Bandits (1997)

BANDITS  (1997)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Katja von Garnier

    Katja Riemann, Jasmin Tabatabai, Nicolette Krebitz,

    Jutta Hoffman, Werner Schreyer, Hannes Jaenicke

A German variation on "Thelma & Louise", about four women who form a rock-&-roll band in prison, land a gig to provide the entertainment at the policemen's award banquet, and escape to become outlaws, on the run from a cop who has promised to apprehend them in the time it takes to smoke a pack of small cigars. They're an eclectic group. Marie (Jutta Hoffman) is a mental case with a death wish. Luna (Jasmin Tabatabai) is a self-loathing sociopath. Angel (Nicolette Krebitz) is a sweet-faced swindler with a stolen fortune buried in the woods. Emma (Katja Riemann) is a walking wound, locked up for murder and keeping a terrible secret in a locket around her neck. They're all tough and resilient, each with a hard, protective surface masking some level of emotional vulnerability. Together, they're a band, an intricate set of grudging, contentious, mutually supportive relationships. The chemistry clicks. It's an exciting musical road movie, in which von Garnier appropriates the style of a music video to create something like a pop-rock fairy tale. The tunes aren't bad - Tabatabai wrote a lot of them - and the setup's familiar enough to transcend the language barrier, even while it keeps you guessing how the story's going to turn out. There's no defiant leap into the Grand Canyon at the end of this one, but there's something a lot like it, just as cathartic and just as annihilating.

Schlock! (2001)

SCHLOCK! THE SECRET HISTORY OF AMERICAN MOVIES  (2001)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Ray Greene

An affectionate, informative look at the evolution of exploitation films from the late '40s through the late '60s, from lurid tracts on the dangers of dope and VD through low-budget horror and sci-fi, "cuties" and "roughies," gore fests, nudist-camp romps and biker flicks. The clips are great, and the witness gallery includes such B-movie legends as Samuel Arkoff, Roger Corman, Harry Novak, David Friedman, Doris Wishman and more. The movie thankfully doesn't take itself too seriously, while providing a fair amount of insight into the social conditions that led to a demand for these kinds of films, and the methods and motives of those who made and marketed them. If you're old enough to remember when movies like "Dragstrip Girl", "Nude On the Moon", "Confessions of a Psycho Cat" and "I Was a Teenage Frankenstein" played at the local drive-in, or if you're just interested in exploitation's golden age, this is worth checking out.

David F. Friedman

(1923-2011)

Land of the Pharaohs (1955)

LAND OF THE PHARAOHS  (1955)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Howard Hawks

    Jack Hawkins, Joan Collins, Dewey Martin,

    James Robertson Justice, Sydney Chaplin

Jack Hawkins builds the Great Pyramid, while Joan Collins shows off some prominent architecture of her own. Eye-popping spectacle from the golden age of epics, complete with a Dimitri Tiomkin musical score and the proverbial cast of thousands. The bigger the screen the better when you're watching something like this, but you probably wouldn't want to use it as a study aid for your ancient history final. William Faulkner worked on the script.

Sugar & Spice (2001)

SUGAR & SPICE  (2001)  ¢

    D: Francine McDougal

    Marla Sokoloff, Marley Shelton, Melissa George,

    Mena Suvari, Rachel Blanchard, James Marsden

Negligible teen flick about some high school cheerleaders who decide to rob a bank. Dr. Sporgersi and I caught this at the multiplex on a Sunday afternoon in February when all we were looking for was something cheap and easy to look at and not too intellectually demanding, and we thought a movie about bank-robbing cheerleaders might meet those requirements. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

The Passenger (1975)

THE PASSENGER  (1975)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Michelangelo Antonioni

    Jack Nicholson, Maria Schneider, Ian Hendry

A reporter trying to scrape up a story in North Africa switches passports with a dead man and starts to slip into the dead man's life. If Antonioni's artful reflection on fate and identity leaves you feeling alienated and a little lost, don't worry. You're not alone. Jack's acting had an edge to it back then that's mostly missing from his later work, and there's a long, slow tracking shot at the end that's pretty incredible.

Maria Schneider

(1952-2011)

Deadfall (1968)

DEADFALL  (1968)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Bryan Forbes

    Michael Caine, Giovanna Ralli,

    Eric Portman, Nanette Newman

A young, impassive Michael Caine plays a jewel thief whose life becomes complicated when he teams up with an unconventional couple to pull off a high-end burglary. Nice cars, nice houses, nice clothes and nice Spanish locations, but flat execution and an under-realized script. Highlight: an extended set piece in which Caine and Portman rob a safe in a posh villa, while their victims are off at a concert (John Barry conducting "Romance For Guitar and Orchestra").

John Barry

(1933-2011)

True Grit (2010)

TRUE GRIT  (2010)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Joel and Ethan Coen

    Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Hailee Steinfeld,

    Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper, Dakin Matthews

Jeff Bridges takes on the eye patch and the old John Wayne role in the Coen Brothers remake of the Duke's Oscar-winning vehicle from 1969. The story, from the Charles Portis novel, has a 14-year-old girl named Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) recruiting a crusty old federal marshall named Rooster Cogburn (Bridges) to help her track down the outlaw who killed her father. Intermittently joining them is a cocky, loquacious Texas Ranger named LaBoeuf (Matt Damon). In a lot of ways, this movie improves on the original. Bridges, who's about the same age Wayne was in the previous "True Grit", doesn't try to play John Wayne. But with a maximum of orneriness and a minimum of sentiment, he's a great Rooster Cogburn, a guy who probably eats nails for breakfast and shits bullets in the afternoon. Damon takes over the role played earlier by Glen Campbell, and if that's not an improvement over the original, nothing is. Steinfeld has a straightforward freshness about her that makes Mattie's self-righteous disposition bearable, and she does a more than decent job with a wagonload of contractionless dialogue. Carter Burwell's score riffs on old hymns, and Roger Deakins' cinematography looks wonderful, the washed-out colors evoking another age. Much of the script and even some of the camera setups mirror the older movie, but the Coens (naturally) do a better job of tapping the story's potential for morbid comedy. There are still good reasons to watch the Duke's "True Grit", Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper and Strother Martin among them. But the Coens and Bridges have made their point. You don't want to miss this one, either.

The 2010 Scobie Awards

Picture: "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World"

Actor: Casey Affleck, "The Killer Inside Me"

Actress: Katie Jarvis, "Fish Tank"

Supporting Actor: Ray Winstone, "Edge of Darkness"

Supporting Actress: Olivia Williams, "The Ghost Writer"

Cameo: Derek Jacobi, "Hereafter"

Director: Edgar Wright, "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World"

Cinematography: Roger Deakins, "True Grit"

Musical Score: Juri Seppä and Miska Seppä, "Rare Exports"

Foreign Language Film: "Micmacs"

B Movie: "Machete"

Revival: "Sometimes a Great Notion"

Title Sequence: "Splice"

Trailer: "Shutter Island"

Print Ad: "True Grit"

Career Achievement Award: Scott Glenn

The Band Wagon (1953)

THE BAND WAGON  (1953)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Vincente Minnelli

    Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Oscar Levant,

    Nanette Fabray, Jack Buchanan, Ava Gardner

A Hollywood song-and-dance man and a curvy ballerina team up for a big Broadway show. A lively, colorful MGM musical with tunes by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz and choreography by Michael Kidd. The songs include "By Myself", "Dancing In the Dark" and "That's Entertainment", and the "theatrical genius" played by Jack Buchanan appears to have a lot in common with Orson Welles. Astaire does some fancy footwork, of course, but to really catch everything Fred's doing, you'll have to take your eyes off Cyd Charisse. Good luck with that.