Author Archives: Lisa Marie Bowman

Film Review: King of Kings (dir by Nicholas Ray)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1961 film, King of Kings, was the final biblical film that I watched on Easter.  Like The Greatest Story Ever Told, it tells the story of Jesus from the Nativity to the Ascension.  Like The Greatest Story Ever Told, it’s an epic film that was directed by a renowned director.  (In this case, Nicholas Ray.)  Like The Greatest Story Ever Told, King of Kings also has a huge cast and there’s a few familiar faces to be seen, though it doesn’t really take the all-star approach that George Stevens did with his telling of the story.

Probably the biggest star in King of Kings was Jeffrey Hunter, who played Jesus.  Hunter was in his 30s at the time but he still looked young enough that the film was nicknamed I Was A Teenage Jesus.  (Some of that also probably had to do with the fact that Nicholas Ray was best known for directing Rebel Without A Cause.)  But then again, for a man who had so many followers, Jesus was young.  He hadn’t even reached his 40th birthday before he was crucified.  As well, his followers were also young while his many opponents were representatives of the establishment and the old way of doing things.  It makes perfect sense that Jesus should be played by a young man and Hunter gives a good performance.  As opposed to so many of the other actors who have played Jesus in the movies, Jeffrey Hunter is credible as someone who could convince fishermen to throw down their nets and follow him.  He’s passionate without being fanatical and serious without being grim.  He’s a leader even before he performs his first miracle.

King of Kings is one of the better films that I’ve seen about the life of Jesus.  While remaining respectful of its subject, it also feels alive in the way that so many other biblical films don’t.  Perhaps not surprisingly, Nicholas Ray focuses on the idea of Jesus as a rebel against the establishment.  Ray emphasizes the casual cruelty of the Romans and their collaborators.  When John the Baptist (Robert Ryan) is arrested by Herod (Frank Thring), it’s not just so the filmmakers can have an excuse to work Salome (Brigid Bazlen) in the film.  It’s also to show what will happen to anyone who dares to challenge the establishment.  When Jesus visits John the Baptist in his cell, it’s a summit between two rebels who know that they’re both destined to die for the greater good.  When Pilate (Hurd Hatfield) makes his appearance, he’s smug and rather complacent in his power.  He’s not the quasi-sympathetic figure who appears in so many other biblical films.  Instead, he’s the epitome of establishment arrogance.

As a director, Nicholas Ray keeps things simple.  This isn’t Ben-Hur or The Ten Commandments.  The emphasis is not on grandeur.  Instead, the film is about common people trying to improve the world in which they’re living, while also preparing for the next.  Jeffrey Hunter gives an excellent performance as Jesus and, all in all, this is one of the better and more relatable biblical films out there.

Film Review: 40 Nights (dir by Jesse Low)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 2016 film, Forty Nights, opens with John the Baptist (Terry Jernigan) baptizing a surprisingly mellow Jesus (DJ Perry) while John’s followers watch.  After Jesus is baptized, the voice of God echoes through the land and, once again, the thing that struck me was just how laid back God sounded.  It’s rare that we ever see either Jesus or his Father portrayed as being so calm and easy-going and I have to say that I found it to be a somewhat nice change of pace from the more intense approach the most actors tend to take.  Of course, I don’t know if that was intentional or just a happy accident.  It was probably the latter.

After getting baptized, Jesus spent 40 days and 40 nights, fasting in the Judaen desert and proving his own faith.  During that time, Jesus was tempted three times by the Devil, who appeared in various guises and tried to convince Jesus to not only break his fast but to also wantonly display his power.  The Devil tempted Jesus to turn stones into bread.  He tempted Jesus to jump from the pinnacle of a temple so that the angels might break his fall.  Finally, he offered to give Jesus all of the kingdoms of the world in return for Jesus worshiping him.  Not surprisingly, this confrontation between Satan and Jesus has proven popular with both writers and filmmakers.  For instance, The Greatest Story Ever Told featured Donald Pleasence as a smug Satan.  The more recent Last Days In The Desert featured Ewan McGregor playing both Jesus and Satan.

Forty Nights takes a no-frills approach to the 40 days and nights that Jesus spent in the wilderness, alternating between scenes of Jesus being tempted and flashbacks to Jesus’s youth.  Sometimes, the low-key approach is effective and sometimes, you find yourself longing for the more over-the-top approach that other films brought to the same material.  For a battle between good-and-evil, there’s not really much of a battle to be found in this film.  Over and over again, Satan appears, taunts Jesus, and then Jesus tells him to go away.  While that may be faithful to the narrative, it doesn’t quite work in the film because, at no point, does there seem to be any risk of Jesus giving into Satan’s temptations.  Because Jesus, in this film, never seems to be truly tempted, there’s less triumph to him refusing to give in.  Instead of being about Jesus showing strength and faith, Forty Nights often seems like it’s more about Satan’s inability to take the hint and go away.  The film is at its best when Satan and Jesus are debating each other atop of the temple and oddly enough, the effectiveness of that scene is largely due to how badly the film’s green screen effects are integrated into the film.  It gives the entire scene an otherworldly, almost dream-like feel.

Anyway, Forty Nights is a film that will probably be best appreciated by those who already agree with the film’s viewpoint.  This is not the faith-based film that’s going to convert unbelievers and ultimately, it fails to maintain any sort of real narrative momentum.  Still, the temptation in the wilderness is still an effective and intriguing narrative and one to which filmmakers will probably continue to return.

 

 

 

Film Review: The Greatest Story Ever Told (dir by George Stevens)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1965 biblical epic, The Greatest Story Ever Told, tells the story of the life of Jesus, from the Nativity to the Ascension.  It’s probably the most complete telling of the story that you’ll ever find.  It’s hard to think of a single details that’s left out and, as a result, the film has a four hour running time.  Whether you’re a believer or not, that’s a really long time to watch a reverent film that doesn’t even feature the campy excesses of something like The Ten Commandments.

(There’s actually several different version of The Greatest Story Ever Told floating around.  There’s a version that’s a little over two hours.  There’s a version that’s close to four hours.  Reportedly, the uncut version of the film ran for four hour and 20 minutes.)

Max von Sydow plays Jesus.  On the one hand, that seems like that should work because Max von Sydow was a great actor who gave off an otherworldly air.  On the other hand, it totally doesn’t work because von Sydow gives an oddly detached performance.  The Greatest Story Ever Told was von Sydow’s first American film and, at no point, does he seem particularly happy about being involved with it.  von Sydow is a very cerebral and rather reserved Jesus, one who makes his points without a hint of passion or charisma.  When he’s being friendly, he offers up a half-smile.  When he has to rebuke his disciples for their doubt, he sounds more annoyed than anything else.  He’s Jesus if Jesus was a community college philosophy professor.

The rest of the huge cast is populated with familiar faces.  The Greatest Story Ever Told takes the all-star approach to heart and, as a result, even the minor roles are played by actors who will be familiar to anyone who has spent more than a few hours watching TCM.  Many of them are on screen for only a few seconds, which makes their presence all the more distracting.  Sidney Poitier shows up as Simon of Cyrene.  Pat Boone is an angel.  Roddy McDowall is Matthew and Sal Mineo is Uriah and John Wayne shows up as a centurion and delivers his one line in his trademark drawl.

A few of the actors do manage to stand out and make a good impression.  Telly Savalas is a credible Pilate, playing him as being neither smug nor overly sympathetic but instead as a bureaucrat who can’t understand why he’s being forced to deal with all of this.  Charlton Heston has just the right intensity for the role of John the Baptist while Jose Ferrer is properly sleazy as Herod.  In the role Judas, David McCallum looks at the world through suspicious eyes and does little to disguise his irritation with the rest of the world.  The Greatest Story Ever Told does not sentimentalize Judas or his role in Jesus’s arrest.  For the most part, he’s just a jerk.  Finally, it’s not exactly surprising when Donald Pleasence shows up as Satan but Pleasence still gives a properly evil performance, giving all of his lines a mocking and often sarcastic bite.

The Greatest Story Ever Told was directed by George Stevens, a legitimately great director who struggles to maintain any sort of narrative momentum in this film.  Watching The Greatest Story Ever Told, it occurred to me that the best biblical films are the ones like Ben-Hur and The Robe, which both largely keep Jesus off-screen and instead focus on how his life and teachings and the reports of his resurrection effected other people.  Stevens approaches the film’s subject with such reverence that the film becomes boring and that’s something that should never happen when you’re making a film set in Judea during the Roman era.

I do have to admit that, despite all of my criticism of the film, I do actually kind of like The Greatest Story Ever Told.  It’s just such a big production that it’s hard not to be a little awed by it all.  That huge cast may be distracting but it’s still a little bit fun to sit there and go, “There’s Shelley Winters!  There’s John Wayne!  There’s Robert Blake and Martin Landau!”  That said, as far as biblical films are concerned, you’re still better off sticking with Jesus Christ Superstar.

The International Lens: Throne of Blood (dir by Akira Kurosawa)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In feudal-era Japan, two great Samurai commanders, Miki (Akira Kubo) and Washizu (Toshiro Mifune) stumble upon a mysterious spirit (Chieko Naniwa) who tells them both their futures.  Though her prophecies are cryptic, it appears that she is predicting that, some day, Washizu will become the “Lord of the Spider Web’s Castle” and that he will eventually be succeeded by Miki’s son.  When Washizu later returns to his wife, Asaji (Isuzu Yamada), he tells her about the prophecy.  The ambitious Asaji encourages to make the prophecy come true by murdering the local lord, Lord Tsuzaki (Hiroshi Tachikawa)….

Does this sound familiar?  The 1957 Japanese film, Throne of Blood, is a version of Macbeth, with the action moved from Scotland to Japan and the three witches replaced by one spirit.  It’s an enthralling film, though it probably does help to already be familiar with the plot of Macbeth before watching the film.  Director Akira Kurosawa keeps the action moving at a quick pace and he doesn’t always stop to carefully explain everyone’s motivations.  That’s not a complaint, by the way.  Kurosawa emphasizes the confusion of living in a world of constant war and constant scheming.  As envisioned by both Shakespeare and Kurosawa, the worlds of Macbeth and Thrones of Blood are worlds where violence is a part of life and the only thing certain is that everyone is going to die eventually.  To try to deny fate is to be destroyed by it.

The world of Throne of Blood seems to be covered in a constant fog.  Perhaps it’s the fog of war or maybe it’s the fog of an uncertain future but, for me, the defining image of Throne of Blood is one of armored and bloody men emerging from a thick mist.  The viewer is never sure who might be hiding in the mist and, even more importantly for both those watching the movie and those existing inside of it, it’s impossible to see what might be waiting down the road.  The only person who can see through the mist is the Spirit but, just as in Shakespeare’s play, people tend to only hear what they want to hear when the Spirit speaks.  In the world of Throne of Blood, even those who have eyes have been rendered blind.

It’s a world where you can change the present but you can never escape the past.  Asaji finds herself vainly trying to wash the blood off of her hands.  Washizu finds himself haunted by the ghost of the man that he killed.  Even while Washizu shouts at a ghost that only he can see, it’s obvious that those around him are already plotting the best way to get him out of the way.  There is no real loyalty in Throne of Blood and it all leads to death and more death.  It’s hard to say that anyone really achieves any sort of victory in Throne of Blood.  That’s just not the way the world works.

Throne of Blood is basically a filmed nightmare, one that takes place in a world that’s drenched with blood and duplicity.  Toshiro Mifune gives another great performance in the role Washizu, though the film is ultimately stolen by Isuza Yamada as Washizu’s wife, who pushes her husband to murder and then finds herself driven to insanity by his actions.  Throne of Blood is both a superior Shakespeare adaptation and a great Kurosawa film.

Music Video of the Day: Stuck In The Middle With You by Stealers Wheel (1973, dir by ????)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Well, we all know this song, don’t we?

Apparently, this song was inspired by a music industry cocktail party that the band attended.  It was also apparently inspired by Bob Dylan’s feelings towards the industry, though Dylan was not involved in recording or performing the song.

As for the video, what’s interesting is how literally it interprets the song.  Seriously, the poor guy really is stuck in the middle and he really does have clowns and jokers to either side of him!

Nobody loses an ear in this video.  That would come later….

Enjoy!

 

Lisa’s Week In Review — 4/6/20 — 4/12/20

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Happy Easter!  Hopefully, next year, we will be able to enjoy the holiday under happier conditions.

Interestingly enough, while I was putting this rundown together, it occurred to me that, when you’re in lockdown, it feels like each day lasts a year.  I find myself looking over my week and thinking, “Wow, Monday was only 6 days ago?”  I’ll be glad when all this finally ends.

Here’s what I did this week:

Films I Watched:

  1. The Ballad of Andy Crocker (1969)
  2. Ben-Hur (1959)
  3. Breathless (1960)
  4. Charlie Chan at the Circus (1936)
  5. The Experiment (2001)
  6. Forty Nights (2016)
  7. The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)
  8. King David (1985)
  9. King of Kings (1961)
  10. Moses, the Lawgiver (1974)
  11. Past Life (2016)
  12. Reversal of Fortune (1990)
  13. The Ten Commandments (1956)
  14. Throne of Blood (1957)
  15. Two Orphan Vampires (1997)
  16. Zombie Lake (1981)

Television Shows I Watched:

  1. 60 Days In
  2. Blockbusters
  3. The Bold and the Beautiful
  4. Classic Concentration
  5. Dark Shadows
  6. Easter Sunday Mass
  7. Easter Vigil Mass From Rome
  8. Ghost Whisperer
  9. Head of the Class
  10. Lotsa Luck!
  11. Magnum P.I.
  12. Match Game
  13. The Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour
  14. Oz
  15. The Paul Lynde Show
  16. Survivor 40
  17. Twin Peaks
  18. Twin Peaks: The Return
  19. The Young and the Restless

Books I Read:

  1. American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies (2004) by Michael W. Kauffman
  2. John Wilkes Booth and the Women Who Loved Him (2018) by E. Lawrence Abel

Music To Which I Listened:

  1. Active Child
  2. Armin van Buuren
  3. Beat Market
  4. Big Data
  5. The Chemical Brothers
  6. The Crystal Method
  7. David Guetta
  8. Dillon Francis
  9. Elohim
  10. Fatima
  11. Grimes
  12. Jakalope
  13. Moses Sumney
  14. Nicole Scherzinger
  15. Nine Inch Nails
  16. The Pussycat Dolls
  17. Saint Motel
  18. Selena Gomez
  19. SIA
  20. twenty one pilots
  21. UPSAHL
  22. Windows 96

News From Last Week:

  1. Austin’s Vulcan Video closes permanently amid coronavirus losses
  2. Louisiana police apologize for using siren from ‘The Purge’ to signal coronavirus curfew

Links From Last Week:

  1. Why we love to hate celebrities
  2. Bob Dylan’s First #1 Hit! The Singer’s “Murder Most Foul” Tops The Charts! My “Songs For Sunday” Has The Lyrics!

Links From The Site:

  1. Ryan reviewed Fine and The Cutaneous Adventures of P.L. Dermes!
  2. I shared music videos from Dillon Francis and Windows 96!  Plus, I reviewed King David, The Experiment, Moses: The Law-Giver, Past Life, The Ten Commandments, Breathless, Aguirre The Wrath of God, and Charge over You!
  3. Jeff shared music videos from Aerosmith, Iron Maiden, John Prine, Motley Crue, and Stray Cats!  He reviewed Tequila Sunrise, Dead Presidents, The Ballad of Andy Crocker, Get Christie Love!, Tactical Assault, Black Brigade, and Did You See The Sun Rise?
  4. Erin shared The Racy Covers of Exotic Novel Magazine and: Sex Before Six, Smash Detective Stories, Scandalous Lady, The Fire That Burns, The Velvet Knife, Death out of Focus, and Looking For The Sun!

More From Us:

  1. Ryan has a patreon, to which you should subscribe!
  2. At Reality TV Chat Blog, I reviewed Survivor!
  3. At SyFyDesigns, I shared: I Just Want To See Black Widow
  4. At my dream journal, I shared Last Night’s Weird College Dream!
  5. At my music site, I shared songs from Grimes, Moses Sumney, The Pussycat Dolls, Nicole Scherzinger, Elohim, Beat Market, and Fatima!
  6. At her photography site, Erin shared: What A Day It’s Been, Trash, Today’s Sky, Watching, To The Side, Looking Up, and Faith!
  7. At Pop Politics, Jeff updated his lockdown journal: 4-6-20, 4-7-20, 4-8-20, 4-9-20, 4-10-20, and Bernie’s Out!
  8. At Days Without Incident, Leonard shared: She’s Gone Away by (The) Nine Inch Nails

Want to see what went on last week?  Click here!

Film Review: King David (dir by Bruce Beresford)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

A film about David, the young shepherd and musician who eventually became the second king of Israel?

That sounds like a great idea!

After all, David is one of the most compelling figures in history.  Whether it’s the slaying of Goliath or his ill-fated friendship with Jonathan or his uneasy relationship with Saul, every detail about David’s youth feels perfect for cinematic drama.  And then, once David become king of Israel, the drama doesn’t end.  David finds himself dealing with both politics and temptation.  He falls in lust with Bathsheba and, in a moment of terrible weakness, he arranges for her husband to be killed in battle.  His own son, Absalom, turns against him and then, despite David’s very clear orders to the contrary, Absalom is executed while he helplessly hangs from a tree.  For every triumph in David’s life (like the time he used a slingshot to take down Goliath), there’s a tragedy.  For all of David’s attempts to be a good and wise king, he still struggles with his own weaknesses.  Every detail of David’s life seems like it belongs on the big screen.

So, now that we’ve agreed that the life of David would be perfect for a movie, consider this: A film about David, a master of both poetry and politics who was known for his deep emotions, starring Richard Gere?

Uhmmmm….

The 1985 film, King David, has all the potential to be a great film but it’s pretty much doomed by the fact that David is played by Richard Gere.  Today, of course, Richard Gere is an above average character actor who is well-cast as older, seemingly successful men who have never quite conquered their own self-doubt.  That’s not the Richard Gere who shows up in King David.  The Richard Gere who shows up in King David is the blank-faced, youngish Richard Gere who was best-known for films like An Officer and a Gentleman and American Gigolo.  Richard Gere is so miscast as David that just the sight of him takes you out of the film’s reality.  While the film plays out, you find yourself saying, “Richard Gere just killed Goliath.  Richard Gere just spied on Bathsheba.  Richard Gere is dancing through the streets of Jerusalem.”

There are a few good things about King David.  Edward Woodward gives a good performance as Saul, who has always been overshadowed David but who was, in his own way, almost as compelling a character.  The film does a credible-enough job recreating the ancient world and it’s entertaining to see the iconic Italian actor George Eastman show up as Goliath.  Far too often, though, King David becomes one of those films where every big action scene is shown in slow motion and there’s too many close-ups of swords being tossed into the air.

According to Wikipedia (that’s right, I did some “serious” research for this review), King David was actually made because it was felt that the film would be able to draw in the same audience that loved Star Wars.  That turned out to not be true as the film was a huge flop and apparently damaged a lot of careers.  But, flop or not, it was still on TV last night, which just proves that movies are forever.

The International Lens: The Experiment (dir by Oliver Hirschbiegel)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 2001 German film, Das Experiment, is a film that’s probably more relevant today than when it was first released.

The film deals with a social experiment.  For a payment of 4,000 marks, volunteers are separated into two groups.  One group will be prisoners and they will spend several days in a makeshift prison that’s been constructed in the basement of a lab.  The other group will serve as guards.  Though the “guards” have been told that they are not allowed to physically harm any of the “prisoners,” they are still under strict orders to maintain order in the prison.  While the two groups play their roles, they’ll be observed by Prof. Thon (Edgar Selge) and his assistant, Dr. Grimm (Andrea Sawatzki).

If this premise sounds familiar, that’s because it’s based on something that actually happened in the United States in 1971.  At Stanford University, a group of students were split into prisoners and guards, much as in The Experiment.  In real life (and, in the film), both groups of students quickly adapted to their roles.  In real life, the experiment was canceled after it became apparent that the guards were abusing the prisoners.  In the film, the experiment continues even after it becomes obvious that things are getting out-of-hand.

The Stanford Prison Experiment is often cited as an example of both how quickly power can corrupt otherwise normal human beings and how, psychologically, people have a habit of assuming the habits of whatever group to which they’ve been assigned.  It’s often seen as proof of how easily people can fall into an authoritarian mindset.  That’s certainly what happens in The Experiment, in which the guards quickly go from being a bunch of fun-loving dudes (one of them is apparently an amateur Elvis impersonator) to being a bunch of power-mad sadists who justify their actions by saying that they have to maintain order no matter what.  Even when ordered by Dr. Grimm to end the experiment, the guards assume that her objections are just a scripted part of the experiment and they instead escalate their behavior.

The main character in The Experiment is Tarek Fahd (Moritz Bleibtreu ), a freelance journalist who also works as a taxi driver.  Tarek agrees to take part in the experiment because he wants to write an article about the experience and make some extra money.  Tarek is assigned to be a prisoner and given a new name: #77.  What Tarek doesn’t know is that Prof. Thon specifically selected him because Thon feels that Tarek’s rebellious nature will lead to a conflict with Berus (Justus von Dohnányi ), the most severe of all the guards.  It turns out that Thon is more correct than even he realizes.  The participants in the experiment may start out joking and enjoying themselves but it doesn’t last.  While Tarek seeks refuge in his fantasies and his memories of making love to the enigmatic Dora (Maren Eggert), the guards are thinking of new ways to psychologically abuse him. Perhaps not surprisingly, it all leads to torture, rape, and eventually murder.

The Experiment is an effective look at how quickly people can be seduced by their own power, one that is all the more disturbing for the fact that it’s taking place in Germany, a country full of people who should know where an authoritarian mindset leads.  The first time I watched the film was in 2010 and it was difficult not to associate what happens to Tarek to what was going on in the war on terror.  At the time, the film seemed heavy-handed but crudely powerful.  Watching it last night, while under lockdown, the film felt downright prophetic.  Watching the guards slowly go mad, it was hard not to question whether or not that’s what we have to look forward to in the future as more and more people take it upon themselves to police whether or not their neighbors are standing 6 feet apart from each other.  If we’ve learned anything over the past two months, it’s that more people fantasize about living under an authoritarian state than are willing to admit.

The Experiment was directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel.  It was his directorial debut.  Three years after making The Experiment, Hirschbiegel would lunch a thousand memes by directing Downfall, a film about the final days of Hitler.  If you want understand why Hitler lost the war, watch Downfall.  If you want to understand how Hitler came to power in the first place, watch The Experiment.