KISS ME DEADLY (1955)

Starring: Ralph Meeker & Cloris Leachman

Director: Robert Aldrich

"Remember Me."

One of film noir's darkest nightmares, this grim adaptation of one of Mickey Spillane's "Mike Hammer" thrillers has as much to do with the paranoiac sci-fi films of the fifties as it does with the two-fisted universe of the private eye. Meeker is Hammer, a sleazy gumshoe on the trail of "the great whatsit" (actually a box filled with radioactive substance), who's willing to beat, berate, and otherwise abuse anyone standing in his way. Directed with stunning artistry (and tongue in cheek) by Robert Aldrich, the film has weathered critical distaste to emerge as a cult classic, a brutal and often very funny critique of Spillane's macho sensibility and the nuclear paranoia of fifties America.

Years ahead of its time, a major influence on French New Wave directors, and one of Aldrich's best films. Leachman's film debut. Some video versions have 82 seconds of additional footage which completely changes the finale.

(105 mins.)

My Rating: ***1/2

LAKEVIEW TERRACE (2008)

Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Kerry Washington & Patrick Wilson

Director: Neil LaBute

There's something to be said for making a mainstream movie that depicts behavior as taboo as destructive racism on the part of a black main character. It's probably even less common for a director to opt to tackle this kind of phenomenon not in some gritty urban drama, but in a wide-release Sam Jackson thriller. At least that's how Lakeview Terrace is marketed -- though for all its semi-successful attempts to ratchet up the intensity with every scene, it's pretty obvious that if the thriller side of this movie was in the driver's seat, the social-commentary side was riding shotgun, and probably reading the directions.

The premise is that twentysomething couple Chris (Patrick Wilson) and Lisa Mattson (Kerry Washington) move into the titular posh gated community in the Hollywood Hills, only to discover that their neighbor Abel (Samuel L. Jackson), an officer with the LAPD, appears to be totally crazy. He makes it clear that he disapproves of their relationship -- since Chris is white and Lisa is black -- and animosity grows, passive aggression becomes real aggression, and Chris and Lisa's imperfect marriage starts to crack under the pressure as the conflict violently comes to a head. This basic treatment sounds like the grounds for an interesting story, but unfortunately, the film often handles all the subject matter with a really distracting degree of heavy-handedness. While there are scenes that succeed in subtly hitting all the right nerves, evoking director Neil LaBute's trademark brand of uncomfortable realism, too many themes hinge on über-simplified paint-by-numbers clichés and hokey constructs. For example, the film thematically builds around an analogy in the form of a subplot about a wildfire that burns in distant view of the community. As the hostility incrementally escalates between Abel and the Mattsons, the fire is incrementally revisited, placing the characters on their balcony again and again to make the same observations about the inferno growing closer and more powerful, and recite the same transparently naïve lines about how, of course, the danger will never reach their (figuratively) insulated home. We get it! This kind of conflict threatens everybody! We get it! Especially those who seem immune! We get it! In the end, we all get burned! It's like a PSA; you're just waiting for Jackson to break the fourth wall, look into the camera and say, "It's time to end the hate. Nobody wins at this game, homes. Nobody wins."

The stupid fire thing even comes up again when Chris puts a row of fully grown trees along his property line to block his view of Abel's yard. Official-voice-of-reason Lisa shakes her head in consternation and argues that this will only breed more antagonism, to which Chris halfheartedly responds that the landscaping is environmental: "Trees make oxygen, right?" And oxygen fuels fire! GET IT?!? It's that kind of triteness that keeps stealing the scene, especially when Chris and Lisa discuss their marriage. The parts are well acted, but the undergrad-film-student dialogue keeps veering toward soap-opera style. Which would be fine if this were just a thriller, but the highfalutin content about class and race makes the style feel awkward and incongruous. (106 mins.)

My Rating: **1/2

THE HAPPENING (2008)

Starring: Mark Wahlberg & Zooey Deshanel

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Lady in the Water director M. Night Shyamalan puts PG-13 suspense on pause to tell this grim apocalyptic tale about a family fleeing a natural disaster that poses a grave threat to the whole of humanity. Philadelphia high-school science teacher Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) is discussing the disappearance of the bees with his students when the staff is summoned to the theater and briefed about a mysterious event that is currently unfolding in New York City. According to reports, citizens in the vicinity of Central Park have suddenly and inexplicably begun seizing up just before killing themselves by whatever means are at their disposal. As the phenomena begins to spread and talk of terrorism fills the airwaves, Elliot, his wife, Alma (Zooey Deschanel), their friend Julian (John Leguizamo), and his daughter, Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez), board a train bound for the presumed safety of the country. When the train screeches to a halt before arriving at its final destination, however, the frightened passengers are forced to fend for themselves as each consecutive news report paints an increasingly grim picture of the situation in more urbanized areas. Theories abound on what could be causing the unexplainable rash of suicides, but the only thing that everyone seems to agree on is that it's some kind of airborne contagion that is carried in the wind. It would appear that humankind's reign on planet Earth has come to an end, but perhaps if this small band of survivors can find a safe place to lie low until this all blows over, all hope for survival of the species might not be lost just yet.

Note to M. Night Shyamalan: No matter which angle you shoot it from, a mild summer breeze is not terrifying. A hurricane, absolutely; a tornado, most certainly; a typhoon, indubitably. Hell, even an especially large dust devil might prove capable of jangling the nerves of some particularly sensitive anemophobics. Unfortunately (at least for Shyamalan), the continuous scenes of trees ominously rustling in the breeze or fields of grass churning like a menacing green ocean throughout The Happening mostly elicit feelings of tranquility and inner peace rather than paralyzing fear and insurmountable dread -- the kiss of death for a film attempting to paint nature as the ultimate enemy of humankind. But Shyamalan's failure to make gusts of wind blow fear into the hearts of moviegoers isn't the only reason why The Happening fails to click as an effective horror film; weak direction of actors, a meandering screenplay, and a particularly anemic ending all add up to a misfire that -- despite an admittedly original premise and a promise to ramp up the gruesome imagery -- largely lacks any real sense of tension or danger. Sadly, since the director fails to ratchet up the levels of intensity any higher than in his previous films, the widely touted fact that this is his first R-rated film feels like a gimmicky (and somewhat misleading) ploy to convince moviegoers that Shyamalan has finally taken off the kid gloves, as opposed to a sincere attempt to grow as a filmmaker or branch out into more challenging and mature themes. (89 mins.)

My Rating: *1/2

THE BODY SNATCHER (1945)

Starring: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Henry Daniell, Edith Atwater, Russell Wade & Rita Corday.

Director: Robert Wise

Fine, atmospheric tale from Robert Louis Stevenson short story of doctor (Daniell) who is forced to deal with scurrilous character (Karloff) in order to get cadavers for experiments. Last film to team Karloff and Lugosi, their scenes together are eerie and compelling. One of the classic Val Lewton thrillers. Screenplay by Philip MacDonald and Carlos Keith (Lewton).

A doctor is blackmailed by a villainous coachman when he wishes to stop securing bodies for medical research in Scotland of the 19th century. For horror fans, this is one of the best; for others, a good and chilling version of Robert Louis Stevenson's tale. (77 mins.)

My Rating; ***

THE MAGICIAN (1958)

Starring: Max Von Sydow, Ingrid Tullin, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Naima Wifstrand, Bibi Andersson & Erland Josephson.

Director: Ingmar Bergman

An early Ingmar Bergman-directed film that will tingle your spine and stimulate your brain. The supernatural, comic, mystical and the human mingle in this imaginative tale of a magician and his troupe who are detained in a small Swedish community when their magical powers are disbelieved. Visually rich, gothic atmosphere.

Complex, provocative account of Albert Emmanuel Vogler (Von Sydow), a 19th-century hypnotist-magician who has studied with Mesmer but finds himself debt-ridden and charged with blasphemy. A thoughtful (and too-long underrated) portrait of a man who is part-faker, part-genius. (102 mins.)

My Rating: ***

THE STRANGER (1946)

Starring: Orson Welles, Loretta Young & Edward G. Robinson

Director: Orson Welles

     Nazi war criminal (Orson Welles) assumes a new identity in a Connecticut town following World War II, unaware that a government agent (Edward G. Robinson) is tailing him. 

     Extremely well-done film, holds the viewer's interest from start to finish. 95 mins.

My Rating: ***1/2

SORRY, WRONG NUMBER (1948)

Starring: Barbara Stanwyck & Burt Lancaster

Director: Anatole Litvak

     Slick cinema adaptation, by the author herself, of Lucille Fletcher's famed radio drama. Barbara Stanwyck is superb-and received an Oscar nomination-as an invalid who, due to those "crossed wires" so beloved in fiction, overhears two men plotting the murder of a woman. 

     Gradually, Stanwyck realizes that she is the target. 89 mins.

My Rating: ***