AN EYE FOR AN EYE

 When the critic Dilys Powell said there was no such thing as a bad western she was probably thinking of a movie like "An Eye for an Eye". It's an above average B-Movie about a couple of bounty hunters, (Robert Lansing and Patrick Wayne), who go after the gang that killed Lansing's wife and son.

It's a formulaic picture but one with a few original ideas up its sleeve, (such as Wayne losing his sight), and if neither actor was ever likely to be an Oscar contender the film has a decent supporting cast, (Paul Fix, Strother Martin, Gloria Talbot and Slim Pickens in a rare villainous role), as well as some good action sequences. It's also beautifully shot on location by the great Lucien Ballard. It may not be a movie you've ever heard of but it's worth seeking out.

THE KING OF MARVIN GARDENS

 "The King of Marvin Gardens" was the film Bob Rafelson made after his success with "Five Easy Pieces", again with Jack Nicholson in the lead and it's one of the best American films of the seventies but it was a commercial flop. It's certainly as good as "Five Easy Pieces"; a bleak, cautionary fable on the failure of the American Dream. Just the kind of thing the public didn't want.

Nicholson is the introvert, cynical disc jockey and Dern, his extrovert day-dreamer of a brother and they haven't seen each other in two years when Dern contacts Nicholson asking him to come to Atlantic City where he's shacked up with the unstable Ellen Burstyn and her step-daughter Julia Anne Robinson. His proposal is that he and Nicholson go into business together in Hawaii though it's clear from the moment we meet Dern that it's all a fantasy.

Jacob Brackman wrote the superb screenplay from his and Rafelson's original story and all four leading players are terrific. Critics felt at the time that the film would have been more successful if Nicholson's and Dern's roles had been reversed but I think they are perfectly cast. This is one of Nicholson's best and least ostentatious performances allowing Dern to fully stretch himself with one of his most full-bodied performances while Burstyn is totally fearless. As the step-daughter who finds herself in the middle of a strange menage a trois Julia Anne Robinson is also remarkably good; surely she would have had a major career had she not died tragically only two years later.

Of course, the film itself is a true American tragedy and its setting of Atlantic City in winter is inspired. You can almost smell the rot in the hotels with no guests and the funfairs with no customers with its characters capable of doing nothing but playing games and imagining a life none of them are destined to have. A misunderstood masterpiece that shouldn't be missed.

ALCARRAS

 Spain's entry in the Best International Feature category for the the 2022 Oscars, "Alcarras" tells of how a family of Catalonian peach farmers are forced from their land by the son of the former landowner after his death and of how this divides them, the title taken from the region in which they live. If you think the superb performances of the entire cast are wholly naturalistic it's because director Carla Simon cast non-professionals in every role but one. The result is a largely documentary approach and a film that might have once been directed by Ermanno Olmi.

Despite the dramatic potential of the subject matter for a lot of the time not a great deal happens. We simply observe these people struggling with the situation in which they find themselves though it's not all gloom and doom. This is an extended family that knows how to play as well as work and the scenes involving the youngest children are among the best of their kind in recent cinema. Unfortunately the pace of the film proves too leisurely for us to feel as emotionally involved as perhaps we should. That said, both Jordi Pujol Dolcet and Albert Bosch are superb as the father and son finally united by the very thing that divides them and there is no denying the beauty of the bittersweet ending.

HAWAII

 An old-fashioned epic and a remarkably intelligent one, "Hawaii" was only George Roy Hill's fourth film and was based on James A. Michener's best-selling novel. Set during the 19th century it's about how Christianity was brought to the 'heathens' of Hawaii and its sister islands except that here Christianity is represented by the hellfire and brimstone preacher Abner Hale, superbly played by Max von Sydow and his attitudes are anything but Christ-like.

His wife is an equally superb Julie Andrews and it's she who is truly good, being virtually adopted on arrival by the island's queen, (Jocelyne LaGarde, magnificent and Oscar-nominated in her only film role) and it's Julie's love that finally softens Abner's heart though you might conclude a little too late.

Of course, this could just have been another island adventure yarn and it was rare for Hollywood in the sixties to back a three hour epic with religion at its centre though piety is conspicuously absent; there's just enough sex and violence as well as handsome whaler Richard Harris to appeal to a mass audience. Unfortunately the film wasn't really a success and consequently it isn't much seen these days. A pity as it really is very good.

BROKER

 Movies like "Broker" should cement Hirokazu Koreeda's reputation as one of the best directors working today and certainly the best from Asia and like his earlier "Shoplifters" children and crime are at its centre. There a family provided love to an unwanted child while at the same time teaching her the art of shoplifting. Here the law-breakers are a couple of guys who 'kidnap' babies left by their mothers in an orphanage baby box, then selling them on for adoption.

There was a time when this would have been an outright thriller and the brokers would simply be the villains but Koreeda likes to dig deep below the surface. Ha Sang-hyun and Dong-soo, (Song Kang-ho and Gang Dong-won, both brilliant), may be in the brokering business for profit but at the same time they actually care for the children they 'steal'.

At the beginning of "Broker" a young mother abandons her baby and the brokers pick him up but then she goes looking for him, a journey that brings her into contact with his 'kidnappers' and into a relationship that is something like a family. There's something almost Dickensian in the intricacies of Koreeda's storytelling just as his cinema follows in the humanist footsteps of Renoir and DeSica.

Throw in a subplot involving a murder as well as two female detectives trying to catch the brokers redhanded in the act of selling a baby, marvellous performances from the entire cast, a surprising amount of gentle comedy and you have one of the best and definitely one of the sweetest films of the year.

THE YOUNG SAVAGES

 John Frankenhimer made his feature film debut in 1957 with "The Young Stranger" after which he returned to television for four years before coming back with "The Young Savages", another film about teenage delinquency only this time the delinquents were the 'savages' of the title, seen knifing a blind Puerto Rican boy to death in the film's opening scene. Burt Lancaster is the prosecutor whose job it is to send the killers to the electric chair despite the fact that the mother, (Shelly Winters), of one of the killers used to be his girlfriend.

It's a melodramatic story told melodramatically and unconvincingly and despite some excellent location work it's hard to believe this came from the same man who made "The Manchurian Candidate", "Birdman of Alcatraz" and "Seconds". Capital Punishment and racism are the films big themes but while Frankenhimer's heart may have been in the right place he really couldn't do very much with the material as presented. Watchable but far from memorable.

VERA CRUZ

 One of Robert Aldrich's best films and arguably his most enjoyable, "Vera Cruz" isn't quite a western, (it's set in Mexico during the conflict between Emperor Maximilian and the Juaristas), but it has enough western tropes, as well as Gary Cooper, to satisfy any fan of the genre. Cooper and Burt Lancaster are mercenaries there to fight for the Emperor since his side pays the most only finally to come around to the side of the rebels.

George Macready is Maximilian, Cesar Romero, his right-hand man the Marquis and Denise Darcel, the flighty Countess Cooper and Lancaster are hired to escort to Vera Cruz along with three million in gold coin which they plan on stealing with the Countess' help. To call this film 'action-packed' would be something of an understatement as there is something happening every minute. It's also got an excellent Roland Kibbee/James R. Webb script from a story by Borden Chase and a supporting cast that includes Ernest Borgnine, Jack Elam, Charles Bronson and Henry Brandon. You might even call it a classic of its kind.

THE MORTAL STORM

 "The Mortal Storm" was just one of a handful of films made in America during the period before the country entered WW2 and it's one of the bravest dealing directly and bleakly with the rise of fascism in Germany. (Hitler not only banned the film but subsequently banned all MGM films). It begins in 1933 and is about how Hitler's 'election' to Chancellor divides a group of lifelong friends with the characters played by James Stewart and Margaret Sullivan standing against fascism whilst Robert Young, Robert Stack and Dan Dailey amongst others join the Nazi Party.

The director was Frank Borzage who was, first and foremost, one of cinema's great romantics and this film remains one of his finest love stories; the way Borzage blends the romantic with the political is often nothing short of miraculous and while the American accents of many of the cast may grate a little the performances throughout are faultless, (even that old ham, Maria Ouspenskaya, is good in this one). Indeed, seen today this looks something like a lost Hollywood masterpiece and it really deserves to be better known.

PAST LIVES

 Once in awhile a subtitled or largely subtitled movie makes its way into our multiplexes but usually only after it's won a few major awards. Of course, sometimes distributors just sense a hit, maybe due to festival word-of-mouth. Celine Song's "Past Lives" would appear to be one such movie, all the more surprising since it marks Song's debut. Of course, it is a love story and love stories sell, even ones with subtitles.

In begins in the present with a Asian couple sitting talking in a bar, (we don't hear what they are saying), before going back 24 years to when they were both children in Seoul and clearly very fond of each other. The film then jumps forward 12 years when the girl, now known as Nora and living in New York, and the boy Jung Hae Sung, meet on Facebook after he tracks her down online. It is inevitable they will meet again in person but are they 'destined' for each other?

This is a love story for the digital age when platforms like Facebook make communication across continents easy and instantaneous and watching them meet again online as adults is beautiful, moving and a testament to the acting skills of Greta Lee as Nora and Teo Yoo as Jung Hae Sung and it is clear it should appeal to a mass audience and deservedly so. Of course, unlike love stories of the past it shows just how easy it is to begin and end a relationship when no actual physical contact is required.

Of course, we know from the opening shot that they do meet again and spend time together but they have both met other people and it takes a period of 24 years, (it moves forward another 12 years from that online meeting), to close the circle and the casualness of online chat gives way to the awkwardness of physical touch.

In its way "Past Lives" is like a multinational version of "When Harry Met Sally", the story of a love between a man and a woman not founded on sex but on friendship and perhaps that is the greatest love of all. It would be seriously amiss of me to reveal the ending in a love story that could go either way but Song handles the emotions on display with the lightest of touches and the greatest of understanding and both Lee and Yoo deliver award-worthy performances. Even if ultimately this does attract only an art-house audience let us hope it is a large art-house audience as this may turn out to be the best film of 2023.

ANGEL HEART

 With Alan Parker I've either blown very hot or very cold. His best films, ("Shoot the Moon", "The Commitments", "Mississippi Burning") are contemporary classics while at other times I've found his work to be tasteless and even somewhat offensive. There was a streak of homophobia running through both "Fame" and "Midnight Express" that I disliked while on an initial viewing I found that piece of pulp "Angel Heart" sleazy and exploitative. Of course, all these films are superbly made; if nothing else Parker was a master craftsman and if you were prepared to give yourself over to their sometimes questionable content you might even say his films were highly watchable entertainments.

Still, I'm not one to hold a grudge so recently I gave "Angel Heart" another chance and this time round, giving myself over to his blend of sophistication, embodied by Michael Seresin's superb cinematography and a deliciously sly turn from Robert DeNiro, and the audacity of its really rather ludicrous plot, I found a lot here to enjoy. This is a film that does what it says on the tin; it's an old-fashioned horror movie given a beautiful new coat of paint and at its centre there's Mickey Rourke looking like a fallen angel, ('Falling Angel' was the title of the source novel). Rourke wasn't just beautiful back in the day but he could act, too and could even carry a movie. He certainly goes a long way to carrying this one as does Parker who is clearly enjoying teasing his audience even if the clues to the final twist are fairly obvious from the start. In the end this is just cinematic junk food but junk food that is really rather tasty.

THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE

 This early Technicolor picture may be one of the most beautiful color films ever made and it's got a great cast, (Henry Fonda, Fred MacMurray, Sylvia Sidney, Beulah Bondi, Nigel Bruce, Fred Stone), so I suppose we should be half way there. It's a backwoods yarn about a feud that has gone on for generations between the Tollivers and the Falins and of how railroad engineer MacMurray gets caught up in the middle of it.

The problem is the story-line of "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine" is mostly trite and there's not much director Henry Hathaway or that fine cast can do to redeem it so all we are left with are the images and the fact that it was shot on location. The unhappy ending, too, is something of a downer making this film historically significant but otherwise forgettable.

LATE SPRING

 Ozu made his masterpiece "Late Spring" in 1949 and it dealt with a subject very close to his heart, family and in particular the bond between father and daughter. It was a theme he was to return to often and yet perhaps never more affectingly as here, (indeed, his final film, "An Autumn Afternoon", was really a remake of "Late Spring"). It was also the first film in what came to be known as 'the Noriko trilogy', the others being "Early Summer" and "Tokyo Story", and as the daughter Noriko, who refuses to get married so as to stay with her ageing father, Setsuko Hara gives a luminous performance as does Chishu Ryu as her father. These were performers Ozu worked with often and he knew them, and the characters they played, intimately.

It's a deeply moving film, very simply told and it cemented Ozu's reputation as one of cinema's greatest directors. (it's frequently listed among the best films ever made), and there are few films about family to touch it. Ozu's genius was his ability to use a very simple surface palette to disguise a wealth of emotions; love, jealousy, loneliness are handled with slightest of touches. How different this is from the way an American director might have dealt with the same material. For Ozu, there are no 'happy endings'; life really is disappointing and everything is tinged with sadness. Heartbreaking but in the most beautiful of ways.

ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS

 One of Howard Hawks' several masterpieces and again an example of the Hollywood studio system at its zenith with every aspect of the production as perfect as pictures can get. As was so often the case Hawks directs the film as if he hadn't been on set at all, as if everything we are seeing had simply evolved naturally. A sublime cast, (Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Richard Barthelmess, Thomas Mitchell, Rita Heyworth, Allyn Joslyn, Sig Ruman), working from a sublime screenplay by Jules Furthman make it seem effortless just as Lionel Bank's art direction and Joseph Walker's brilliant cinematography create a real place out of the South American port of Barranca and all in the studio.

The story concerns a group of hotshot flyers whose job it is to deliver the mail by flying it out over some very treacherous mountain terrain and when you throw some Hawksian women into the mix things can get pretty hot on the ground, too. Arthur is the archetypal Hawksian female and this might just be her best performance though you can't really fault any of the cast. Some of the lines, "Calling Barranca" and "Who's Joe" have passed into movie folklore.

RIFKIN'S FESTIVAL

 I don't hold out much hope that in my lifetime the home of the brave that we call the USA will ever recover from the disease of sexual hypocrisy that is currently afflicting the movie industry so I'm not expecting them to 'forgive' Woody Allen anytime soon. To many Allen is guilty until proven innocent and he'll probably carry his 'guilt' to his grave so it's heartening that in Europe at least there are still people willing to work with him. He's currently got a new film at Venice though his last film, "Rifkin's Festival, which he made in San Sebastian, is still awaiting a release here.

Unfortunately it isn't very good. (although in some respects it's a cineaste's delight). This time Wallace Shawn is Allen's alter-ego, (though Allen is now of an age he could have played the role himself). He's a lecturer in film in San Sebastian for the festival because his wife, (Gina Gershon, very good), is there to promote her client's new film. He's a sexy, young and very pretentious French director played by Louis Garrel, very nicely sending up his own image, and Shawn's convinced she's having an affair with him and in typical Allen fashion Shawn is also convinced he's dying and embarks on his own pursuit of the beautiful doctor who's treating him, (Elena Anaya).

Basically this is just another excuse for Woody to give us the same old Woody shtick he's been giving us almost since "Annie Hall" and sadly, due to the law of diminishing returns, it's no longer near as funny as it once was. This time around Woody indulges himself in a series of parodies of his favourite art-house films and at least these show some imagination and have some of the best gags. There is also a smattering of good one-liners and Shawn does his best to walk in Woody's shoes but we've seen it all before and with better results. Hopefully his latest film, which may well be his last, will be a considerable improvement.

RIDE IN THE WHIRLWIND

 One of two westerns Monte Hellman made back to back, (the other is "The Shooting"), "Ride in the Whirlwind" was definitely a post-modern take on the genre, very much a product of the New Hollywood. It was produced by Hellman and Jack Nicholson and Nicholson not only starred in the picture but also wrote the screenplay. If it follows the trajectory of a traditional western it also breaks from that trajectory scene to scene. Hellman clearly wanted to make a 'realist' western with banal dialogue that doesn't seem to advance the story, shooting it in a totally naturalistic style that's as close to a documentary as you are likely to get.

As an actor Nicholson had yet to find his voice but he's very disarming nevertheless and it's he and Harry Dean Stanton, (billed here simply as Dean Stanton), who walk away with the acting honors in a film that is leisurely to the point of inertia. Of course, both this and "The Shooting" have built up a considerable cult following on the back of the director's reputation and there is something of the Peckinpah in this vision of a West where life and death are mirror images of each other and where survival isn't so much a matter of choice but is purely down to chance. It is a deeply pessimistic picture; here is an American West that offers no hope for the future, bleak and quintessentially Hellman.