Badlands (1973, dir. Terrence Malick)

Few directorial debuts are as impressive as Terrence Malick's 1973 offering.  It contains many of the thematic and philosophical seeds that would flower in his subsequent works:  the violence inherent in humanity, the mysticism behind natural phenomena, the destructiveness of human relationships, and others - always examined with tact and precision.

The story is from real events of the 1950s:  a twenty-something, rambunctious young man and his teenage girlfriend go on a killing spree that would lead them to infamy and legend.  The pair are played by Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek.  Sheen's Kit Caruthers is a slightly unbalanced, alienated realization.  His likeness to James Dean is noted at times.  Spacek's Holly is an easily-led, introspective adolescent who provides the conscience and the narration of the film.

Narrated voice-over is a tactic employed by Malick in all his features and it offers a strong grounding position for his stories.  In his debut, Holly's narration is eccentric and, at the same time, lyrical.  It provides a certain philosophical underpinning to the film and helps the viewer dig deeper into the film, offering a closer examination of the characters and their motivations.

The film can also be read as a microcosm.  It takes place in the late 1950s but it is a comment on 1970s as well as present-day celebrity culture.  Kit's adulation and elevation to the level of hero by his captors at the end speaks to the celebrity culture of the times and how we as a society choose to worship false prophets and idols and put them on a pedestal.

This is one of the great films of the 70's and introduced Terrence Malick to the cinematic world as a bold new artist to be reckoned with. 

The Age of Adaline (2015, dir. Lee Toland Krieger)

Blake Lively is charismatic and captivating in the lead role of Adaline in Lee Toland Krieger's "The Age of Adaline".  Adaline was in an accident in her young adult life that caused her to never age.  It is a cool concept. 

The cinema's playfulness with the idea of The Fountain of Youth is not new but this film approaches the matter in an original way that makes the film enjoyable and engaging.  We watch Adaline as she lives from the early 20th century up until the present.  She witnesses her daughter outgrow her before her very eyes.  It is really a bittersweet concept and the director Krieger deals with the subject in a straightforward, unsentimental manner.

This film probably wouldn't work in the hands of a less likable, versatile actress.  Lively does a terrific job of making us care deeply for Adaline.  This is the first time I've seen her in a film and I look forward to seeing her in others in the future.

Ex Machina (2015, dir. Alex Garland)

Alex Garland's "Ex Machina" is a visceral exploration of artificial intelligence.  In the film, a talented young programmer named Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) wins a chance to spend time investigating a breakthrough invention in the form of a female cyborg named Ava (Alicia Vikander).  She has been created by an eccentric scientist named Nathan (Oscar Isaac) in his impressive home and laboratory somewhere in a distant, isolated locale.  Nathan is Caleb's boss at a search engine website called "BlueBook" that the viewer learns is the most popular search engine in the world.

I was impressed with the performances in this film.  The real revelation is Vikander.  Her Ava possesses a dual nature that offers an ambiguous mixture of human and cyborg qualities.  There is never any doubt as to her cyborg nature but, at the same time, Vikander's performance lends just enough humanity to Ava for the viewer to sometimes second guess him or herself.

There is a goldmine of thematic subtext to the film as well.  There is a neofeminist critique as well as commentaries on morality, good vs. evil, and loneliness.

I was left somewhat unsettled at the end of the film.  It was a little too abrupt and unresolved for my liking.  But the film is still a riveting sci-fi drama with original ideas.

The Thirst for Adventure - George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road

Few films I've seen recently have been as breath-taking and endlessly action-filled as George Miller's "Mad Max: Fury Road".  It certainly keeps you riveted to the screen for its entire two hours and rarely lets you rest. 

Tom Hardy takes over for Mel Gibson in the title role and this hand-me-down fits perfectly:  Hardy embodies Max with a vigor and animosity that both pays tribute to his predecessor and breathes entirely new life into the full-blooded character.  His performance is brilliant and few modern actors could have done a better job at giving Max the sympathy, and underlying humanity mixed with menace that Hardy embodies.

Another welcome addition to the Mad Max universe is Charlize Theron's Furiosa.  Theron's performance is a bombastic realization that has virtually opened up her career to a new array of possibilities.  Furiosa is an ass-kicking, one-armed wrecking machine who adds a strong female presence to the film.

The majority of the film takes place in the desert where the various vehicles traverse the arid, hot sands in ever-escalating road warfare.  These battle sequences are truly amazing and are the central focus of the film.  They are a wonder of direction and special effects.

One thing I didn't like about this film was the guy with the double-necked electric guitar who stands on the front end of a truck and plays his heart out as all hell breaks loose.  It seemed kind of stupid and I was glad to see him get annihilated.

Overall, this was a fantastic, ecstatic thrill-ride.   It will quench your cinematic thirst for action and adventure.

The Decameron (1971, dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini)

I have to admit, I'm new to Pier Paolo Pasolini.  Up until yesterday, I'd never seen any of his films, but I've heard a lot about his legendary status as a daring cinematic auteur.  I recently purchased the Criterion Collection's Blu-Ray set of his "Trilogy of Life" and "The Decameron" is the first film in that trilogy.  I thought I'd give it a try yesterday and I'm glad I did.  "The Decamaeron" is a bawdy, audacious, and scathing critique of sexual and religious mores of 14th Century Naples.  In critiquing this society that is so far in the past, Pasolini was critiquing his modern day (1970's) society.  He uses Giovanni Boccaccio's stories to inject a new outlook on his present day outlook of how he saw modern day Italy and the world.  Boccaccio's "Il Decameron" was an appropriate vehicle to do just that. 

"The Decameron" is a series of vignettes and episodes.  Each one has an overriding thematic constant which propels the narrative forward.  The thematic concerns are mostly sex and religion but there is the presence of other themes such as death, family, and the mystery and complexities of life itself.

The stories are often humorous and bawdy.  The immersion into 14th century Naples is seamlessly accomplished by Pasolini with expertise and finesse.  The overall picture is strengthened by editing that blends the different vignettes into one another without being awkward or jarring.

This was an exciting initiation to this legendary Italian director and I look forward to seeing more of his films in the future.

The Drop (2014, dir. Michael A. Roskam)

A film came along in late 2014 that passed virtually unnoticed from theatres after its initial release.  It happened to be James Gandolfini’s last film.  Few people saw it and it received little word-of-mouth to increase its viewership.  That’s a shame because Michael A. Roskam’s “The Drop” rises above its crime film contemporaries to a place of respectability by being fresh and slightly eccentric.  It is just surprising enough to propel it into the realm of an underrated, little gem.

It takes place in New York.  Tom Hardy plays Bob a bartender who works in a bar owned by his cousin, Marv (Gandolfini).  Their bar acts as a “Drop” -  a location where money is collected and distributed illegally to a local mob.  On his way home from work one day, Bob discovers a puppy in a garbage can – still alive – but badly beaten.  He and a woman named Nadia (Noomi Rapace) take care of the dog and it becomes the centerpiece of intrigue and suspense the will follow.

I liked the film and its characters.  It has the quality of being lived-in and soulful.  There is an element of realism to the setting and working-class people populating the story.

This is definitely not the greatest film of the year and it will probably be forgotten in a few years.  But that’s not to say that it is not enjoyable and engaging.  It is just a lively little film that isn’t flashy and it doesn’t draw attention to itself.

Reservoir Dogs (1992, dir. Quentin Tarantino)

When one watches Quentin Tarantino's debut "Reservoir Dogs" today, he or she comes to the picture with the knowledge of what came after.  "Reservoir Dogs", from today's perspective, is a brilliant film - quirky, amusing, revolting, and transcendent.  But, being the director's first film, one has to acknowledge that it is merely a preview for things to come.  Tarantino would really hit his stride with his following film, "Pulp Fiction" in 1994 and would go on to direct an array of beautiful, postmodern gems that have never failed to disappoint.

His debut from 1992 packs a visceral punch and at an hour and 35 minutes seems to breeze by.  It would contain many of the elements that would come to characterize "Pulp Fiction" - pulse-pounding, nerve-wracking tension, a playfulness with the exposition of narrative chronology, violence, and a narrative universe that seems to exist in an alternative dimension.  The actors inhabit their characters gracefully and believably to the extent that we are invested in their fates and trajectories.

Tarantino directs with an expressive exploitation of cinematic lore.  You can see his influences in every frame and camera movement.  You get a sense of different genres of cinema all at once - French New Wave, Hong Kong crime films, Spaghetti Westerns, film noir, and American 1970's cinema.  It is the seamless nature with which he blends all these and others that lends to the overall brilliance of this debut feature.

Basically the film tells the tale of a heist gone wrong.  It shows the prelude and planning for the heist and its aftermath but never the actual diamond store heist itself.  This technique by Tarantino is a bold move and adds to the charm of the picture via the thwarting of expectations.

The finale of the film is breathtakingly choreographed and riveting to watch.  When the credits role, you are left with some questions unanswered but that's the only way it should be.  Do the mysteries of life ever really reveal themselves?

As far as debuts go, "Reservoir Dogs" is among the most impressive and shocking.  It is a wonder that QT never went to film school.  No he didn't.  He "went to films" and it shows.

Inherent Vice (2014, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)

The experience of watching "Inherent Vice" is like the subjective experience of its lead character, Doc Sportello (Joaquin Pheonix):  it is a paranoia-inducing, confusing, tangential, meandering, drug-fueled mind-trip.  It is a neo-noir and will remind viewers of such other films as Robert Altman's "The Long Goodbye" and The Coen Brother's "The Big Lebowski".  Another film that it had echos of for me was John Cassavetes' "The Killing of Chinese Bookie".

You have to concentrate heavily to grasp all its hard-boiled dialogue and intrigue and I cannot confess to have done that on my initial viewing.  But it cast a spell on me with its mystery and idiosyncratic structure, dialogue, and characters.  It has a unique soul to it and a foreboding, murky atmosphere that admittedly will probably not win over a majority of viewers and non-PT Anderson die-hard fans.

The period detail of 1970 California is spot-on and the soundtrack by Jonny Greenwood is compellingly realized.   It is based on a novel by Thomas Pynchon.  I read Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow" once.  It was one of the hardest to comprehend novels I have ever read but, somehow, like "Inherent Vice" it is still riveting and jars you emotionally and intellectually.

I don't think will end up being my favourite PT film.  But it is a worthy addition to his unparalleled cinematic canon.