Reviews by JxSxPx

Every once in a while it’s nice to have a delicious little dessert of a movie. And The Artist, a love letter to a bygone era, is a loveable little pastiche of a movie. Would I have given it the Oscar for Best Picture? No, my heart belonged to Hugo. But it’s so hard to begrudge such a sweet, happy-go-lucky little movie. It doesn’t hurt that the two lead performances as so energetic and charismatic, or that the film is a treasure trove of references to both the real life histories of several silent movie stars and the movies themselves.

Perhaps the reason that The Artist swooping in out of left field to propel itself into the Oscar race, and eventually to become the winner, didn’t bother me was because it is something rare to see during awards season: a comedy that can, does and did. In a season that typically rewards painfully serious and depressing indie films or high-minded but emotionally empty prestige studio films, it was nice to see something that just wanted to entertain you, make you happy and leave the theater smiling gain so much attention. It doesn’t happen nearly often enough.

But enough about its place in the record books, a new piece of trivia for movie fanatics and awards show watchers, and its awards-season elevation to serious work of art, because at its heart The Artist is nothing more or less than a novelty, a pastiche that wants to make you laugh. Its silent film framework is nothing more or less than a framework, the chosen medium to tell its story. A mixture of a John Gilbert melodrama mixed with a Clara Bow comedy and a dash of A Star Is Born and Singin’ in the Rain thrown in for good measure get us close to the actuality of the film.

Taking place between 1927 and 1932, it tells the story of George Valentin’s (Jean Dujardin) fall from atop the highest peak of Movie Star Mountain, while his discovery Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo) begins her meteoric rise to superstardom. There is, of course, a love story, both romantic and plutonic, between the two of them. She sees him as both the man who made her dreams possible and as a great love in her life. She respects and admires him, and consistently repays the debt she feels she owes him. Yes, that sounds an awfully lot like the basic outline for A Star Is Born, but unlike that film (take your pick, mine is the 1954 Judy Garland version) which ends in tragedy, this ends in a triumph.

Valentin’s movie star and filmography owes a tremendous debt to Douglas Fairbanks. The films we see him making are typically swashbuckling adventures like Zorro, which we see him watching as he isolates himself in a depression late in the film, or thrilling spy adventures filled with intrigue and romance, which we see him filming early on in the film. This romantic spy adventure is also the first film appearance for Peppy’s character, a part she got on the insistence of Valentin.

But his personal story is pure John Gilbert, but without the unfortunate and depressing end to the real story. A silent screen star whose career fades with the advent of sound? Yeah, it could be any number of silent film greats who never transitioned, but look at the way he’s attired and made-up. And look at the relationship between Valentin and Miller. Their relationship has echoes of the Gilbert-Greta Garbo romance/friendship. She fought for him to return to the screen until he died, rejecting the offers of other leading men to help her friend and former lover return to glory.

These layers prove that the film maybe a tasty pastry, and it may be parodying the whole transition from silent to sound, but it does so with knowledge and a lot of love. Look at the way that Miller’s character is a reworking of Clara Bow. Her peppy, perky and sexy presence is pure freewheeling energetic charisma, much like the cinema’s first “It” girl.

If the film never reveals why Valentin is reluctant to sound, does it really matter? His French accent is a possibility, but the history of the transition from silence to words is filled with people who put it off as long as possible or just left the business, refusing to make the transition at all, calling sound a great blow to the artistry of the medium. And it’s not as if the film is entirely silent. A lively score, so wonderful and deserving of the Oscar, plays throughout. A sequence is set to “Pennies from Heaven,” and there are two scenes which feature dialog and sound.

The first is a brilliantly played sequence in which Valentin has a nightmarish reaction to every sound in his life. A dog bark echoes throughout his mind like the encroaching sound of a hellhound hot on the trail. And the other is the ending sequence which sees Valentin, on the career rebound, and Miller do their best Astaire-Rogers. This scene encapsulates the best of both of these performances. Dujardin is handsome and goofy in equal measures. A man full of life and he easily carries the film on his shoulders and gives it a manic edge. Bejo keeps up with his manic energy, ably supporting him at every step of the way. They have expert control over their bodies, and can play both very broad and subtle, often switching gears within the same scene. And they radiate a warmth and expressivity that’s nice to see.

Is The Artist the great return-to-form of silent cinema? Probably not. But I love that it dared to be a black-and-white, fullscreen, silent film in 2011. It may not be a great work of art, that’s for time to decide, but it’s so entertaining and pleasing in the moment that you can forgive its faults. And, if nothing else, maybe this and Hugo will inspire people to go back and discovery, or rediscovery, the great silent actors like Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Lillian Gish, Mary Pickford, Louise Brooks or Lon Chaney. Now can you really hate on a movie that could inspire that kind of gold-mine discovery?

Now, I normally don’t care for 3D films. I find the third dimension to be an unnecessary distraction from the proceedings, an extra bell or whistle added to most action movies to distract the viewer from the inane plot, lousy dialog and poor characterization. But the 3D in Hugo, while still slightly unnecessary for me, did add a certain quality to the layout of scenes. It seemed as if some care and thought had gone in to decide how to use the medium and produce a more integrated result.

But we’re also talking about a film which blares something that for me is an automatic indicator of quality: “Directed by Martin Scorsese.” Scorsese is a virtuoso, a master of his chosen craft, an artiste with an expansive, rich filmic vocabulary. The opening sequence is a cinematic gambit ably done by an auteur working at the top of his game on a story that takes twists and turns that are surprising.

We begin from on high, up in the clouds, and zoom along with a train before the camera becomes the train. We don’t stop the momentum as we zip through the train station, past figures and random passengers, before stopping. We’ve come to our soundstage for most of the film – Gare Montparnasse railway station in Paris. And these early sections are lively, full of fun and mischief as Hugo must escape from the tyrannical Station Inspector, keep the clocks running and find new ways to steal food to survive.

It all sounds a little depressing, and his childhood is very much out of a Charles Dickens novel, but there’s a wandering sense of fun that pervades Asa Butterfield’s performance. He’s a charming little street urchin, a voyeur who views the train station as his own private movie theater, and each section and interaction amongst the employees that he views from afar a different genre. And the first hour or so, maybe a little less, plays out like this.

Then he meets Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz, a ridiculously talented actress already), the goddaughter of the man who runs the trinket shop. Their friendship is a meeting of like minds, even if their chosen mediums are different. He, having lost his father at a young age and forcibly become the keeper of the clocks with his drunken uncle, hasn’t had much time to read. But his fondest memories are of the movies. And she is forbidden from seeing movies, but loves to get lost in the new worlds and ideas presented to her in books. They see a similar passion, and there really isn’t much of a difference between being obsessed with the magic of a novel or a book, they each give you something special.

Once we discover the identity of her godfather, and why she is forbidden from watching movies, Hugo takes a dramatic shift. Now it becomes something terribly personal for Scorsese, and here is where he shows his passion. It transitions slowly into the story of one boy who works tirelessly to preserve the legacy of nearly forgotten greats in cinema. He wants to preserve these films and educate the masses on their importance and artistic legacy.

If this sounds familiar, then it should. Hugo becomes Scorsese’s personal manifesto about film preservation, to return spectacle to the cinema, and to make believe in the magic. That isn’t to say it is all pure vanity project, there’s too much warmth, fun and wonderment on display for that.

And Scorsese slowly integrates scenes from real silent films, without having fussed with them or done any digital trickery, I wanted to give a standing ovation. The scenes recreating many of these moments are just as good. Hugo slowly turns from a family film about a street urchin living in a Paris train station into an elaborate love poem to the movies, and all of the creativity and joy they can inspire in people. That a scene, which left me heartbroken as a film lover, where film strips are forever lost, having been melted down to make heels for shoes can transition into one boy rescuing the surviving prints from certain death left me walking out on a natural high. But, then again, every Scorsese movie leaves me walking out like that.

2011 was an interesting year in cinema, in that many of the prime players for the awards season looked back at the history and figures that helped shape American cinema as we know it. We had the great, loveable comedy The Artist, and a flawed film with a stunningly complicated and fully-realized central performance in My Week With Marilyn, and, of course, Hugo which took disparate elements from both, and crafted my personal favorite movie of that year. Funny how these things go in cycles. 2011 was the year in which the movies took a look back at themselves.

Thank God there were only eight of these direct-to-DVD animated films from Marvel, because the quality certainly wasn’t there. We started off strong with Ultimate Avengers, but the films quickly fell apart. Instead of adapting interesting full company storylines like Infinity Gauntlet or Civil War, or giving time to beloved story archs like “Demon in a Bottle,” we had a series of origin stories that merged elements of traditional Marvel continuity with the Ultimate line. And we only dealt with heroes, except for Dr. Strange, who had live action movies coming out fairly soon. Usually they tied in with them, like The Invincible Iron Man did.

None of that would have been a problem if the material was given a more richly and fully design and animated look, something that expanded beyond the Saturday morning cartoon parameters. Or if they had smartly written, adult-orientated scripts which developed and engaged with the material on a deeper level. None of them did that.

What we have here is one of the few original works to come out of the eight film series. And if this one isn’t the worst, I’m sure Planet Hulk gives it a decent enough run for its money. Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow tries to replicate a Monster Squad/Goonies vibe, but with superheroes. That it fails isn’t the only problem. It’s the teeth-gnashing script which insists on cutesy, overtly precocious kids as substitutes for developed characters.

You could go down a list and check off each character stereotype: the leader/hero that will unite them to defeat their enemy but keeps running away from his destiny, the nerdy tech whiz who is insufferably quirky, the token girl who overcompensates, and the rogue hero who joins into the fight at just the right time. Each goes through the proverbial hoops and storytelling clichés that you’d expect. There are no new developments in this hollow character sketches, and nothing original is done to break from the formula.

To make matters worse, one of Marvel’s greatest villains, Ultron, is used in this mess. He’s the lone successful part of this whole thing. Appropriately thirsty for knowledge and power, menacing and coldly calculating as only a sentient android could be, Ultron seems almost too dark for this batch of unproved heroes. If the film wanted to really push the boundaries and try something new, it could’ve at least killed off a few of them before we end up on the resolution which we all knew was coming from the first second of screentime. And bringing out original Avengers characters like Hulk, Iron Man and Vision just proves that an Avengers film based on, say, the Kurt Busiek/George Perez run or the Kree/Skrull war would’ve made for a more entertaining film.

At the end of the day this just looks and sounds like the rejected, overly long pilot for an animated series that never went into production. And maybe if it had been apart of a Saturday morning cartoon lineup on, say, Disney XD or Cartoon Network, I would’ve been more forgiving.

Why they felt the need to expand upon Thor’s origins, I don’t know. But at the very least they made an action-packed, highly enjoyable coming-of-age story along the way.

Thor: Tales of Asgard is a loose prequel to the live action film since it shows Thor and Sif’s first interactions and budding romance, Loki and Thor’s complicated relationship being developed and showing the first signs of fracture, and Thor’s first meeting and adventures with the Warriors Three. Yet it also covers much of the same emotional ground and a few of the same story beats.

Thor goes from braggadocios, war-loving meat-head to caring, compassionate and thoughtful leader who will take a moment to decide a course of action instead of just jumping into a situation and fighting his way out of it. There’s also the tenuous truce between the Frost Giants and Asgard, which Thor crumbles during the course of the film and repairs at the climax.

If there’s nothing terribly original about it, at least it does a good job of expanding the universe for those people who are new to the mythos. The general consensus was that Thor, the live-action film, was at its most unique, engaging and cinematically fulfilling while in the Asgardian scenes. This film makes the wise decision to keep the entire film in the Asgardian realm, and expanding upon the wars, genocides and histories of the kingdoms within it.

The vocal cast is competent, mostly a collection of various name voice actors who appear in everything. They don’t really do any voices we haven’t heard before from them, but they keep it moving at a nice clip. And the animation, as in all of these Marvel films, leaves something to be desired. They’re never embarrassing to look at, but they never touch the level of quality that DC produces at a continuous rate with their direct-to-DVD films. DC also hires a more unique group of voice actors for their projects instead of relying upon the same core group.

It’s streamlined and keeps a nice propulsive energy, never truly achieving greatness. Thor: Tales of Asgard is worth a glance on Netflix’s streaming service. And if they kept the fantasy look and vibe of the film and properly translated it, it could make for an entertaining and unique animated series from the Marvel/Disney partnership.

The problem here is quite simple. In adapting a beloved and successful comic book storyline to any property, never assume your audience is overly familiar with the material. Hulk, outside of a few brief appearances in the Avengers comics and the Incredible Hulk 90s animated series, has never been a big draw for me. I’ve read Hulk: Grey, but that had more to do with the creative team of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale (it was one of their weaker efforts), and the beloved 70s live-action TV series is in my instant queue on Netflix. I was vaguely familiar with the details of Planet Hulk going in, but this film left me in the dust.

At very least, Planet Hulk is ambitious in retelling a fairly recent and well-liked storyline from the comics. DC has made this their bread-and-butter in most of their titles, which tend to go back and forth between adapting newer storylines and the classics. But the main problem here is a lack of setup, explanation and payoff.

I kept thinking throughout the too brief running time that events were just happening with little to no reason for me to care. I shouldn’t have to go out and buy the book in order to understand the adaptation. They should complement each other and differ, each offering their own unique pleasures. At the very least, Planet Hulk judiciously edits out much of the subplots to focus in on the main character’s journey. That means characters like Miek, who becomes a traitor and villain in the comics, aren’t given a complete emotional journey to go through. And sometimes these judicious cuts are a bit too judicious, seeing as how they create moments in which a character must grow and change in an inorganic, rushed way.

But some of these edits leave the film with a half-formed narrative. The beginning seems to very edited out the actual beginning of the film. We see the Hulk tied up in a rocket ship being blasted in space and a video message from a random assortment of Marvel characters. Turns out this is Marvel’s version of the Illuminati, I had no idea. How the Hulk got subdued enough to be put in this position is something I would’ve loved to have seen. It can’t have been easy. Of course, he awakens, throws a temper tantrum, and destroys his rocket, sending it off course and onto a planet which he was prophesized to rescue.

The Hulk as rebel-hero from the stars is an interesting conceit, considering he’s an anti-hero who prefers solitude to teamwork or any kind of leadership or group responsibilities. But this transition is never made entirely clean or clear. It’s like he goes from brooding, sulking green monster to gladiatorial hero within one scene.

And the animation is of the same competent style as the other direct-to-DVD films. The film’s visual palette is muddy and grey, and the character designs and the whole look of the film looks like a higher end TV show. But it still has all of the tell-tale signs of cut corners and shoddy work of a TV show. At least with a weekly series you can be more forgiving since the product has to be turned out at a much higher rate than normal animated projects.

But I guess that covers pretty much all eight of the Marvel films. They’re competent, and seem like extended premiere episodes of various animated properties for television. Maybe Disney and Marvel will get smart and try their hand at these things again, except this time explore some of the older storylines that haven’t been adapted yet – could you imagine a animated film version of Daredevil: The Man Without Fear which was aimed at adults? Take a clue from what DC/Warner Bros. is releasing and craft something as vivid and rich as those storylines. These films just aren’t cutting it.

This is a tough one – both in subject matter, execution and in trying to discuss it. It does away with many of the usual things that setup a film: specific location, a backstory for the characters, reasoning behind their actions, etc. Instead, what we’re given is a look at a specific moment in the numb, hollow, cold life of one man and his serious addiction. What caused it? We don’t know, but the hints are horrific. What, exactly, is his job? Doesn’t really matter in the end since it’s just the place he goes in-between random sexual encounters and copious amounts of online porn surfing and sex chatting.

Shame left me depressed to my very core. When it ended I wanted to go run and hide in The Artist to cheer myself up before heading back out to the world. Addictions are nasty, destructive things, and here is a film, much like The Lost Weekend, which doesn’t flinch away from the realities and struggles to live on a day-to-day basis with one.

The cold, emotionally distant cinematography and set design, sparse and icy, work wonders to show the hollowed out realities of this man’s life. He isn’t just emotional distant, he’s emotionally incapable of much of anything. When his needy, desperate sister comes buzzing back into his life his veneer begins to crack. While, yes, Steve McQueen’s direction is artful and clean, a master class is economy and holding back when necessary, the performances are what make Shame so emotionally devastating and rich to behold.

Michael Fassbender should have not only been nominated for this year’s Best Actor Oscar, he probably should’ve won the damn thing outright. No one else went into as naked (both literally and emotionally) and dangerous a place as he did. His work, mostly done with his expressive eyes and shark-like mouth, is quiet but haunting. And his teaming with Carey Mulligan, so wonderfully smart and tart in An Education, speaks volumes without using many words. What exactly happened to them as children to leave them so damaged and scarred in such drastically different ways?

The film never outright answers that question, but clues, some subtle, others not so, are offered throughout. Like when Fassbender first realizes that Mulligan has returned for a visit and he finds her in the shower. They have a fairly long conversation while she is standing before him totally nude and dripping wet. That’s not normal brotherly-sisterly behavior. Neither is a scene in which she climbs into bed with him in the middle of the night or the one where he wrestles with her while he’s only wearing a towel. And late in the film she delivers a line that speaks volumes without saying anything specific: “We just come from a bad place.”

After watching this I couldn’t help but wonder why the Academy chose to ignore it in so many categories. This, along with Hugo and Beginners, were a trio of films that I figured would be nominated in practically every major category. Hugo was the lone one to actually prove itself as a major contender. Which is such a pity, because Shame while like a gut-punch is also a beautifully acted, well-written and artistically stylized and directed film that will probably go down as one of the great snubbed films of 2011, maybe even of the decade.

There’s nothing terribly funny about cancer, chemotherapy or all of the terrible side-effects that occur. Somehow being poisoned to kill cells that are slowly eating away at you just doesn’t scream comedy. Neither does losing your hair. And yet, here was have 50/50 a movie which makes you laugh until you cry, and then just cry. How it manages to slowly finesse that fine line between making jokes about a serious topic and engaging drama is pretty wonderful. That it never delves into poor taste is even better.

I think, and pardon the wording, it’s a 50/50 split between the script and the acting that makes the film so fulfilling. Remarkably free of a Hallmark-like sentimentality, which could have easily bogged down the whole film, and gloriously free of self-pitying, 50/50 hits that uncomfortable and awkward “real” place. Whenever our main character tries to pity himself or lash out against the world, his friends, family and therapist are there to explain that he has every right to feel these things and it’s normal, healthy even, but it’s also not anybody’s fault. Hell, there’s a scene late in the film in which he rages against his best friend’s seemingly self-centered and aggrandizing behavior and attitude. How could his friend not care about his impending possible death and just think about trying to get in one last party? As it turns out, his friend has been reading, highlighting and bookmarking several different books about dealing with cancer and how to help your loved ones get through it.

It’s the small touches like that which really speak volumes about the characters, their relationships and the real-world that they inhabit. There’s a very real plausibility that Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character may not make it to the final scene. (Granted, since it’s based on the writer-director’s real-life struggle, the chances of him dying are remote. But enough setbacks, complications, and a supporting character’s death occur to remind us that dealing with a disease in reality is not the same as the glamorous suffering so often seen in the movies.)

And I cannot speak highly enough of Joseph Gordon-Levitt as an actor. His charm and sophisticated good-looks make him leading man material, but he continually seeks out challenging films to be a part of, with an occasional detour into mainstream movies like Inception. He’s like a reverse movie-star, living in independent cinema with sporadic breaks for the huge budgets and tentpole franchises. He manages to make a very OCD, anal retentive character and make him charming, and with emotional precision taking us along every complicated step along his journey. His moments of darkness and light are given masterful treatment by Gordon-Levitt.

And, shockingly, he’s given perfect support from Seth Rogen, an actor I’ve never cared much for before this. But I was pleasantly surprised by his work here. It’s still very much in the “Seth Rogen-type,” but his buffoonery is given a deeper context in later scenes of the film.

The rest of the cast is nothing to scoff at either. Anna Kendrick continues to surprise me with her choices post-Oscar nomination for Up in the Air. She has a warmth and intellect that I appreciate, and she uses them effectively here as the green therapist who is in over her head. That her character will eventually become a love interest is the lone nit-pick I had with the film. I don’t feel as if it was required, and that it was just shoe-horned in at the request of the studio. But she and Gordon-Levitt make an attractive and appealing couple. Bryce Dallas Howard continues her streak of bitchery, but, mercifully, isn’t the moustache-twirling super-bitch of The Help here. And the always welcome and uber-talented Anjelica Huston delivers a touching, neurotic and needy performance as the mother who makes everything about her, somehow. But Huston, and the script, gives us several small windows into her soul and we see where the hurt and neediness is really coming from.

I went in to this film thinking it was going to be a “cancer comedy” and left it moved and confused as to my emotional state. Was I laughing because it had charmed and moved me, or was I laughing because I didn’t want to start crying in front of everybody? It’s the profoundly human-scale hurts and triumphs that made the movie so special. It was the honesty and the humor, the sometimes questionable jokes that still somehow range true. And, of course, the odd couple pair at the heart of the film that proves that sometimes the best way to deal with the shit in life is to have a best friend to make you laugh through it all.

Have you ever watched a movie and wanted it to continue on, to entrance you in its world and characters for just a tiny bit longer? I felt that way as the end credits begin to roll for The Ides of March. I felt like much the true dramatic possibilities and action were just now being brought to a boil as it ended. I felt like there was even more places to go with this storyline, and like it could have taken me on a grander journey. It’s very good, but it could have been great.

Not to join in on the massive throngs of people sucking George Clooney’s dick, but I have always liked him as an actor and as a carrier of megaton charisma and movie star weight. I have tremendous respect for him ever since he decided to put his enormous clout behind projects like this, Good Night, and Good Luck (another movie that could have been even longer and I wouldn’t have minded), The Descendants, Up in the Air and Michael Clayton. That’s a resume filled with risks and grand ambitions of artistry in film. And he’s one hell of an actor in the “Golden Age” tradition – he takes an archetype that is very “George Clooney” on the outside, and twists it around and inside out to reveal unique and interesting things about the character in a very subtle way.

His crooked politician here is no different. Beneath that all-American silver fox exterior lies a cold, calculating and domineering personality that doesn’t care who get slaughtered on his road to victory. His midnight showdown with Ryan Gosling is riveting stuff, watching two actors perform a masterful give-and-take with minimal vocal and emotive inflections. Of course, when you have a powerhouse cast of actors like this, to say the acting is of the highest caliber seems like a “No shit, Sherlock” phrase. The true revelation is Evan Rachel Wood, normally cast as the rebellious, free-spirited girl and is excellent in that role, as a naïve intern who gets crushed and tossed aside by the callous system and those ensuring that it runs smoothly.

Though economically told, it doesn’t present anything particularly new or exciting about the American political system that many of us don’t already know, or at least suspect. It concerns itself more with attitudes of loyalty within the system, and those pundits and writers on the periphery who help spin quotes and stories out however they see fit depending on who will give them the best favors. The real charms and glories in the film come from the precise way in which the drama is slowly delivered out, and the top-notch group of actors assembled. I just wish it had actually been another hour longer, because it ends right as the all of the dramatic elements seems to be reaching a unique climax and emotional fallout. It could have gone to a darker, more dramatically rich place.

It’s a mixed bag, and a bit of a mixed blessing. As a musical, it could have used a few more sequences in which its characters broke out into song and dance. As a film about black culture, it could have used more authentic gospel standards and folk songs. As a film about race, it could have dealt less with stereotypes and broadened a bit more outside of its morality play and fable-like structure.

But it was made in 1943, and at the time the very existence of this film was radical enough. So maybe, I shouldn’t be so hard on it. Because what’s good in this film is great and some of it ranks amongst Minnelli’s best musical work. Lena Horne sizzling up the screen alone is enough for me to give this film a recommendation, even if she is underutilized.

The film concerns a battle between Lucifer Junior (Rex Ingram) and The General (Kenneth Lee Spencer) for the soul of “Little” Joe (Eddie “Rochester” Anderson). If the good side, symbolized by his long-suffering wife Petunia (Ethel Waters), wins his soul will be redeemed and he’ll go to heaven. Georgia Brown (Lena Horne, practically igniting the screen with just a swish of her body and a smile) is the temptress, one of Lucifer Junior’s best weapons against morality and decency.

So, yes, the plot does devolve into virgin vs. whore simplicity, but that’s not what makes the film so unique or interesting. It’s one of the few films made in the studio era that uses an all-black cast and showcases many of their talents. Louis Armstrong may not have a musical sequence in the film (which is truly a shame), but his brief part as a devil’s helper shows that he had a real gift for comedic timing. Ethel Waters is positively delightful, a warm, nurturing and loving presence throughout the film. She nails her laughs, highlights a lovely singing voice, and during the last musical number shows a hidden talent for dancing.

And Minnelli, even in his first feature and in black and white, ably demonstrates his talent for opulent visuals and eye for detail. The carefully composed sequence in the church, which opens the film quickly and through great economy, tells us everything we need to know about our characters and the world that they inhabit. Or the scene which introduces Lena Horne, and through her acting choices tells us that she is a bad girl, a little sex kitten, and, possibly at one point in time, a gangster’s doll.

Like many of Minnelli’s greatest works, there’s a sequence that introduces darkness, death, and a harrowing sense of terror to the peppy proceedings, Cabin in the Sky saves up most of that for the climax. The various characters meet in a nightclub, and a vicious tornado rips through the town. “Little” Joe and Petunia die in the panic, while Georgia Brown narrowly manages to escape. Horne’s acting in this scene is tremendous, and it shows, if nothing else, that she had the dramatic knowledge to carry off Show Boat, her dream role. Everything about the ending comes together beautifully.

Sure the film may trade in on stereotypes about black culture – gambling, laziness, an almost child-like dependence on and belief in Christianity – but for the time it was made, this was radical stuff. The patronization of the characters is minimal, but it could have been much better. Yet as a showcase for African-American entertainment polymaths, it’s a charming, wonderful testament to their work and enduring legacy. Perhaps it’s cruel of me to be so hard on the film’s slim storyline and racial attitudes as a 21st century viewer?

Few directors could use color as expressively as Douglas Sirk could. Sarah Jane’s emotionally and mentally fragile state being expressed through dark purples and sad clown faces says more about her character than any words could in Imitation of Life. Or the hedonistic, wild pagan dance that Marylee does in her garish pink and red room and clothing explains practically everything we need to know about her self-destruction and wild sex life in Written on the Wind. This same use of expressive color coding allows us deeper emotional access to the plastic, gilded surface world on display in All That Heaven Allows.

Like many great films, it was made because a previous film (Magnificent Obsession) featuring the main creative team (Sirk, Hudson, Wyman) had been a runaway success. Much like Howard Hawks had crafted a perfectly entertaining film with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Not and went on to make a masterpiece with The Big Sleep, Sirk really hit an artistic goldmine with this tale of suburbanites enforcing conformity and enforced emotional, romantic and sexual exile.

The plot is pure, unadulterated melodrama of the highest order. Jane Wyman is a wealthy widow in New England whose life revolves around her collegiate children, her country-club friends, and the few lecherous men in town who vie for her affections, if only for just one night. Rock Hudson plays a gardener working on her property, earthy and almost hypnotically attractive; he entrances her from their first meeting on. As they fall in love, the society around them will try to pull them apart, and restore a civilized order to her isolated, but “merry” widowhood.

The worst blow comes not from her friends and neighbors, but from her children who are horrified to discover that their mother is a person, complete with romantic and sexual needs. There’s a truly heartbreaking moment when they try to pacify her depression over breaking up with Hudson by buying her a television set, symbolically trying to entomb their mother within the family home complete with any and all of the latest gadgets to keep her distracted from her true pain. Behold, the consumerist American culture being given the lie to.

The shot that opens the film – of the town’s church spire against a chilly autumn day – sets the color palette and thematic stage for the events about to unfold. This chilly, cold, stiff building with its doctrine demanding conformity and unthinking allegiance to the values it assigns encapsulates the very nature of the conflict. And no character better exemplifies this than Wyman’s best friend, Agnes Moorehead. Moorehead’s performance is something extraordinary, at once prim, proper and supportive, but there’s a note of malice beneath those supportive words. And notice how she’s always there to remind everyone of what the society at large will say about the events. When the romance briefly implodes, Moorehead, like any true snake in the grass, is there to welcome Wyman back with open arms and try to smooth things over with the rest of the social clique.

The color coding goes a long way in econoimically presenting us with information about the nature of the characters and their emotional states. Moorehead’s devil-skin red dress comes to mind. Hudson’s constant flannel jacket does as well. So does the smaller touches, like the clearly plastic tree branch that Hudson gifts to Wyman early in the film. As she longingly stares at the film, her children become visible in the mirror, coming in-between her and the vase she has placed the branch in. This obsession with surfaces and clearly artificial props and exteriors allows for us to pay more attention to the emotional hell being played out before us. We know that’s a fake branch, we see the mirror’s reflection, and yet we automatically know that her entombment is an enforced prison thrown upon her by a society obsessed with keeping up appearances and things the way that they are.

It’s been decades since this was (unjustly) dismissed as a “weepie,” “women’s picture” lurid trash. Thankfully, the European critics and filmmakers of the 70s helped bring about a reevaluation and appreciation of Sirk’s work. And the “happy” ending we’re given is blown out into such ridiculous hysterics – a deer comes to the window to bless the (re)union of Wyman and Hudson – that one can’t help but appreciate, adored and admire the ironic notes that would crop up in his best work.