to see this film, but it really doesn't deserve the harsh reputation that it has. It will soon be forgotten (if it hasn't been already), and mixed in with all the other examples of mediocrity in mainstream cinema over the years. Overall 1.5/4 Stars Grade = C-

Sullivan's Travels (1941)

Sullivan's Travels is really a wonderful film, it has great writing and direction and it does a fantastic job of mixing intellectuality with comedy.

Joel McCrea is John L. Sullivan, a rich Hollywood director who wants to venture away from comedies and make a serious picture about poverty in America based off of O Brother, Where Art Thou. Problem is though that his producers don't think he has it in him to make a good picture about poverty. They tell him he hasn't had a moment of trouble in his life, and they're right so Sullivan decides to embark on an adventure across the country disguising himself as a transient in order to learn the life of the less fortunate.

The following day Sullivan heads out, but unfortunately the studio heads have decided to follow him in a giant land yacht documenting his adventure. He is finally able to shake them, and ends up hitching a ride in the back of a semi-truck.

Much to Sullivan's dismay, he wakes up the following morning in the back of the truck back in Hollywood. He makes his way into a diner to grab some breakfast, and that is where we meet The Girl, played by the lovely Veronica Lake. She buys him some food, and he offers to give her a ride back home in his "friends" car. Problem is, he forgets to tell anyone he's taking out his car and it's reported stolen so before too long they are pulled over and arrested. In order to get himself out of jail, he has not choice but to reveal his real identity to the girl.

At first she's hostile towards Sullivan for having tricked her, but she quickly grows to like him and insists on joining him for his experiment. Of course Sullivan is against her accompaniment, he tells her to either stay at his house or go home but she is very persistent and ends up joining him anyways. Along the voyage it seems that every time they get into any trouble his people keep coming to the rescue, whether he wants it or not (and believe it or not sometimes he wants it), so he really doesn't get any tough experience at all... not yet at least.

Sullivan's Travels is probably one of the best comedies I have ever seen. It's able to not only show us the world of the less fortunate, but it is able to show us how they are able to get by day to day and their simple pleasures in life that the rich can't understand.

Preston Sturges' writing is absolutely magnificent; he is able to give us just the right doses of comedy and just the right amount of seriousness. His direction is also incredible; he gets the maximum performances out of the bit players and just the right amount of hopelessness from the actors portraying the poor. Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake also give outstanding performances, all-in-all Sullivan's Travels is really a masterpiece. Definitely worth checking out. Overall 4.0/4 Stars Grade = A

21 Grams (2003)

21 Grams is a very good picture with many strong points, however it was Naomi Watts' performance as Cristina that really shone through and impressed me.

The film is really extremely complex, following three different story lines as they intersect and become one. The director Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu jumps in between the three stories as well as many different time zones in order to tell you what is happening, what has already happened and what is going to happen all at once. This is very confusing for the first half of the film, you really don't get a good idea of what is going on, but it all comes together in the second half.

Normally, I give you a fairly detailed synopsis of the plot of a film in my reviews however I feel that that is impossible for this film without including major spoilers. All I can give you is a brief summary of the characters involved.

Cristina is a grieving mother who has recently lost her husband and two daughters and is turning to drugs and alcohol in order to cope with her pain. Paul (Sean Penn) is a terminally ill mathematician who is married to a woman he doesn't love who wants to have his child while he waits for a heart donation and tries to deal with the concept of what's going to happen when the time comes and he actually dies. And then there's Jack (Benicio Del Toro). Jack is an ex-con who has been in and out of prison since he was sixteen for everything from drugs to grand theft auto. Jack has turned his life over to the Lord and is clean of drugs and alcohol as he tries to keep his life in order and raise his family. A freak accident resulting in tragedy brings these three people and their problems together.

21 Grams is really a film that you have to pay extra close attention to, if your mind wanders at all you will get lost and quite possibly never find your way back in. The way the times move around, it will get you wondering if Alejandro just shuffled the scenes together and threw them in. I am being facisous of course, it becomes obvious about an hour into the film that Alejandro knew exactly what he was doing and he knew exactly where he wanted every scene to be.

The acting is incredible, especially by Naomi Watts as I mentioned earlier. The grief she brings to the screen is so powerful and so convincing you'd think she had lost her own family. Sean Penn and Benicio Del Toro also give strong performances, not nearly as strong as Watts however but their roles were not as demanding.

21 Grams is definitely a depressing film, I've even heard some people say that it is the most depressing film ever, but I question that. Many of Ingmar Bergman's films alone are much more depressing than this one not to mention some of Lars Von Trier's work. I would recommend 21 Grams to anyone who considers themselves a cinemaphile, however if you consider yourself a philistine then this film is probably far too complex for your tastes. Overall 3.5/4 Stars Grade = B+

The Freshman (1990)

I can't say I was particularly impressed with Andrew Bergman's The Freshman. Bergman previously showed immense comedic promise with his screenplay work on Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles, but The Freshman just doesn't have what it takes.

Matthew Broderick stars as Clark Kellogg, an incoming freshman at the NYU film school. Upon his arrival in New York Clark is promptly robbed of all his possessions by a thief named Vic (Bruno Kirby). This poses a big problem for Clark, he has no money and no clothes and an egotistical professor who insists his students purchase each and every one of his books (a price upwards of $700).

While in the aforementioned professor's office explaining just why he will be unable to purchase the required reading, Clark notices Vic walking down the street across from the room in which Clark is currently occupying. Clark excuses himself, climbs out the window and begins pursuing Vic down the street. After catching up to Vic, Clark demands his money and possessions back. The money, however, Vic has gambled away at the track. Clark threatens to go to the police, but Vic offers him a job with good money working for his uncle in order to keep himself out of jail.

The uncle is Carmine Sabatini, a powerful importer played by Marlon Brando. The character is the same role that Brando played in The Godfather. The film makes light at the fact that Sabatini is the same character as Corleone. There are many references to The Godfather and multiple characters mention the resemblance between Sabatini and Corleone.

Sabatini offers Clark a job picking up packages at the airport and delivering them to their destination. The job pays $1,000 a week for two days of work, and this high amount of money makes Clark nervous that the job is not entirely legal. Sabatini assures him that everything is on the level, and Clark reluctantly accepts.

Clark assumes that he will be picking up and delivering drugs, but on his first assignment he goes to the airport and picks up a giant lizard. After doing a little research that night, Clark comes to find out that the giant lizard, a Komodo Dragon, is an endangered species. Clark is very upset, and goes to see Sabatini to tender his resignation immediately, but before he can say anything Sabatini kisses him tells him he's marrying his daughter (Penelope Ann Miller) and gives him a brand new Mercedes as an engagement present. He tells him that he is now family, for life.

The problem with The Freshman is that it is supposed to be a comedy and it's just not very funny. The concept of the story is actually somewhat original, but since they were writing it as a comedy and not a drama it becomes flat and uninteresting. Bergman spends too much effort trying to add to the comedic aspect of the story, and doesn't spend enough time in character developement or on the reasons why Sabatini is as powerful as he is. Instead there are scenes that are really somewhat useless like the Komodo Dragon getting loose and running through the mall.

The idea of bringing Marlon Brando in to play Don Corleone with a different name is definitely something unexpected, and it actually doesn't fail miserably. Brando is able to play it with a little bit of humor, and his performance is the lone bright spot in the film. I really wouldn't waste my time on The Freshman; if you want some good Matthew Broderick humor go rent Ferris Bueller's Day Off or Election and if you want some good Brando go for The Godfather. The Freshman just isn't worth it. Overall 1.5/4 Stars Grade = C-

Sin City (2005)

Robert Rodriguez's masterpiece Sin City is a stylized montage of violence mixed with art and sex appeal in possibly the greatest action film of the 21st Century. Based off of the graphic novels by Frank Miller this is truly a film that anyone that can appreciate true art will enjoy.

The film follows three stories, that of police officer Hartigan (Bruce Willis), ex-con in pursuit of revenge Marv (Mickey Rourke), and murderer with a new face Dwight (Clive Owen). Although the stories never intersect, the characters involved are present in all three as well as secondary characters important to the story lines.

Hartigan is an honest cop in a force filled with corruption. After saving eleven-year-old Nancy Callahan from Senator Roark's child molester son Junior, he is shot in the back by his partner (Michael Madsen) and set up by the Senator to take the fall for his son in the rape of young Nancy.

Marv is a mean looking thug who has just had the night of his life with a beautiful girl named Goldie (Jamie King). During the sleep after the copulation someone snuck into the room and killed Goldie. It's obvious that this murder was a frame job, as the police are arriving before anyone could know that Goldie has been killed. There's a great fight scene where Marv takes out multiple cops, and he starts on his voyage of revenge to find Goldie's killer.

Dwight is a wanted killer who has returned to Basin City with a new face to resume his life. When his new girlfriend's (Brittany Murphy) ex-lover Jackie Boy (Benicio Del Toro) comes by with his crew and roughs her up, Dwight decides to follow them through town to make sure that they don't kill any innocent women. He follows them into Old Town, which is run by the hookers. The girls have already got their eye on Jackie Boy and his friends, and when he pulls a gun out on one of them they let them have it. Unfortunately Jackie Boy is a cop, and if it is found out by the police that a cop has been killed in Old Town the truce between the girls and the police will be nullified and Old Town will be left open to be taken over by the pimps and the mob.

Sin City is really a masterpiece of modern filmwork. The usage of very few colors on a mostly black and white screen is almost like watching a painting in motion. The way the black and white and colors is used also brings the ultra violence and gore down to a very subdued level. What would normally be almost unwatchable due to the extremity is brought down to a very watchable level where even people that loathe violence in films are able to handle it.

It takes a few minutes to get used to the way Sin City is written and acted. For the first ten minutes or so I always catch myself thinking that the acting is very poor and the script badly written however once you get used to it, it works very well. The stiffness of some of the performances and the novelistic way that the script is written really ends up working in favor of the film. It goes along so well with the colors (or lack-there-of) and the direction that it ads to the style of the film.

The cast of Sin City is really incredible. It is just packed with big names and A-listers; from Jessica Alba to Elijah Wood, Alexis Bledel to Josh Hartnett and Rosario Dawson to Rutger Hauer. While not all of their performances are stunning, it's not great performances that make this movie what it is. It is the art direction by Steve Joyner and Jeanette Scott, and the direction and editing by Robert Rodriguez that make this film so great. Sin City is really the film that established Rodriguez as a great director, and I personally can't wait for the sequels to come out. Overall 4.0/4 Stars Grade = A