Quadrophenia

Throughout the seventies and eighties there were several films made that fall into the punk/anti-establishment youth culture. In 1979, The Who Films produced a gem of a film called Quadrophenia. The film is set in 1965 London and the film centers around a young man named Jimmy (Phil Daniels).
Jimmy is an ordinary guy who hates the order that soceity lays in front of him. All Jimmy really wants to do is ride his motor scooter, take pills, and have sex. Jimmy does all this along with his mates. All through the film Jimmy gets into several adventures. He gets into fights with a rival motorcycle gang, steals pills from a phramacy, and even falls in love with a woman named Steph (Leslie Ash).
Just when Jimmy's life seems great, it all goes downhill after a huge riot in the town of Brighton. With the aftermath of that event, Jimmy has to make a decision about his life and it is not an easy one for him as everyone he knows turns away from him and what he thought was right turns out to be wrong.
One of the shining stars of this gem is its amazing soundtrack that features numerous tracks from The Who and other artists such as The High Numbers, Cross Section, The Kingsmen, Booker T. Jones, and countless others. This explosive soundtrack is the perfect backdrop for this film. As Jimmy goes through the film the music follows him and reflects his mood, with him reacting to it at several times like an angry ballet.
This is a great film of its type. The acting is not great but the energy in this film more than makes up for it. It is definitely a must see for any fan of The Who and of the punk variety. This film is availble to watch on the Criterion's HuluPlus Channel. So with that in mind, there might be a possible Criterion release for this film. Which would be interesting for this film.
This is a great film for the music and the energy.

Barfly

Writer Charles Bukowski's alter ego Henry Chinaski is brought to life by Mickey Rourke in this interesting film from director Barbet Schroeder. In this film there are two great actors playing off each other well. Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway are those two actors.
The film follows drunken writer Henry Chinaski (Mickey Rourke) as he goes through life drinking, starting fights, especially with a pompus bartender named Eddie (Frank Stallone), writing, and moving from place to place. Henry's life suddenly takes on meaning when he meets Wanda (Faye Dunaway) at a bar. The two immediately hit it off and become lovers/friends. As their relationship goes through rough periods they counter it with alcohol. In the midst of all this a publisher named Tully Sorenson (Alice Krige) is searching for Henry about a story he sent her.
This is one of those gems that one finds every once in a while. This was Mickey Rourke at the prime of his acting career before he hit rock bottom and went into career Hell for a little while. It also teams him up with the great Faye Dunaway who holds her own throughout the film, giving a strong performance as only she could do. The supporting characters are seedy and comical and give an added flavor to the strange world of Henry Chinaski.
This is a really good film that offers great performances and a good story. With a screenplay written by Bukowski the film contains his voice, which makes it all the more better. All in all this is a must see for anybody that is a fan of Bukowski's work or anybody who is a fan of Rourke or Dunaway.
This is Rourke at the top of his form and Dunaway doing what she does best: acting. A really good film that can be viewed on YouTube in seven parts. Hopefully this gem will find its way on a proper DVD/blu-ray release.

From the Life of the Marionettes

In the late seventies, Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman got involved in a tax scandal. With the embarrasement of this scandal hanging over his head, he exiled himself to Germany for a few years. While in Germany he made a few films including The Serpent's Egg with David Carradine. But the most interesting of his films made during this self exile was From the Life of the Marionettes.
From the Life of the Marionettes is a continuiation of the characters Katarina and Peter Egermann, a couple that appeared in an episode of Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage. The film centers around Peter who kills a prostitute at the beginning of the movie. From then on the film focuses on Peter's motivations for committing the horrendous crime.
Bergman does this through a series of non-linear police interrogations and flashbacks to the events leading up to Peter's crime. With the opening scene being in color, the rest of the film is in black and white, which is all the more haunting. Through each scene, Bergman probes deeper into the depraved mind of Egermann.
This film also stands alone as one of Bergman's most sexual films. Throughout the film we are presented with violent acts of sexuality and the torment of the lack thereof that could drive a man towards madness. The film itself even has a dreamlike quality that sticks with you throughout.
Although this is not one of Bergman's best films, it is one of his most interesting ones. It can be seen that a lot of Bergman's dark feelings of this time were stamped onto this film.
This is a definite must see for any Bergman fan. The film is availble to watch on the Criterion HuluPlus channel here: http://www.hulu.com/watch/316759/from-the-life-of-the-marionettes. This could signify a potential release for this film in the near since it is on the channel and that two rare Bergman films are being released in May.
This film is Bergman at his darkest, strangest, sexiest, and creepiest, a definite must see for the avid Bergman fan. A truly dark film.

Summer Interlude

The films of Ingmar Bergman were no stranger to death and loss and his 1951 film Summer Interlude, the lingering feeling of death and loss and even loneliness are presented in all its stark reality.
Summer Interlude follows a twenty-eight year old ballerina named Marie (Maj-Britt Nilsson) who is rehearsing for a performance of Swan Lake when she receives a diary in the mail, sent by her Uncle Erland (Georg Funkquist). The diary belongs to a boy Marie had a summer romance with named Henrik (Birger Malmsten). Upon reading the diary, Marie impuslsively goes to the place where she and Henrik shared that romance. Upon visiting these places she is plagued of the painful memories of her doomed romance.
The romance itself is a thing of beauty. The more it plays out, the more you think it is going to last forever, until the dreadful end that tears Henrik and Marie apart. Through all this, Marie tries to find meaning in her empty life and tries to make up for it by embracing life, instead of dwelling in the painful past.
The portrait that Bergman paints here is a beautiful one. He brings to life a beautiful romance only to snatch it away and bring reality back to the front row. We feel every feeling that Marie does: love, hate, grief, pain, and regret. And like Marie, we are trying to piece together the fragments of all the things in the past. A starkly beautiful film from Ingmar Bergman.
This film is availble to watch on the Criterion's HuluPlus channel: http://www.hulu.com/watch/247386/summer-interlude. This film is also being released through the Criterion Collection on DVD and blu-ray on May 29. This is a must see film for any Ingmar Bergman fan or any fan of the Swedish cinema.
This is a true delight and a real gem from the fabulous filmography of Ingmar Bergman.

Summer With Monika

Throughout cinema history there have been those directors who could capture human emotions perfectly. One director who could do this and make those emotions so horrifyingly real was Ingmar Bergman. What Bergman did in a lot of his films was build up a foundation of tightly woven characters and through the course of the film tear them down to nearly nothing. One of his earlier works, Summer With Monika (1953) is on exception.
The film follows young lovers Monika (Harriet Andersson) and Harry (Lars Ekborg) who are fed up with the daily hassles of their everyday lives. Feeling that all they need is each other, they run away on Harry's father's boat and begin their adventure.
At first everything is wonderful and they don't want the romance or they adventure to end. But complications arise when Monika becomes pregnant and their food supply is running short. Forced to go back to soceity, the walls of reality begin to box them in again. Their romance diminishes into nothing after the baby is born and Monika finds love with other men.
Bergman presents a harsh look at young love in this film. It starts out so beautiful but ends so darkly, a feat that Bergman handles wonderfully. Harriet Andersson gives a wonderful performance here was the devilishly seductive Monika who seduces and then reduces the naive Harry. Nobody but Bergman could do what he did here.
This film is availble to watch on the Criterion's HuluPlus channel: http://www.hulu.com/watch/242443/summer-with-monika. This film is also being released through the Criterion Collection on DVD and blu-ray on May 29. This is a definite must see for any Bergman fan and any fan of Swedish cinema.
This is a fantastic film filled with the harsh reality of young love and how fleeting it is only as Ingmar Bergman could have presented it. And Harriet Andersson gives an intense performance.

The Magnificent Ambersons

Everybody knows Citizen Kane, but Orson Welles follow-up to his 1941 masterpiece is notable in it's own right. The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), could very well have been a far greater film than Citizen Kane, but sadly, due to circumstances out of Welles' control it was only a minor achievement. However, it is still a great film.
Orson Welles narrates this film that centers around a wealthly family named Amberson. The film puts a spotlight on the young heir of the Amberson fortune George (Tim Holt) who is very spoiled and self centered. When he grows up he finds himself in an even more complex situation when a man named Eugene Morgan (Joseph Cotten) and his daughter Lucy (Anne Baxter) come to town. George falls in love with Lucy and instantly despises Eugene. Matters worsen after George's father dies and he soon realizes that Eugene is trying to rekindle the flame with his mother Isabel (Dolores Costello).
The film itself is searing pot of emotions. Welles uses all the techniques that he used in Kane and brings this story to life. Throughout the whole film the audience is locked on these characters and it is hard to look away at their self destructive ways. The stamp on this film can be that only of a true master.
Sadly though, this film could've been more if the studio heads at RKO had not cut the film and slapped a happy ending on it. This essentially cut the heart and soul out of Welles' work. That makes this film one of the biggest cinematic what ifs of the time.
That being said it is definitely worth a watch. No matter how much they cut of this film, they couldn't take away that Orson Welles stamp that is so imprinted on this film. Since the recent release of the Citizen Kane 70th anniversy DVD/blu-ray, Warner Bros. has put out a bare bones DVD of The Magnificent Ambersons, one that can be bought at a reasonable price at amazon.com here: http://www.amazon.com/Magnificent-Ambersons-Georgia-Backus/dp/B00005JKGX/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1329889336&sr=1-1.
This film is highly recommended to any cinema lover and fan of Orson Welles body of work. This film is a staunch rival to Citizen Kane, if there were only some hope of finding Welles original cut. But that hope is entirely a pipe dream, since RKO destroyed the footage they cut and the print that was supposedly sent to Welles in Brazil has not been found yet.
All that aside, it is worth seeing to see the brilliance of Orson Welles. The performances in this film are also superb, from Joseph Cotten, Tim Holt, Dolores Costello, Agnes Moorhead, and Anne Baxter. Another cinematic achievement from the great Orson Welles.

Two English Girls

It goes without saying that Francois Truffaut was a true admirer of the cinema. He took those admiriations for film and used them to master his craft of filmmaking. Almost every film he does is a delight to watch. No matter what the film is, Truffaut has complete control over it, his style so beautifully expressed through the camera lens.
Two English Girls (1971) is no exception to this. With this film Truffaut is in familiar territory, exploring some of the same emotions he explored in his great film Jules and Jim, and even from the same author, Henri-Pierre Roche. Here we see Truffaut tackling another early 20th century love triangle.
This time the love triangle centers around Claude (played by Jean-Pierre Leaud) an aspiring French writer who falls in love with two English sisters Anne (Kika Markham) and Muriel (Stacey Tendeter). Anne originally intends for Claude to marry Muriel, but soon develops strong feelings for Claude herself, thus complicating things even more.
This film tracks this love triangle through seven years. By the end of the film the three characters are completely drained emotionally and left to accept the fate that has befallen them. The audience can really feel the emotional pain from these characters, as the actors give their heart and soul in this film.
This film is on the epic scale of Jules and Jim but does not quite measure up to the greatness that is Jules and Jim. That being said that doesn't dismiss the greatness of this film. Each actor brings gut wrenching emotions to the screen as love very tragically. Truffaut seems in his comfort zone, carefully placing the camera and getting great condensed shots and placing a haunting musical score in the backdrop of this film.
Truffaut essentially delivers a masterful film that doesn't overplay the drama in the film. It is a great example of classical filmmaking that throws the audience emotional curve balls that leave you with a dark feeling. Praise for this film really isn't enough, what is enough is people actually seeing this lesser known Truffaut film. But when searching for this make sure it is the 130 minute restored version that Fox Lorber offers and can be bought at a reasonable price new and used at amazon: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_7?url=search-alias%3Dmovies-tv&field-keywords=two+english+girls+dvd&sprefix=two+eng%2Cmovies-tv%2C255.
This film is a definite must see for any fan of Truffaut or a fan of cinema for that matter, because that is what this film is, a cinematic masterwork. Plus, the performances from Leaud, Markham, and Tendeter are superb. A truly beautiful and dark film.