The Pope of Greenwich Village - 1984 - 3½ Stars

Actors: Eric Roberts, Mickey Rourke

Director: Stuart Rosenberg

There's a certain type of film where the writing is not meant to stand out, the plot's nothing particularly special, and the director is not pulling a lot of fancy tricks. I've reviewed a lot of them here - The Last Detail and The King of Marvin Gardens are two that I can think of. The Pope of Greenwich Village is unquestionably in this vein. A largely shapeless film, it concerns Rourke and Roberts as guys trying to hustle just a little more money out of their workaday lives.

Films like this are acting setpieces, and neither Roberts nor Rourke disappoint - Roberts as the jumpy, impetuous, well-meaning idiot, and Rourke as his wiser, put-upon cousin. There are a few standout scenes and a few that drag, and ultimately the film seems too long at 2 hours. I almost always say this about this sort of film, but I always say there should be more of this type of film.

Here's a fun game to play. Eric Roberts and Mickey Rourke starred in this film in 1984, and here is what they looked like:

http://thisdistractedglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/pope-of-greenwich-village.jpg

They also starred in The Expendables - here is what they looked like there:

Eric Roberts: http://tinyurl.com/4s5stmg

Mickey Rourke: http://tinyurl.com/493wug6

O Time, must you ravage us so?

Once Upon A Time In The West - 1968 - 4 Stars

Actors: Claudia Cardinale, Charles Bronson

Director: Sergio Leone

Sergio Leone is the master of the close-up facial shot. His films are filled with shots of sketchy dudes suspiciously eyeing one another, sizing up how threatening they are. In the lawless West, any stranger can be the last person you ever see, especially if you forget all the people you've pissed off.

Leone's film purports to have an epic sweep, but it's really only concerned with vengeance and the death of the Old West. There's a group of men that live by the scores they have to settle, progress be damned, money men be damned.

Bronson's performance as a Man With No Name is stellar, and the rest of the performances are solid as well. The film is nearly three hours, which begins to feel padded by the end - it's as if he is trying to make a film with huge scope without a grand story or budget behind it. Regardless, I'd say it's (probably) worth the time.

The Mirror - 1975 - 3½ Stars

Actors: Margarita Terekhova, Oleg Vankovskiy
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky

Film with disconnected plots tend to make us think more, but is this necessarily a good thing? I couldn't make very much sense out of The Mirror, which treats us to dreams and flashbacks and poems but doesn't really go beyond that. Still, it was thought-provoking, and has surely inspired many a film student to a prize-winning deconstruction.

The Mirror reminds me of La Dolce Vita, although in Soviet Russia it's difficult to have a Dolce Vita. Like my reaction to Fellini's supposed masterwork, I was confused by its intense personality - it seemed so personal to the director that I could not access it myself. The Mirror is similar, though there are scenes of stunning beauty and sadness.

This film seems to make no apologies for the fact that it's disconnected and extremely personal - in fact, it seems to argue that all of us are mirrors, even the great artists; even the most imaginative and deep-thinking artist can only reflect back what's presented to them.

Spellbound - 1945 - 4 Stars

Actors: Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

When I watch a film like Spellbound, it's easy to see why Hitchcock was thought of as an excellent populist director until the French New Wave came along. The plot of Spellbound is so terrifically stupid and so unbelievably hokey that it's almost embarrassing. Even Sigmund Freud would be ashamed to have his psychiatric work on display here. And yet, it still works.

Hitchcock's films are all a direct stab at the psyche of the viewer - he's looking to get in my head. Once he's in there, it doesn't really matter what the plot is, I'm so caught up in the tension. His protagonists are often posed with a very simple moral dilemma; the protagonist makes one choice, and their fate is spun out of that choice. In Spellbound, that choice is a simple lie, which compounds into further untruths.

Wordplay - 2006 - 3½ Stars

Subject: The New York Times Crossword Puzzle

Director: Patrick Creadon

I'm a sucker for documentaries about obsessive nerdy subcultures - I saw Spellbound, and both the Scrabble documentaries. I'm continually amazed at the participants' willingness to share with the camera, though I suppose if someone spends that much time on some pursuit, they are likely eager to talk to anyone about it.

Wordplay's strength is the celebrity gets - several public figures from all walks of life discuss the passion the NYT Crossword Puzzle inspires. Its weakness is the exploration of crossword competitions, which feature your garden-variety obsessives.

The Expendables - 2010 - 2½ Stars

Actors: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham

Director: Sylvester Stallone

The Expendables is big, dumb Hollywood fun for people who still can't help watching Commando any time they see it on cable. Dolph Lundgren and Sylvester Stallone have a face-cragginess contest (Stallone wins). The plot is hilariously thin, cribbed from other, similar films. No worries - we are familiar enough with the tropes.

I've noticed this tendency in other action films, but could we please stop the trend of using an extremely blue filter during night scenes? Yes, it does give the film a ridiculously sleek look. It also makes everything in the film look CGI, whether or not it actually was. Although perhaps they did CGI the whole movie - if they'd used real scenery, we'd probably be able to see teeth marks from where Stallone, Eric Roberts, and Steve Austin chewed it.