> Welcome to KPK’s “QuickPix”, 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 the first feature film 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:
THE YOUNG SAVAGES (1961)****
EVERYBODY KNOWS (2018)****
CAPTAIN HORATIO HORNBLOWER (1951)****
DOWN IN THE DELTA (1998)****
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THE YOUNG SAVAGES (1961) ****
Stalwart Hollywood director John Frankenheimer directed this gritty crime noir about a racially fraught court case involving three gang members who murdered a blind Puerto Rican man. Frankenheimer regular Burt Lancaster is as good as usual in the central role of the district attorney prosecuting the boys. Needless to say, the deeper he delves into the case the more apparent it is that things are not as we presume them to be. Stark black-and-white photography suits the story well. Telly Savalas plays a Kojak kind of character, and Shelly Winters acquits herself well, as the grieving mother of one of the accused killers who just cannot accept the fact that her son may be guilty of murder. THE YOUNG SAVAGES is roiling, somewhat overheated melodrama, but it works. By the time the final twist rolls around, we are absolutely invested in this old-school drama.
EVERYBODY KNOWS (2018) ****
Asghar Farhadi (THE SALESMAN, A SEPARATION, and the excellent ABOUT ELLY), is one of Iran’s greatest filmmakers. But you’d have no way of knowing that based on this movie. This film is takes place in Spain, with Spanish speaking actors. Farhadi has such a sure touch, you’d never know it was the product of a culture that his own. He tells a compelling story, with excellent actors in the roles, from a particularly good Penélope Cruz, to an intense Javiar Bardem. It weaves a story of a clan divided, involving a kidnapping that may just be an inside job, which reveals long simmering family upsets and rivalries, and exposes a suppressed family secret that everybody knows, but nobody talks about. Superbly photographed and edited, EVERYBODY KNOWS is a complex psychological thriller that keeps you glued to the screen, wondering where the plot will go next. This guy is one of our great living directors!
CAPTAIN HORATIO HORNBLOWER (1951) ****
I’ll watch Gregory Peck do anything. Here, he seems very comfortable in his own skin and in the stiff officer’s uniform, playing blustery Horatio Hornblower, stern and stalwart captain of the HMS Lydia, plying the seas at the start of the 19th century on a secret mission that has his crew baffled. Set your compass for high adventure on the high seas, as the tenacious officer and his men take on a ruthless gang of Central American rebel fighters, and then an entire fleet of Spanish warships, while the military-minded seaman gets schooled in the game of love by Virginia Mayo- his only female passenger. Unfortunately, as fate and novelist E. M. Forster would have it, she is already betrothed- and not to just anybody: to his bitter rival. Will our heroic captain not only win the battle but also get the girl? What do you think?
DOWN IN THE DELTA (1998) ****
Did you know that among her other great accomplishments, the brilliant Maya Angelou directed a feature film? Me neither! And judging by the outcome, she was a pretty good at it. This is a family drama about a Black clan fleeing the violent neighborhoods of Chicago to live in rural Mississippi with their gruff but tender uncle Earl. Alfre Woodard is very good as Loretta, a mess of a woman, trying to close the door on drug addiction and the demons of her past. Sure, it’s a bit formulaic, but Angelou crafted a warm-hearted film that faces some tough realities with grace. I teared-up several times, so I must have cared about these characters enough to feel only empathy for their struggles. DOWN IN THE DELTA has a palpable sense of locale and a score by Herbie Hancock! It’s a shame the great American dame only made this one film. Seems like everything Angelou touched turned to gold, once the horror of her days of abuse, and her years as a mute were behind her.
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See y’all next time. Cheers, homo sapiens!
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