Review of Silver Hawk (2004) by Smiley G — 02 Oct 2006

[size=3]Due to a friend's unfortuante idea (Never try to install DSL on a 1998 PC) my computer was out of commission for a while but I have seen a boatload of movies lately. Herewith the highlights:[/size].

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[size=3]"How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying" - A musical comedy that has been unfairly overlooked. It's funny, classy and Robert Morse is a terrific lead.[/size].

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[size=3]"The Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid" - Revisionist shenanignans about the old West, in particular the last raid of the James-Younger Gang. In this version Jesse James (Robert Duvall) is a treacherous Bible-thumping killer. Fun but I have a feeling "The Long Riders" came closer to the truth.[/size].

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[size=3]"Innocent Lies" - creepy British thriller about the sicko offpsring of a Nazi-sympathizing noblewoman. Another picture that suggests brother-sister incest is rampant among the English upper classes.[/size].

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[size=3]"Bright Young Things" - Why are Evelyn Waugh novels so hard to get right on screen? This Stephen Fry adaptation of the 1930 novel "Vile Bodies" hits the right note of sarcasm until the end which bizarrely ratchets the story up to World War II and reunites the young lover leads in a reversal of almost every point made earlier in the movie in order to get a "crowd-pleasing" happy ending. Yuck![/size].

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[size=3]"Marnie" - This Hitchcock film deserves a better reputation. I think it suffered because he made it right after "Psycho" and "The Birds" and people were disappointed to see him doing a relatively tame romance about a compulsive thief instead of more way-out murders. Nevertheless this is a good movie outfitted with plenty of Hitchcock tricks and Tippi Hedren gives a great perfornance.[/size].

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[size=3]"Ellie Parker" - A very nice surprise. Naomi Watts in a small independent film about a luckless actress in Hollywood. The entire movie is show on videotape and Watts shows mucho guts in letting extreme closeups be taken of her without makeup. Then again she is blessed with a strong face and clear skin.[/size].

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[size=3]"Silver Hawk" - Those bloated, self-important American comic book movies could learn a lot from this sleek Hong Kong tale. Michelle Yeoh plays a motorcycle-riding superhero out to stop the usual madman-taking-over-the-world plot. The movie flies with action, setting aside just enough time to sketch out characters and relationships. No overdone stunts, no stupid dirtbag humor, no mopey subplots, just a slick and tight barrel of fun that doesn't last much over 90 minutes.[/size].

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[size=3]"Looking For Comedy In The Muslim World" - This may be a work of genius. It's certainly Albert Brooks' best film since "Lost In America". It's just slightly off center with subtle humor and Brooks makes himself a wonderful patsy as he goes to India and Pakistan on a government-sponsored mission to find out what makes Muslims laugh. His skewed sense of humor is at its best here.[/size].

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[size=3]I also had the rare joy yesterday of seeing something I never knew existed, two short Hal Roach comedies from World War II that spoofed Adolf Hitler. These pictures showed the Axis partners as slapstick clowns with an actor named Bobby Watson playing Hitler, Joe Devlin playing Mussolini and in George E. Stone and Johnny Arthur trading off playing a stereotypical Japanese general. (One of the signs that Japanese military leaders like Tojo and Yamamoto never became representative villains the way Hitler did.) Watson seems to have made something of a career out of playing Hitler and Devlin resembled in an uncanny way both Jack Oakie as the Mussolini figure from "The Great Dictator" and Curly Howard from the 3 Stooges. The films were goofy and strangely like elongated versions of the Stooges' Hitler shorts.[/size].