Irene212

Harry Langdon is generally considered the 4th genius of silent comedy after Keaton, Chaplin, and Harold Loyd, but I'd place him 9th, behind Fatty Arbuckle, Mabel Normand, Mack Sennett, and Laurel & Hardy, just ahead of Charley Chase.

Langdon is like a shorter version of Stan Laurel except that Stan Laurel was funny. "The Strong Man" works if you don't try to imagine how much better it would be with a better physical actor. The opening, set in Belgium in World War I, is a mix of very authentic-looking footage around No Man's Land (Frank Capra may well have gone the distance finding it for his first directorial effort) and Langdon behind a Gatling gun, uncontrollably spraying bullets toward a tin can which he ultimately knocks down with his slingshot. It's bizarre to say the least, to see wild machine gun fire as a set up for a gag. It goes on too long, which is true of a lot of the gags, starting with the femme fatale/pickpocket who tries to seduce him, but especially his coughing fit on a long, boring bus ride punctuated by an acrobatic gag.

I'm a Keaton girl myself, like Anita Loos before me ("I used to think that looking across a pillow into the fabulous face of Buster Keaton would be a more thrilling destiny than any screen career"). He was soulful and sexy while Langdon is the perpetual wide-eyed innocent-- but he was in his 40s(!) when he made "Strong Man," and whatever appeal he once had was gone. Maybe that's why his girlfriend was written as a blind character. The climax almost redeems the movie, though: an ambitiously raucous scene in a music hall showcases Capra's talent with movement and crowds. I just had to stop myself from imagining what Keaton might have done as the puny strong man.

A teenaged girl falls hopelessly in love with an older man who is so hopelessly rakish that he never even learns her name. Over the course of about fifteen years, they cross paths in a tale that starkly separates the sexes, allegorically delving into one man's roaming eye and one girl's romantic heart.

Stefan Zweig's story has been adapted on film multiple times, and talent drips from this version. Adapted and smartly structured by Howard Koch ("Casablanca"), it stars Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdan, with Franz Planer behind the camera (5 Oscar nods) and the uncompromising Max Ophuls at the helm. The quality of filmmaking shows in every frame.

But the allegorical differences are too stark. Romantic Lisa (Fontaine) and rakish Stefan (Jourdan) are one-dimensional-- they model male/female differences, rather than becoming flesh-and-blood people. So Lisa's idolization of Stefan was something I found myself analyzing rather than sympathizing with, though the final scene as Stefan prepares to duel is powerful because we have been so well prepared.

Fontaine holds nothing back in her performance, while Jourdan is less impressive, perhaps because the camera lavishes attention on her. His courtly demeanor, while appropriate for the role, doesn't lend itself to the subtle expressions and gestures that Fontaine manages with such grace. I've watched the film twice, and was not at all surprised that I barely remember having seen it the first time: the story doesn't touch the heart, only the mind, but when Max Ophuls is directing, there's plenty to occupy a cinephile's appreciative mind.

Sinners has a lot going for it, unless you expect coherence. Voice-over sets us up early for supernatural action: "There are legends of people... born with the gift of making music so true it can pierce the veil between life and death. Conjuring spirits from the past... and the future. In ancient Ireland, they were called fili. In Choctaw land, they call them firekeepers. And in West Africa, they're called griots." Later Annie (Wunmi Mosaku) adds Southern folklore about evil spirits called haints. But what spirits does the movie actually give us? Not West African griots, or Southern haints, or Irish fili. Instead we get Choctaw vampire-hunters after Irish and KKK vampires who run amok in Mississippi. Huh?? I wasn't buying it-- and wasn't sure why Coogler was trying to sell it except to parasitically lure Twilight fans.

The first hour is terrific, setting the scene, introducing the characters who will all convene at a juke joint set up by Smoke and Stack (Michael B. Jordan), twins who returned from years living up in Chicago. A spectacular dance scene brings past, present, and future people together with breathtaking tracking-shot fluidity-- every fleeting frame demands attention you don't have time to give it. Unfortunately, the movie peaks there. The music attracts the vampires and from then on it's carnage until sunrise. At no point did I fear for anyone because I stopped caring about everyone.

Michael B. Jordan does fine work as Smoke and Stack, the cash-rich brothers who robbed Irish folk and Italian folk in Chicago, managing to leave them thinking they robbed each other. Miles Caton has an even more demanding role as the musician who creates the transcendent music-- a high bar is set for that catalytic music and Caton, Coogler, and their collaborator Ludwig Göransson do not disappoint.

Nor does Coogler disappoint with his handling of an enormous cast with a kaleidoscope of special effects. Unfortunately, he didn't abandon the vampire idea at the draft stage. It reminded me of Orson Welles, who once said of the RKO backlot, "This is the biggest electric train set a boy ever had!" Welles learned what to do with the many arts that combine in cinema-- dialog, photography and lighting, editing, set design, music and sound, actors-- how to deploy it all to realize ideas he explored in Citizen Kane and Magnificent Ambersons, before RKO managed to kick their costly wonder boy to the curb. Too many filmmakers have fun playing with train set, but have little or nothing to say. Wes Anderson, the Coens, Tarantino, Guy Ritchie, the late David Lynch, all variously guilty, and now Ryan Coogler. Fruitville Station launched him, and might remain his finest film.