"EYES" WORTH SEEING

          In this sometimes disturbing and always fascinating French film from 1960, a surgeon causes an accident which disfigures his daughter--and tries to repair the damage he caused...but requires victims to do it.
          Director John Carpenter says he was influenced by this film. The rubber mask of William Shatner which his character Michael Myers wears in Halloween (1978) has a similar placid quality which accentuates horror because we are programmed to respond to facial features. When we see a mask, we want to know what is behind it. For that matter, Eyes Without a Face seems inspired in some measure by the Lon Chaney version of The Phantom of the Opera (1925) and perhaps Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) .
          The daughter, Christiane (Scob), ethereal and doll-like, stays hidden at the doctor's house because almost everyone else thinks she died in the accident. The only other person who knows is the lab assistant Louise (Valli), whom the doctor successfully helped with a mysterious surgery sometime earlier.
          Part of what makes Eyes Without a Face (and yes, Billy Idol liked the title enough to use it for a song) so interesting is the pleasant, matter-of-fact manner by which Louise goes about assisting Dr. Genessier (Brasseur). Sure, she seems like a nice lady who drives around with the quirky theme music from "Curb Your Enthusiasm" playing all the time. But appearances deceive.
          Like Haxan (1922) and Freaks (1932), Eyes is considered by some viewers excessively disturbing for its time--and perhaps for any time. Two scenes in particular stand out uniquely in film. Suffice to say, a well-done film does not need computer special effects.
          Eyes exemplifies sheer filmmaking, pure storytelling. Based on the filmmaking trend of the last couple decades, wherein most of Hollywood's feature films rely on CG effects and automatic sequels in franchises imitating previous successes, Eyes Without a Face is a fresh face in cinema, and a wonder to behold.
          Freely available online.




EYES WITHOUT A FACE
(LES YEUX SANS VISAGE)
Starring Pierre Brasseur,
Edith Scob,
Alida Valli
Directed by Georges Franju
Written by Pierre Boileau, Thomas Nacejac,
Claude Sautet, Pierre Gascar
Based on the novel by Jean Redon
Runtime 90 minutes




Stewart Kirby writes for

"LAST JEDI" FIRST-RATE

          The eighth film in the franchise is one of the best.
          Remaining intentionally vague to preserve the experience, suffice to say that the First Order, spearheaded by Supreme Leader Snoke's Darth Vader-worshipping disciple, Kylo Ren (Driver), is on the verge--yet again--of crushing the Resistance. Meanwhile, Rey (Ridley), having finally found Luke Skywalker (Hamill) at the end of Episode 7, The Force Awakens (2015), must now try to persuade the legendary Jedi master to return, thereby giving the Resistance hope.
          This much any fan of the franchise can gather from the prevalence of posters.
          In the aforementioned Episode 7, which famously reunited original core cast members, we saw the return of Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia. Sadly, however, she died one year ago. Audiences may well then wonder whether the filmmakers will choose to use a computer-generated version of Fisher in the way that they did with Peter Cushing. Thankfully, they do not. Fisher finished scenes for the movie before her passing. The mistake of using a deceased actor's stiff and waxy CG likeness is not repeated in this film.
          The two latest Episodes do share in common three new characters simply not as interesting as the ones from the original films. Rey, Poe (Isaac), and Finn (Boyego) still fall fairly flat. But at least they aren't Ewoks, and at least there's no Jar Jar Binks.
          Writer-director Rian Johnson terrifically presents the proper atmosphere in keeping with the 1977 original. So far, this makes Johnson the fifth director to do so. Irvin Kershner did it for The Empire Strikes Back (1980), as did Richard Marquand with Return of the Jedi (1983); J.J. Abrams did it with The Force Awakens, and even so did Gareth Edwards in last year's franchise extension film Rogue One. Only George Lucas has proven himself unable to re-capture the proper atmosphere. And that happened three times.
          But this one's quite good.
          It's not science fiction. It's space opera--put forth by the Empire, so to speak, solely for the purpose of making money. Irony, therefore, can at some level be found. But in some weird way, the mighty Star Wars franchise, in all its varied forms, is also the national film. The anti-human forces, the forces of mechanization and globalization, which deny nature, and deny the individual, come spectacularly into conflict with the forces of life, and love, and what it means to be human. This is why it affects us. This is what makes it great.
          Well worth a trip to the theater.




STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI
Starring Mark Hamill,
Carrie Fisher,
Adam Driver,
Daisy Ridley,
John Boyego,
Oscar Isaac,
Kelly Marie Tran,
Laura Dern,
Andy Serkis,
Benicio Del Toro,
Frank Oz
Written and directed by Rian Johnson
Runtime 152 minutes
Rated PG-13




Stewart Kirby writes for

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"HIDDEN FORTESS" WORTH FINDING

          He is one of the world's most respected directors, but he made more money suing Sergio Leone for making A Fistful of Dollars (1964), an unauthorized re-make of the samurai picture Yojimbo (1961), than he did with any of his highly influential films. From Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece, Seven Samurai (1954), Hollywood derived the classic Western The Magnificent Seven (1960). Perhaps less well-known, however, is the Kurosawa film which helped inspire George Lucas making Star Wars (1977).

          The Hidden Fortress (1958) concerns two bickering peasants in Feudal Japan trying to cross enemy lines. In the mountains they find a secret cache of gold, and each man's insatiable greed instantly kicks in. But they also meet a mysterious stranger (Mifune) who knows of the gold, and wants to escort an equally mysterious young woman (Uehara) with the gold from a fortress hidden in the mountains across the same enemy lines.

          In some respects, echoes of John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948).

          True enough, one could easily watch The Hidden Fortress and never notice any connection with Star Wars. Lucky for us, Lucas freely discusses the film's influence, chiefly in the use of the two lowest characters' point of view. But there are other aspects, as well. To compare the character of Hyo with Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi (1983) is to see influences in terms of story events and visual elements.

          Even the word "Jedi" itself comes from the Japanese word for historical dramas, "jidaigeki". In fact, Lucas tried to get Toshiro Mifune to play Obi-Wan Kenobi, but Mifune turned down the part because he didn't want to undermine samurai honor with space opera frivolity.

          Superlative cinematography, excellent acting, and an engrossing story highlight this film gem regardless of Star Wars. The performance by Minoru Chiaki, the taller of the two peasants, merits particular attention, especially considering how wildly different this character is from Heihachi, the woodchopper, in Seven Samurai.

          Freely available online.

THE HIDDEN FORTRESS

Starring Toshiro Mifune,

Minoru Chiaki,

Kamatari Fujiwara,

Misa Uehara,

Susumu Fujita,

Takashi Shimura

Directed by Akira Kurosawa

Written by Ryuzo Kikushima, Hideo Oguni,

Shinobu Hashimoto, Akira Kurosawa

Runtime 126 minutes

Stewart Kirby writes for

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"FALCON" FLIES

          The benchmark in film noir.

          The Maltese Falcon (1941), directed by John Huston, stars Humphrey Bogart as San Francisco private eye Sam Spade.

          Based on Dashiell Hammett's third novel, published in 1930, the film takes material which crossed the line from pulp writing to great literature and turns what was standard movie fare twice into a film classic.

          Hammett himself was originally from Baltimore, the city where the creator of the detective story, Edgar A. Poe, is buried, so it is fitting that Hammett carried the literary torch. His experiences working as a Pinkerton's detective before joining the Army proved invaluable. Subsequent to an honorable discharge due to the very Poe-ish ailment of tuberculosis, Hammett moved to San Francisco, got married, and supplemented his small pension by writing hard-boiled detective stories for Black Mask.

          Behind Sam Spade's own wry, sardonic mask is a guy twice as jaded but who nonetheless has a moral compass and more or less follows it.

          Huston's screenplay, generally faithful to Hammett's novel, dazzles audiences with a kaleidoscope of dysfunctional criminals seeking a fabled treasure from the days of the Knights Templar.

          Yes, The Maltese Falcon! Starring Mary Astor as the femme fatale who has it all...Peter Lorre as Joel Cairo! Vaguely exotic, alternately simpering and demanding, his watery boiled-egg eyes long to behold...The Maltese Falcon!

          "When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it!"

          Sydney Greenstreet as Kasper Gutman, aka The Fat Man: "By Gad, sir, you are a character! There's never any telling what you'll say or do next, except that it's bound to be something astonishing!"

          Elisha Cook Jr. as Wilmer: "I'm warnin' you..."

          Interestingly, the great character actor Dwight Frye played the role of Wilmer in 1931, the same year he played Renfield in Dracula.

          Gritty and timeless, funny and stylish, packed with danger and intrigue, treachery and romance, The Maltese Falcon is the cinematic treasure to pursue!

          For more film noir, check out The Third Man (1949), Double Indemnity (1944), and The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946).

          "The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter, huh?"

THE MALTESE FALCON

Starring Humphrey Bogart,

Mary Astor,

Sydney Greenstreet,

Peter Lorre,

Elisha Cook Jr.

Written and directed by John Huston

Based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett

Runtime 100 minutes

Stewart Kirby writes for

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