The Blue Angel (Der Blaue Engel) - % % % % %

Devastating - Marlena Deitrich, the essential femme fatale, seduces a professor whose life crumbles away into disgrace. Emil Jannings yet again performs misery brilliantly. Much as in The Last Laugh, his character begins as a pompous man and is transformed by the cruelties and unsympathetic nature of humans into a humiliated and degraded madman. And then he dies. There is no pitiful reprieve as in The Last Laugh.

Directed by Joseph Von Sternberg, in 1930 German Expressionism was fading in films, after the financial crisis at UFA because of the lavish production of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. The town appears dark and aged. I felt as if I could hear the creaking of the medieval staircase leading to his attic room at the school. And the club for which the film is named is a dark hole of drunken sailors jeering equally drunken dames in their drawers. The star is Deitrich. She struts around, hands on hips, shoulders hard, glowing with sexuality.

(Spoiler - skip to next paragraph if you like surprises)
At first one might imagine that she could benefit this professor who gives up his job to marry this fallen women. But no. I don't even know why she'd marry him except that perhaps she believed no one would ever ask her and she'd like a man-servant. Shortly after their marriage he has decayed into an unshaven shlub peddling nudie photos of his wife. And four years later he is forced to return to his home town to perform in his wife's show as a clown assistant to a magician. The magician cracks eggs on his head and the audience of his former pupils laughs him into total insanity. His wife is making out with a useless strong man performer who is super hot for her. The sight of this drives him to attack her while clucking like a chicken. It's so frickin crazy amazing. I actually believe that this simple man might totally lose it and freak out in this extraordinary way. It's wonderful. And the closing shot of the film is marvelous.

It starts slowly, but be patient. The climax and Dietrich are worth it. It's totally depressing but also amazing.

Beauty Shop - % % %

Attending film school and writing my own scripts has given me a new-found appreciation for mediocre comedy. Comedy is really really hard. Even obvious comedy is hard.

And so I gave Beauty Shop a chance. Everyone can probably guess at the formula for Beauty Shop. Women come together to run a business, meet wonderful men, kick the crappy ones to the curb and look fabulous.

Yup. Queen Latifa stars as the upcoming single mother hairstylist. The film opens with her working under the ridiculous Jorge, marvelously played by Kevin Bacon. And this is one of the best parts of this film. Along with Bacon, Andie MacDowell, Alicia Silverstone, and Mena Suvari, all white actors who usually wouldn't be anywhere near a black-centric film, are included in the film and are very good. Kevin Bacon is great and really creates an absurd yet genuinely funny master stylist, a boy from Nebraska masquerading as a European with kinky highlighted mop hair and a crazy loopy accent.

So perhaps this film is trying to open up the "black" film to a white audience. That might explain why the super hot black male stylist (Bryce Wilson) doesn't get totally smacked down for getting with a white girl, Silverstone. Instead, she proves that she can work it like a black girl and everything is ok. In a more realistic world, the black women would be pissed. I know I would be. There are not enough fine, hard-working black men for all the fine, hard-working black women. Let alone enough for the great number of fine black men who date only white women. That leads to a lot of single black women. I'd be pissed.

Ooh, and the other hottie man-candy is Djimon Hounsou. Shazam! He is so ridiculously beautiful. He has his shirt off only once, which I was surprised by. But you can tell how fine his body is regardless of what he is wearing. I wouldn't say that this is a role in which he shines. He's kind of a blank canvas, meant to be neutrally attractive. His character is made to be widely attractive, and his portrayal is blank for probably the same reason. It's too bad because he is capable of greater depth. I really liked him in the Four Feathers.

Queen Latifa is very good and compelling. She can definitely carry a film like this. She is a little over the top in a few scenes, but is universally lovely throughout and keeps the ball rolling.

So the plot is not the reason to watch this film. It is obvious. Jorge tries to sabotage her, but she holds it together and he gets his comeuppance. And the acting isn't really the reason to watch. There are great side characters, to be sure. Bacon and Sheryl Underwood as Rita the Catfish Lady are great side characters. Silverstone could have been a bit bolder and more confident, instead of wimpy southern-Cher (her character in Clueless). But then her booty-shaking wouldn't have been the surprise that wins over the ladies at the shop.

The reason to watch this film is to spend two hours feeling good about black ladies. When was the last time that happened in your life? It does slip into some stereotypes, which could be precarious for white audiences, but it's cute and simple, as it should be. It's a nice film. And Kevin Bacon is hi-larious. And it gives you quite a few new options if you play Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

As for the director, Billie Woodruff, who previously directed a few pop videos and the Jessica Alba vehicle, Honey (ouch), he does a decent job. I guess I had hoped that when I checked out his IMDB profile that I would find some evidence of his desire to make art. As far as I can tell, he's a workman climbing the Hollywood ladder. Good luck to ya!

City of Cranes - % % % % %

A rumination on the experiences of crane drivers, floating above London, between buildings, carrying great loads with concentration and meditation. This 14 minute short doc is wonderful to watch. It's charming, narrated by interviews with crane drivers, and it's absorbing, marvelous and wondrous, filmed mainly from the crane operators' perspective, containing abstract images of modern life and the balletic dance of the epic cranes sweeping through the city.

At 14 minutes, you should definitely check it out. Next time you sit down for dinner or a snack, instead of turning on the tv, go to POV's website and watch. Glorious.

Directed by Eva Weber. The website for the film. She has also directed The Intimacy of Strangers, available on the Full Frame compilation, disc 5, available on Netflix. I'm bumping it up on my queue, rest assured.

Jericho - % % % % %

I can't believe it myself, but I just watched all of Jericho in two and a half days and I was on the edge of my seat and crying and thrilled almost the whole time.

Yes it is super-patriarchal and there are some philosophical questions I'd like to pose to the writers, like should a town continue to be run by the same family for three generations?

But I really loved it! There is just something about a post-apocalyptic world that is fascinating. And you all have probably heard me talk about how Red Dawn is one of the greatest films ever made. I really love the passion of survival and the notion of resistance.

And it is a total fantasy that any group would be able to survive like the citizens of Jericho do in this show. They held on to their morals in an extraordinary way and still came out alive and strong, for the most part.

It is a totally white town, with the exception of a CIA agent who just moved in. That unto itself bothers me immensely. Apparently we can only get along with a black family that makes every sacrifice for us and are badass killing machines. And the only Latino on the show is named Beck. And even this very brown German man (he could be Argentinian or Brazilian, but come on! unlikely) has to work very hard to overcome his allegiance to a foreign power of evil.

And the women, while very plucky and "tough broads", are still just girlfriends. They fight alongside the men, but they are rarely leaders. It's getting there though. In Red Dawn, the women are pathetic, traumatized rape victims. So there's definitely improvement.

I will say that the acting is actually pretty decent. Skeet Ulrich totally steps up to leading the show. His father and mother, played by Gerald McRainey and Pamela Red, are excellent stalwart tv actors and they are magnificent centers to the first season. And no one should talk about this show without discussing the marvelous Lennie James. He rules the show. He is captivating as a mysterious CIA agent with many many secrets, all of which could turn the world upside down. A revolution for the post-apocalyptic world. He's fabulous.

Oh, and in opposition to HBO writers whose shows get canceled, these writers wrapped it all up in a timely and satisfying fashion.

And even though the super bad guy is fighting for the same thing as the good guys, he is still bad because he's willing to kill civilians. So it is very true to American and Amurican values.

I have always been very anti-guns. Although I certainly see the need to have a well armed defense force. Allowing citizens to own firearms has given the US a death rate per capita by handguns alone that is 2000% that of other similar nations. Pretty gruesome. And the main reason that Canada doesn't have the same extent of the problem seems to be its lack of horrifying poverty.

So when we eliminate the main causes for violence, which generally boils down to inequality and extreme poverty and desperation, then I'll be totally behind more liberal interpretations of the 2nd Amendment.

Until then, I don't want more firearms in my city. Hell no!

On the other hand, and the reason that I say all of this, is that I do understand the value of being able to handle a firearm and I do agree that a militia to defend against tyranny is also valuable. I just think that there are still other ways to make improvements and changes to our society other than with violence, although I'm not surprised when others don't come to the same conclusion.

If you take away the non-violent means for change, you leave only the violent means.

All power to the people.