The Razor's Edge

The Razor's Edge is a film that feels as self-important, as our central hero's personal journey to enlightenment. There's a serious problem with the film in that the potential for the story should have been found in the transition of a troubled war veteran to a self-actualized individual. The problem is Tyrone Power can't pull that off, or at least does not try, as his changes are not earned in the least by his performance. The films other elements are scatter shot, there just so our hero can fix them, or almost fix them all in the last act. We get a catty Gene Tierney, a troubled Anne Baxter, and Clifton Webb doing his usual thing. The first is resolved as you'd expect with Power's character ignoring her shallow advances, the second tragic and is one of the best elements of the film due to Baxter, and the third is weird. Webb does his pompous routine the film views him as pompous then suddenly it wishes that we really care about him in order to end the film on. The film may have been able work with a stronger leading turn, but as it is it feels just like a messy of strain threads that fail to intertwine.
2/5

Disraeli

Disraeli is a rather poor example of an early sound film. It basically just sticks the camera to look in the general vicinity of the actors and calls it a day. Now this could almost at least make for a decent film if the screenplay and acting was there. The problem is neither of those things are. The film is just a long series of scenes to say how great Disraeli is which is a shame since I think there is a fascinating story to be found in his rivalry with fellow Prime Minister William Gladstone. None of that is to be found here as it tells its story that lacks really a single dynamic moment in it. It's not helped by a bland cast, where you know there's a problem when George Arliss gives the best performance, and he's also more than a little musty himself.
1.5/5

West Side Story

With West Side Story I really should admit that I do have somewhat of an aversion to musicals, in that rarely do I like them. The problems tend to be the same in that they are always too long, and too often they are content to be boring whenever music is not playing. The worst of them though are when the ones with terrible songs. West Side Story has good songs and the direction actually is rather commendable in bringing some cinematic life to the proceedings. The performances though are shaky. There are a few good ones, Rita Moreno for example, but too many of them are rather bland particularly the very miscast leads. I don't believe its a failure as a film, some of it does work, its bloated most musicals are, but there are good things in it.
3/5

My Fair Lady

My Fair Lady has the advantage of a few good songs, a Stanley Holloway, the fact that Pygmalion is good, but not much else. George Cukor's direction is very tired here almost embracing the idea of making the film look as stagy as it possibly can. This is unfortunate as there are many films in his past filmography that were set on sound stages but certainly did not look like it. Rex Harrison's singsong style and Leslie Howard impression wear thin very quickly. Audrey Hepburn is rather curious in that her innate charm almost allows her to get away with a terrible performance, only almost though. It's an extremely slow film that loses most of its energy by the second act and comes basically to a halt long before the ending.
2/5

The Big Country

The Big Country has one exceptional element Burl Ives. Everything he touches is improved at least somewhat by being near him. He's great, he makes you understand his character, and even manages to make the father/son relationship in the film rather heartbreaking, despite the son being a pretty one dimensional character. The films struggles in every area outside of Ives. The relationships are very thinly drawn and there direction is obvious the moment you see them. The parts don't help for the most part Peck plays a bland leading man, Charlton Heston plays a bland bully (a role I assume he must have played to be in Wyler's far superior Ben-Hur the next year), Jean Simmons plays a bland "good woman" and Carroll Baker is the bland "bad woman". The performers don't add anything to what is written, but there was almost nothing there to begin with. Charles Bickford's part had potential but he wastes it with an extremely uncharismatic performance. The film seems so oddly misguided in almost every respect. I always go back to a pivotal scene where Bickford's men first stand against his plan to basically cause a massacre. Then for whatever reason when he's riding alone it plays heroic music when his men come back to join him all embracing a pointless demise I guess.
2/5

Dogville

Dogville is a brilliantly written and brilliantly acted film. It's a shame about visual direction though. It's purposefully underwhelming visual style becomes tiresome very quickly and adds up to be more of a distraction than if the film was shot on an actual location. There is no real reason for it, I guess to hide any beauty of the nature of America, but that could have been easily accomplished without the soundstage. It bogs down the proceedings and makes far more of a slog than it needed to be. However the acting is still very strong in creating the various broken individuals who's even worse nature only reveals itself all the more over time. The relationships are well drawn and I think its portrait of a communal decay is rather fascinating. Again greatness is skirted by the indulgence of its visual style.
3.5/5

Master and Commander

Master and Commander is one of the greatest sea faring films of all time. It is a beautiful looking film in every respect, and it goes even further than that as give you such a sense of place within the sea. It's such great film as it's set during a war but that's only part of story. It's fantastic in terms of so effectively creating the environment of the ship not only in terms of the roles of each person, but also their personalities. There is a real rich history felt in the relationship particularly in the central one between the Captain and the doctor. Though it has a wavering focus it never feels vague, each aspect of the story is well realized and adds up to make a great film.
5/5