Yesterday I posted my reactions to a few of the movies I've rented from GreenCine. Today I figured I'd pick a couple from Netflix and post them. Now I've been pretty much a Netflix guy for many years now. At first, I joined mostly so I could catch up on films I missed seeing in the theaters in order to keep the website at least up to date. Then I gradually moved into seeing movies that I wanted to see. Usually from January through June, since the first half of most years see pretty lousy movies released. I know that's not exactly 100% true -- but you get the drift.

Anyway, recently my viewing has included some of last year's big hits like No Country for Old Men, I'm Not There, Reservation Road, Charlie Wilson's War, etc.  I've also been casting a wider net with some classic films too.

When I was a kid, I used to watch a late-afternoon movie with my grandmother who lived with us. She was mostly bedridden and had a small black-and-white television in her room. I'd settle into a comfy chair and watch tons of old movies with her. That's partly how I learned about films -- if something caught my attention, I'd go to the library and research it. (This was years before the Internet and Google.)  To this day, I'm still haunted by one image I remember from a movie -- and no one I've asked, including several scholars -- can identify the film. Either I'm misremembering it (which is entirely possible) or it's out there and I just haven't found it yet. I recall a man and a woman on the porch of a home. They are reuniting after spending most of the film apart and as they embrace, the camera pulls back and you see that the house is engulfed in flames.  I suspect it's a film noir -- or maybe it was an episode of a TV show.

Anyway, someone had suggested that perhaps I was recalling a mix of scenes from the 1937 film In Old Chicago. So I put that in my queue and eventually got it in the mail.  Although it is over 70 years old(!), the movie still holds up pretty well, particularly from a technical end. While the burning of Chicago doesn't quite match the burning of Atlanta in Gone With the Wind, it's impressive. The film's made-up plot is pure hokum though. An Irish immigrant family named  O'Leary  arrives in the United States and on their way to Chicago, the father dies when he decides to use the family wagon to race with a steam locomotive. Plucky mom (Alice Brady in her Oscar winning role) carries on, opens a laundry and raises three sons, who grow up to be a ne'er-do-well (Tyrone Power) who gets by on charm and his impossible good looks, an earnest lawyer (Don Ameche, who would have turned 100 in May had he lived) and a farmhand (Tom Brown) who marries the Scandinavian maid. The eldest Dion (Power) gets caught up in a scheme to fix an election, involving his brother the lawyer. He romances a New York stage performer (Alice Faye) of whom his sainted mother disapproves. The melodrama unfolds until the fatal moment when Mrs. O'Leary leaves her cow alone with a lantern. The animal kicks it over and starts the notorious great Chicago fire. At least that was one of the tales that grew after the event and which Hollywood glommed onto.  The actors do what they can with their roles, particularly Brady who sadly died of cancer  within two years  of winning her award.  (I prefer her superlative comic work in My Man Godfrey, though).  What remains impressive are the special effects that recreate the fire and its aftermath. And while this film doesn't contain the scene I recall (although there is something similar), it was certainly worth watching.                      Rating:   B-

I  also had a mini-Al Pacino film festival, renting Cruising (1980), Scarecrow (1973) and The Panic in Needle Park (1971). Of the three, I had not seen the latter. The others I had watched in the past, but wanted to revisit. 

Before it even hit theaters, Cruising was controversial, mainly because the gay community in New York staged protests while it was filming in the hopes of disrupting the production. The reason was an objection to the content and story, which centered on a serial killer offing gay men who participated in the leather scene. In the film, the "leather scene" translated to S&M and the movie was filmed at sex clubs on the wild west side of Manhatan -- areas that have now been gentrified and play host to designer boutiques and upscale restaurants. In the late 70's, though, things were different. Pacino plays a cop who goes undercover in the demimonde of the world of S&M. As written and directed by William Friedkin, the movie aims for a hip feel but somehow falls flat. As an audience, we are supposed to feel Pacino slipping into this world but it doesn't translate. The actor seems slightly miscast and the supporting cast is a mixed bag with only Don Scardino essaying someone approaching a real human being.  I wasn't thrilled with the film back in 1980 and at the time I failed to understand what all the fuss was about. In hindsight, I can see it is pedantic and insulting.  Revisionist history is attempting to make this one palatable. Don't be fooled.   Rating:    C-

Scarecrow is somewhat better. A road movie directed by Jerry Schatzberg, the film teams Pacino with Gene Hackman as a pair of drifters who decide to go into business together in Pittsburgh and travel across country via hitchhiking and other means. Hackman's Max is an ex-con with the money for the venture while Pacino's Lionel is a sailor floundering on dry land. They are like oil and water (and reportedly the actors off-screen relationship was strained at best; Hackman apparently didn't like Pacino's Method approach). As can be the case between a leading man and a leading lady, the off-screen dislike translates into a pleasant and palpable chemistry on screen. The viewer comes to care what happens to this pair of losers despite the cliches in the script. The film shared a prize at Cannes but that didn't translate to boffo box office in the U.S.  It's a chance to see two fine actors playing off one another and a strong supporting cast that includes Dorothy Tristan, Eileen Brennan, Richard Lynch, Penelope Allen and Ann Wedgeworth. There's a devestating telephone scene near the end of the movie that still gives me chills and is a succinct class in great screen acting.           Rating:    B-

Finally, I caught up with The Panic in Needle Park again. I had very dim recollections of seeing this movie, probably on VHS in the early days of video rentals. The film stars Pacino and Kitty Winn (who earned the Cannes Best Actress Award for 1971) as a couple in love and coping with drug addiction. Also directed by Schatzberg, the movie doesn't glamorize heroin use. Indeed, Schatzberg takes an almost documentary approach to the subject matter. At the time of its initial release, the film faced a marketing challenge thanks to 20th Century-Fox's decision to play up the more salacious aspects of the film. Audiences weren't impressed and the studio shifted gears, but by then it was too late. The screenplay was written by Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne and is, at heart, a dysfunctional love story between petty crook Bobby (Pacino) and the upwardly mobile Helen (Winn). While the film seems to validate the cliche that girls prefer the "bad boys", it also serves as a cautionary tale of the perils and pitfalls of giving yourself over to someone you love unconditionally. In his first leading role, Pacino is memorable and mesmerizing. Within a year, he was on the fact track to success after Francis Ford Coppola cast him in The Godfather. Winn is equally superb. It's a shame that after a handful of mostly thankless roles, such as the secretary to a famous actress in The Exorcist, Winn married and retired from the big screen. The Panic in Needle Park features a great cast, including many who are no long with us like Raul Julia, Larry Marshall, Kiel Martin, Alan Vint, and Richard Bright.  This is not a feel-good flick nor is it an easy one to sit through, but it is well acted and provides a glimpse at the not too distant past.     Rating:  B+