> Welcome to KPK’s “QuickPix”, a new feature here in KPKworld!
These are brief capsule reviews of very worthy films- not a stinker in the lot. Culled from my monthly compendiums, every title here is a 4 to 5 star movie. It don’t get any better than this! Every QuickPix will look at 4 films from any and all times in cinema history since Boxing Day in 1906, up to- and including… today!
(A reminder gentle reader: All films are rated on a 5-star basis
and must be over a decade old to hit the “classic” jackpot.)
Enjoy! This excursion features the following excellent films:
DEAR WHITE PEOPLE (2014)****
PEOPLE WILL TALK (1951) ****+
WILD TALES (2015)****
HAIL CAESAR! (2016)****+
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DEAR WHITE PEOPLE (2014) ****
Presented as a satire about racial tensions on college campuses in America, I found it to be closer to a drama. It’s uncomfortably potent stuff. I found the issues raised in this fine film too serious and heartbreaking to consider this fine film a comedy- but I’ll take their word for it. It took me a while for me to warm to, because it does not have one main character, but four- an unconventional structure that stretches the narrative. Prompted by shameful headlines about racist events at white frat houses from coast to coast, it is- for an old fart like me- a fascinating look into the minds of college students who are of an age I have almost no contact with, and a minefield-strewn cultural front line that is comfortably alien to me. I see racism in America (everywhere I look!), but I rarely find myself in the middle of the thorny issues these four protagonists face as part of their daily school lives. Privileged me!
PEOPLE WILL TALK (1951) ****+
Joseph L. Mankiewicz wrote and directed this rather strange pseudo-comedy (Light drama? Dramady??), featuring a smooth as silk Cary Grant as a sympathetic but controversial doctor, called to account for his unorthodox methods by a crotchety Hume Cronyn, while gradually falling in love with a troubled patient. The film must have been very dicey for its time, with a subplot about an unwed pregnancy that is dealt with in a fairly direct way for the early fifties. The inquisition the good doctor faces has a clear whiff (or should I say stench), of the McCarthy hearings. PEOPLE WILL TALK is an unusual near-classic.
WILD TALES (2015) ****
This Argentine anthology film is as dark as black comedies get! Before the credits roll, many people are inferred to have died… humorously! A collection of six tales of epic revenge, some of the stories are more successful than others, but altogether this is a guilty pleasure. These WILD TALES appeal to the schadenfreude in all of us, as we perversely relish six characters wreaking sweet revenge on those who have wronged them. I’m still puzzling over one- trying to figure out how the end constituted revenge, but I may have missed something. The final tale was hard to watch. I kept wanting to hit fast-forward to get through the world’s most excruciating wedding ceremony to the outrageous, and perfect ending.
HAIL CAESAR! (2016) ****+
Hail the brothers Coen, Joel and Ethan have done it again! If the unqualified THE BIG LEBOWSKI deserves to be a cult hit, this loony whack-job certainly does. I savored every scene of this story about the kidnap of a big studio star, by a secret and very civilized cabal of lefty commies. The Coen’s have assembled a great cast, as usual- all of whom seem to be having a blast working for this consistently inspired duo. George Clooney does his best deer-in-the-headlight simpleton, as the star who gradually succumbs to Stockholm Syndrome with his very courteous captors. He has perfect timing- a comic delight in every scene. HAIL CAESAR! doesn’t break any new ground for the inventive brothers, and it’s not quite O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU, but I just enjoyed the hell out of it.
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See y’all next time. Cheers, my fellows!
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