It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life is the granddaddy of all Christmas movies; although, it certainly didn't start out that way. The movie nearly flopped when it opened, and during its first theater run failed to earn back the money it took to make it. Still, this film has endured down through the decades to become one of the most beloved movies of all time. And it's not hard to see why. The film's got a lot of power in it. Filmed in 1946, a lot of the actors were still carrying raw memories of World War II. The strain of the war shows in their faces and in their voices. This was probably Jimmy Stewart's first really serious role, and he pulls a lot of emotion from his time in the war into his character. When he's praying in the bar scene, those tears on his face are real. When he kisses Donna Reed for the first time, that's real passion you're seeing. In fact, that scene had to be cut short, because it got a little too hot for the censors. So, yeah, this is a powerful movie. I thought so the very first time I saw it when I was about ten years old. I've thought so every time I've watched it since then. I still think so today. In my book, that's what makes a film a classic. It never gets old. It never runs out of gas. As they say, it's got legs.

Stewart plays George Bailey, a man who had big dreams when he was younger. Didn't we all? Well, he was gonna sail around the world, go to college, become an engineer, design dams and bridges and skyscrapers. He was gonna be somebody. People would remember his name. He'd leave his mark on the world. Remember when you were gonna do all of that? I do. But life got in George's way, like it does for a lot of us. When his father dies, George takes over the running of the savings and loan bank that his family owns. Why? Cuz if he doesn't, then the board of directors will sell out to the greedy Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore), the richest man in town. If Potter gets a hold of the savings and loan, he'll foreclose on most of the people who have mortgages there. That's just the kind of sweet soul he is. So George takes over and he gives his college money to his younger brother Harry (Todd Karns). When Harry finishes college, he's supposed to come back and take over the savings and loan so that George can go to college too. But Harry meets and marries Ruth (Virginia Patton). Ruth's father owns a company and wants Harry to come to work for him. George is left to run the savings and loan. He marries Mary, and instead of going on a honeymoon George struggles to save the bank during the Great Depression. Time goes by. George and Mary have children. George starts designing houses and creates a new subdivision. When World War II comes, George is declared 4F and has to stay at home. Meanwhile, little brother Harry goes off and becomes a hero. Wins the medal of honor. On the day that Harry is set to come home, tragedy strikes.

Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell), George's partner, loses $8,000 of the savings and loan's money, which conveniently ends up in old Mr. Potter's grasping hands. He neglects to tell George about his latest windfall. Instead, he threatens to call the police and have George arrested for embezzlement. To top things off, the bank examiner comes to town. Distraught, George leaves home and goes to a bar, where he offers his urgent prayer. Then, deciding that his life has been a complete failure, George decides to kill himself. This is where Clarence (Henry Travers) enters the picture. Clarence is an angel. He's been sent down to help George find his way back home. George tells Clarence that he wishes he'd never been born. Clarence grants him his wish. Suddenly, a thousand tiny - and not so tiny - changes take place in George's home town of Bedford Falls. George gets the opportunity to find out what the world would have been like if he had never been born. The savings and loan would have gone under when his father died, and old man Potter would have taken away the homes of a lot of people. What's worse, Potter would have gained control of the entire town and renamed it Potterville. It would have been a nasty place to live too. Mary would have been a spinster her whole life. George's children would have never been born. Hundreds of people that George helped over the years would have led much worse lives. Most importantly, Harry - whose life George saved when they were kids - would have died, and he wouldn't have been there during the war to save the lives of a lot of other soldiers. In the end, George realizes that during his insignificant life, he touched the lives of countless people, who in turn touched the lives of still others. George's goodness and generosity, his habit of putting other people's
needs ahead of his own, created a circle of goodness that spread outward over the passing years. With a little bit of heavenly intervention, George learns that he truly did have a wonderful life.

It's a Wonderful Life is definitely a feel good film, and if you don't feel good after watching it, then there's something wrong with you. It celebrates the contributions of the common man (and woman), the people who, in George's words, "do most of the working and and paying and living and dying" in this world. It tells us that each one of us, whether we realize it or not, whether we are important or rich or famous or not, touches on the lives of a lot of other people, sometimes for good, sometimes not. But we do, and when we do, we cause a ripple effect, just like the old rock and pond analogy. It's a Wonderful Life reminds us that this is so, that we really can't behave any old way we want with impunity, because our words and deeds will have an effect on those around us. And, as my mother used to say, eventually the chickens will come home to roost. We all get our payback in the end. For George, who always put others first, his payback is good. By the end of this movie, you'll be wondering what kind of a payback you're in store for. I know I wonder.

It's a Wonderful Life is rated G and is filmed in glorious black-and-white. It has a runtime of 130 minutes.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)

The Hindenburg III glides silently above the streets of Manhattan. I kid you not. It docks at the Empire State Building. A nervous passenger has a package sent on ahead of him. Then the passenger vanishes, and a name is scratched off a list. Meanwhile, over at the Tribune, ace reporter Polly Perkins (Gwynneth Paltrow) gets a cryptic message to meet someone at Radio City Music Hall. She goes and meets an aged scientist who's terrified for his life. He will say only one name - Totenkoff. Before Polly can find out any more, New York is attacked by a horde of giant, flying robots. An immediate call goes out to Sky Captain, aka Joe Sullivan (Jude Law), who flies to the rescue in his own P-40 Flying Tiger. After dispatching several of the behemoths, he flies off to his secret base, where Polly is waiting for him. Seems they once had the thing going on that ended badly. As they are hashing out old times, the base is attacked by bat-shaped aircraft that flap their wings. Joe and Polly fly after them, shoot down several and finally escape by diving into the ocean in Joe's plane which promptly turns into a submarine. By the time they get back to Joe's base, the place has been destroyed and Joe's loyal side kick, Dex (Giovanni Ribisi), has been kidnapped. Polly and Joe, following clues left by Dex, fly to Nepal where they find Shangri La, then head out over the ocean in search of Totenkoff's secret base. When they get there, they find that Totenkoff (the very late Laurence Olivier) has been a very naughty boy indeed, and now the entire world is in danger. Folks, I repeat, I am not making this stuff up. Somebody else already did that for us. And they put it all into a movie called Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

Written and directed by Kerry Conran, Sky Captain is a loving homage to all of the movie serials of the 1930s and 40s - like Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and The Undersea Kingdom - complete with mad scientists, robotic villains, secret bases, rocket ships and ray guns. The film was shot almost entirely against a blue screen background - only the actors were real, and the scenery and props were all added later digitally. This allowed Conran to create the New York that he wanted to, set in 1939, yet in some strange alternate universe, where the Nazis never came into power and where supersonic aircraft and ray guns were invented. It is a happy, mythical reality that begs us to forget the realities of history as we knew it and come along to a better place. The sub-title the World of Tomorrow is taken from the 1939-40 New York World's Fair, as do the Trylon and Persiphere that they find deep in the Himalayas. In Conran's hands, the World of Tomorrow envisioned in 1939 actually existed and much of the world of then never materialized. Would that it had been the case. The sepia tone of the film lends it an air of nostalgia, and the dim lighting and deep shadows bring to mind the lighting techniques of film noir. Unfortunately, it also lends the film a cartoon-like quality that takes away from its magical realism. Probably the film's most memorable performance is by the late Laurence Olivier. Conran took archival footage of Olivier and digitally manipulated it to speak the words he had in his script. In some sense, we truly are in the world of tomorrow if we can get dead actors to keep right on performing years after their demise.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is not going to be to everyone's liking. It's just too fantastical for some people, who apparently have a difficult time suspending their disbelief long enough to enjoy a good adventure yarn. The acting is a bit formal and stiff, much as it was in those old 30s and 40s serials, but after a while you really don't notice too much. Probably the most difficult part of the film to buy is Joe's airplane, which has the ability to fly at near supersonic speeds over unimaginable distances and, as an added bonus, turn itself into a submarine when needed. My favorite World-of-Tomorrow gadget - if you will - was the giant, hovering aircraft carrier. I've seen something similar in old Mechanix Illustrated magazines from that period. They dreamed of it then. Conran's dreaming of it still. We can too, thanks to his movie.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is rated PG-13, and it is available in sepia-toned color.

The City of Lost Children (1995)

One (Ron Perlman) is a Russian whale hunter. Well, used to be. He can't do it anymore. Now he performs as a circus strong man. Breaks chains. That sort of thing. Denree (Joseph Luien) is his adopted little brother. All he does is eat. One night, someone stabs their manager. As they watch over their wounded friend, a group of strange men, each with one mechanical eye, attack them and steal Denree. One sets out in search of him through the twisting streets and alleyways of Marc Callo's and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's The City of Lost Children. Along the way, One meets Miette (Judith Vittet), a young orphan girl who agrees to help One finds his little brother. But their quest is not an easy one. There is danger everywhere. They are chased by the governess of the orphanage where Miette used to live, the evil Siamese twins, la Pieuvre (Genvieve Brunet and Odile Mallet) who use their wards to steal for them. They employ Marcello (Jean-Claude Dreyfus) who uses a trained flea and a secret serum to drive people into homicidal rages. The flea triggers one of the most wonderful chain-of-event sequences that I have ever seen in any movie. It's right out of a Warner Brothers cartoon. Anyway, One and Miette discover that Danree has been kidnapped by a secret group called the Cyclopes, blind men who have mechanical eyes installed in their heads. They kidnap children for the mysterious Krank (Daniel Amilfork), who can no longer dream, and so he exists on the dreams of children. One and Miette invade Krank's lair on an abandoned oil rig, rescue Danree and all of the other children, and leave as the rig is demolished by Krank's half-crazed father.

Okay, I'm gonna warn you right now. The City of Lost Children is not to everyone's taste. It's a quirky film whose plot mirrors the labyrinthine streets of the city in which it is set. But I love this movie. It's a visual feast, full of color, shadows, and textures. The sets are unbelievable. They're almost like a cartoon of reality, yet they're real sets, not computer animated fabrications, like in Sky Captain. Every scene is packed with crumbling brick and weathered wood, rain-slick cobble stones, rusted steel. It begs to be touched. You feel this movie more than watch it. You watch it more than listen to it. You listen because you cannot help yourself. The haunting musical score pulls you into this 1930s French port city, and you go along following the clues that will lead One and Miette back to Danree. I also love the relationship that forms between One and Miette, as he grows to care for this little girl who's on the cusp of adolescence. He carries her around when her shoes wear out, massages her feet when they get sore, warms her up when she gets cold. Don't go thinking bad thoughts now. It's all innocent. One may be over six feet tall and strong as an ox, but mentally he's a child himself. Miette takes care of him, just as much as he takes care of her. In the end, you know that One, Miette and Denree will be a happy family.

The City of Lost Children is rated R, and this gives me a great opportunity to rant and rave about the rating system in this country. There is absolutely no reason to give this film an R rating. There is no sex, and the only profanity used in the film is a word that every child over the age of ten has heard many times over. Yes, there is violence and some disturbing imagery, but it's far less than appeared in the PG-13 rated Lord of the Rings movies. My personal opinion is that the R rating was punitive, meant to reduce the number of teenagers who might otherwise have seen and enjoyed this exquisite French movie. Why this should be, I do not know. I only know that the R rating is completely undeserved.

The Enchanted Cottage (1945)

Is love blind? John Cromwell's romantic fantasy The Enchanted Cottage assures us that it is. Narrator Herbert Marshall, playing the blind pianist Major John Hillgrove, tells the touching story of a homely young woman and a battle scarred pilot, who find that love can blind us to anothers' physical - and emotional - imperfections. Laura Pennington (Dorothy McGuire) is a homely girl who comes to work as a house cleaner for Mrs. Minnett (Mildred Natwick), who owns a honeymoon cottage that she rents out from time to time. One day, Oliver Bradford (Robert Young), hidden in the recesses of his overcoat, hat pulled down low, arrives at the house, and goes straight up to his room. A fighter pilot, he was shot down and severely injured. He's lost the use of his right arm, and his face is hideously scarred. His soul is too. He lashes out at people, taking his anger and frustration out on them. His family is sympathetic. Too sympathetic. They overlook his injuries to the point that it becomes obvious that they're trying to overlook them. His fiance' insists she still loves him, but she can't look him in the face when she says it. The truth is all too obvious.

After several weeks at the cottage, Oliver begins to let down his guard. He befriends Major Hillgrove, who can't see his injuries and so doesn't try to ignore them, and Hillgrove's nephew Danny (Alec Englander) who's too young to know that he's supposed to be shocked by them. He also befriends Laura, whose homeliness makes her an outcast in the village. Slowly, their love for each other unfolds, and they begin to see each other through the eyes of love, they begin to see each other's souls, and they are beautiful to each other. Thinking the cottage has worked some kind of magic on them and removed their deformities, they invite Oliver's parents to come and visit them. But they see only the scarred cripple and the homely girl. As Laura and John see the disappointment in his parents' eyes, they realize that they haven't truly changed after all. But love triumphs in this little movie, and Oliver and Laura choose Love's illusion over life's harsh realities.

The Enchanted Cottage is another of those quirky little films that I love. The story is simple and predictable; still, it's a comforting predictability, the kind you get from a favorite old flannel shirt and a cup of hot chocolate. The story is helped by great sets and understated lighting that lend a wonderfully magical atmosphere to the film. If you're looking for a slightly corny feel-good movie, then pop some corn, whip up some hot cocoa, and settle in with The Enchanted Cottage.

The Enchanted Cottage is rated G and is available in velvety black and white.

Enchanted April (1992)

Mike Newell's Enchanted April, adapted from the novel by Elizabeth von Arnim, is one of those rare gems of a movie that come along every now and then and sail right under the radar. I'm always amazed at how many people have never heard of this film. Everything about this movie is perfect, from the cast to the stunning scenery that forms the backdrop of the the action. The only complaint I ever had with this film was that it took so long to bring it out on DVD. The movie originally came out in '92, but it wasn't released on DVD until just last year.

The story starts on a rainy London day in the years right after WWI. Two women, Lottie Wilkins (Josie Lawrence) and Rose Arbuthnot (Miranda Richardson) are fed up with the day to day humdrum of their middle-class lives and decide to spend April in an Italian villa, which they rent from George Briggs (Michael Kitchen). Because they don't have a lot of money, they advertise for two companions to join them and share the expense. Their ad is answered by Mrs. Fisher (Joan Plowright), and aging dowager, and Lady Caroline Dester (Polly Walker), a disillusioned young socialite. Lottie's husband Mellersh (Alfred Molina) - a family lawyer - is outraged that his wife would want to go on a vacation without him; Rose's husband Frederick (Jim Broadbent) - a writer of scandalous romances - thinks it's a great idea. Once the four women arrive at San Salvatore, the villa begins to work its magic upon them. You see them unfold beneath the hot Mediterranean sun, melt into the exquisite landscape. Their guards come down. So do their pretenses and facades. Lottie invites Mellersh to come and join her. She knows that the villa will change him too. It does. Then Rose invites Frederick. He arrives - having not received her letter - looking for Caroline, who he has a passion for. The villa's magic takes care of that as well. By the end, all are friends, including Mr. Briggs who came to see how things were going and was invited to stay on.

Enchanted April is not a loud or a fast paced movie. There aren't any chase scenes or gun fights or explosions in it. There are no CGI effects to wow the audience. You won't see any nudity or sex or even hear any profanity. What you will get, instead, is a truly wonderful story - one could say magical - set against some of the most enchanting scenery in the whole world. The musical score is lovely and relaxing, and the cinematography takes full advantage of the breathtaking Italian coast. Some would call Enchanted April a chick-flick. I disagree. It is a movie for anyone who is tired of rushing around and multi-tasking and just wants to enjoy a film that unfolds itself gradually, carefully, until it arrives at a totally satisfying conclusion.

Enchanted April is rated PG.

Lost Horizon (1937)

Frank Capra's Lost Horizon introduced the world to a place that everyone knows implicitly - Shangri La, the Edenic valley where everyone is happy, where there is no toil or strife, and where life goes on and on. Given the position of this place in our collective conscience, it seems odd that relatively few people have ever seen the movie that inspired it, and I am going to hazard a guess that no living person has ever viewed the movie in its entirety. That's because soon after its initial release, the film was chopped again and again from its original 180 minute running time down to 95 minutes. In recent years, though, the film has been restored to 134 minutes, thanks to dedicated film preservationists who literally scoured the earth for variant versions of the movie. But why such drastic editing in the first place? Partly to speed up the film; after all, not many people want to sit through a 3-hour movie. But the film was also cut because the it contained a considerable amount of isolationist philosophy. Unfortunately for Capra, it came out at a time when the world was plunging toward war and the governments of the US and England were pushing the philosophy of engagement. The last thing they wanted was a popular film encouraging people to resist involvement in the war effort. The war effort butchered Lost Horizon.

When I started this review, I was going to write a lengthy summary of the plot, but I decided to scrap all of that. A plot summary would give you very little information about this film. Suffice it to say that Lost Horizon tells the story of British diplomat Robert Conway, played by the incomparable Ronald Coleman, who crash lands - along with several other people - in Shangri La, where he learns some incredible secrets about life and living. But Lost Horizon is really a story of Paradise Regained. It's the Garden of Eden or the Fountain of Youth. It's the desire in all of us to find someplace in the world where we can be happy, where we can live out our lives in peace, free from want, from disease, from the thousand ills that beset us in this mortal existence. But since that is not attainable in this earthly life, Lost Horizon is really a story about finding heaven. And as such, it is a story about the redemption. For all but one of the characters are redeemed in the end, because their hearts are no longer set upon the things of this world.

Lost Horizon was shot largely on Columbia Ranch on a massive and truly gorgeous set inspired by the works of Frank Lloyd Wright. The detailed sets and lavish costumes and props all serve to testify of Capra's scrupulous attention to detail. He's fairly faithful to James Hilton's novel as well, unfolding the story carefully, offering little bits of information at a time to keep the audience's curiosity piqued all the way up to when the secret of Shangri La is finally revealed at the climax of the film. Lost Horizon is a wonderful film, even lacking the 46 minutes that have not yet been found. With luck, they someday will be, and we'll have this entire classic once again.

Lost Horizon is rated G. Picture quality varies throughout the film due to edited scenes being spliced back in. However, the preservationists have done an excellent job restoring this black and white film to its original luster.

Inception (2010)

Imagine what it would be like if you could enter somebody else's dreams. You could see their innermost secrets, their desires, their fears, their intentions, their demons. Now, imagine that you had the power to alter those dreams, to erase their demons. Or give them new ones. Would you go there? That's the central idea in Christopher Nolan's Inception, a mind-bending thriller about a near-future world where dreams can be shared and controlled. The story revolves around Cobb (Leaonardo DiCaprio). Cobb is a haunted man, a man on the run, a man who can't go home because he's wanted for the murder of his wife. Cobb makes his living by entering people's dreams and stealing their secrets, which he then sells to interested third parties. One day Cobb is approached by Saito (Ken Watanabe) and asked to do a job that is supposed to be impossible. Instead of stealing an idea, Saito wants Cobb to place an idea inside the mind of his main business rival, Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy). When Cobb refuses, Saito offers to erase Cobb's criminal record so that he can return home and see his children again. Cobb agrees, assembles his team and goes to work. Saito gets Cobb close enough to Fischer to enter his dreams, and Cobb and his crew drill down through one dream layer after another until they reach a point that is deep enough to plant an idea that Fischer will think is his own. There are only two problems: Fischer's mind has been trained to fight off a dream invasion, and Cobb's own secret demons threaten to derail the entire caper.

Inception is an intelligent movie with an incredibly complicated plot and truly mind-blowing special effects. Watching it, I was reminded of the novels of Philip K. Dick, where the characters are often unclear as to what is actually reality and what is simulation or dream or insanity. Inception plays with reality in the same way, until neither the characters nor we are sure of what is real and what is dream. In the end, Cobb washes up on the shores of Saito's subconscious, where a minute of real time feels like a 1,000 years in dream time. Will Saito believe that the reality he's constructed around himself is an illusion and follow Cobb back up to the real world? Would you believe someone if they told you that "everything you see or seem was but a dream within a dream?"

Inception is rated PG-13.

Between Two Worlds (1944)

London, during the German Blitz. A group of passengers is waiting to board a liner to America and away from the horrors of Total War. Tom (John Garfield), a jaded reporter; Maxine (Faye Emerson), Tom's former girlfriend; Mr. Lingley (George Coulouris), a greedy tycoon; Pete (George Tobias), a sailor on his way home to see his new son for the first time; Mrs. Midget (Sara Allgood), a poor Irish woman; Reverend Duke (Denis King), a meek man of the cloth; Mrs. Cliveden-Banks (Isobel Elsom), a class-conscious social climber; and Mr. Cliveden-Banks (Gilbert Emery), her long-suffering husband. As they are heading to the dock, their car is struck by a bomb , and they are all killed. Later, though, they find themselves on a luxury liner, unaware that they are dead. The only other people on the ship are the steward, Scrubby (Edmund Gwenn) and a couple who committed suicide together - Henry and Ann Bergner (Paul Henreid and Eleanor Parker). As the ship sails on and the passengers attempt to amuse themselves, the characters' lives unfold as we expect they will - after all, they are all stereotypes, albeit comfortable ones. One by one, they become aware of their state, and fear and denial are replaced by resignation as the ship nears its final destination and the passengers prepare to meet the Examiner (Sydney Greenstreet). Each will be judged for how they lived their lives and assigned their just deserts, all of which are imaginative and satisfying.

I first saw Between Two Worlds when I was a kid, and it has stuck with me down through the years. I love everything about this film, with the possible exception of the denouement, which I have always felt robbed the story of its impact. But the rest of the film is wonderfully moving - at times funny, at other times poignant, as the characters come to terms with the fact that their mortal lives have ended. I especially enjoy the eternal reward granted to the snooty Mrs. Cliveden-Banks, and the frank dismissal of the grasping, evil Mr. Lingley. If you're feeling the need to be reassured that the wicked are ultimately punished for their crimes, then Between Two Worlds is the feel-good film for you.

Between Two Worlds is rated G and is available in glorious black and white.