The Polar Express

The ads and trailers for THE POLAR EXPRESS did not capture my imagination. In fact, they looked a little creepy, and I was all too happy to wave off. My loss.

THE POLAR EXPRESS is an excellent movie. It's visually stunning, with the kind of roller-coaster events that heighten its sense of adventure, and its audio presentation is absolutely top-notch, with a number of scenes that put the viewer right in the middle of things. Further, the movie has something that's rare in children's shows: a palpable sense of danger, that things could go very, very wrong. This is important, because it's all to common for movies to trumpet the importance of courage without presenting their children with any real dangers.

THE POLAR EXPRESS does have a downside, however. I was quite happy with my DLP enormovision right up until I saw the movie on a relative's Sony DLP/LCD hybrid TV. Calibration disk, here I come!

Rififi

Tony le Stephanois (Jean Servais) has problems. He's old, he's tired, his girl left him while he was in prison, and he sucks at poker. When his protege suggests a smash-n-grab at a local jewelry store as an easy way to make a few bucks, things seem as bad as they can be. He's a serious jewel thief, for pete's sake! Is he going to allow himself to be reduced to smalltime crook? Oubliez lui! le Stephanois has a better idea. Rather than waste his time on a smash-n-grab, he plans a serious heist of the most secure jeweler in town. Thus, we're all set up for one of the best heist pictures ever.

RIFIFI is the grandfather of the heist genre, a wonderful high noir look at the criminal world and its denizens. There's been plenty written on it, and there are folks right here on this list who are well qualified to discuss its historic significance. I'll leave that aside and say that RIFIFI is a just plain terrific movie. Servais has a face that looks like it's been lived in, and he does a fine job of keeping us engaged in a character that is, almost any way we look at it, a very bad man. The supporting cast is equally wonderful, taking now-stock characters like "top safecracker" and imbuing them with life and individuality. The heist itself, a sequence around thirty minutes long, takes place without a word of dialogue or a note of scoring support and reminds us just how effective silence can be. This is edge-of-your-seat stuff, very well executed, and a flat-out great time at the movies. I'm glad I rented it.

A Scanner Darkly

I didn't read the book, and I'm not much of a Keanu fan, but I rented A SCANNER DARKLY because I respect Linklater and I wanted to see rotoscoping in action.

I now have no desire to read the book, I'm still still not much of a Keanu fan, and I think rotoscoping is pretty cool. So, there's that.

See, here's the problem: A SCANNER DARKLY tells the story of a bunch of people I don't care about, living in conditions I don't care to visit even in my imagination, behaving with varying degrees of despicability. The rotoscoping process makes the proceedings more interesting and gives Linklater the ability to create characters and make visuals pop in a way live action can't, but I couldn't get around the fact that I didn't want to be around these people.

I still do respect Linklater, however. He's doing difficult, innovative things with his medium. Clearly, these characters and situations spoke to him in some way. Had they done the same for me, I might have enjoyed the ride.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three

Some bad guys have hijacked a New York City subway train, but there's one thing they don't count on - there's an undercover member of the NYPD on board.

Then again, this is the mid '70s, so maybe that's not much of a problem.

Here's the other thing they don't count on - schlubby, reliable Walter Matthau, the Transit Police Detective who happens to be on shift in the control room that day. That is a problem, because Matthau, in his low key way, keeps his head while those about him are losing theirs.

So begins THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE, a thriller that appears to be mostly about people sitting around and talking. It's really about the fog of war, that gap between reality and knowledge, in which everyone must work in a crisis. The criminals, led by the imposing Robert Shaw, seek to exploit the fog, even to induce some, as part of their plan to make a great deal of money in a short amount of time. The authorities, led by Matthau in a striking example of situational
leadership and authority (He isn't the highest ranking guy involved in the situation, but he's the guy everyone defers to because he's the most capable.), spend most of their time playing catch up and trying to coordinate their response. It's great stuff.

The film's takes a workmanlike approach to casting both cops and criminals. On the side of the good guys we have Matthau, Jerry Stiller, and Dick O'Neill; on the bad, the aforementionted Shaw, Hector Elizondo, Martin Balsam. These are reliable, decidedly un-flashy actors know how to deliver. In that respect, they're like their one-liner-free-characters: they're more worried about getting the job done than looking pretty doing it. The approach, which is mirrored in TAKING's overall look and feel, works because we feel we're watching real people doing things that could happen in the real world. In a movie about the fog of war, that realism makes all the difference in selling the picture.

Joe Sargent, who recently made the wonderful SOMETHING THE LORD MADE for HBO, directs the hell out of this movie, which is tightly paced, well crafted, and pretty much seamless. THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE is a winner.