Lost in the Inky Blackness of Fear

by Tony Dayoub

The softly lit visage of fortune teller Mrs. Bellane (Hillary Brooke, pictured above) is a reminder, mid-way through 1944's Ministry of Fear, that director Fritz Lang's films frequently (and almost obstinately) take place in dread-suffused, self-contained worlds. The setting for this noir is no different. An anti-Nazi propaganda film adapted from a novel by Graham Greene, Ministry of Fear plays out as if it were a dark nightmare in the head of protagonist Stephen Neale (Ray Milland). There are markers from the real world sketchily providing a backdrop that is vaguely lifelike. But much like in Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, in which the labyrinthine New York streets don't resemble any Manhattan we're familiar with, Neale's London bears only the remotest affinity to its real-world counterpart.

Courtesy of SLIFR: Miss Jean Brodie's Modestly Magnificent, Matriarchally Manipulative Springtime-for-Mussolini Movie Quiz

by Tony Dayoub

And now for another extraordinary exam by that marvelous movie blogger, Dennis Cozzalio, up now at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule. Visit his site to post your answers.

1) The classic movie moment everyone loves except me is:
Forrest Gump sitting on a bench, "Life is like a box of chocolates..." Really dislike that movie.

2) Favorite line of dialogue from a film noir
"I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me." - Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart), In a Lonely Place (1950)

More answers after the jump.

Taking the Bus with The We and the I

by Tony Dayoub

By turns raucous and lyrical, The We and the I is a small high school movie elevated to near greatness by its inspired director, Michel Gondry (Be Kind Rewind). As the title suggests, Gondry is mostly focused on the contrast between each teenager's raw, personal self and the public face they put on in the larger company of their schoolmates. For this he enlists a varied group of South Bronx teens—all of color and all recruited from a Bronx youth development program known as the Point. Gondry does his best impression of a fly on the wall observing the quickly changing social dynamics of the kids as they ride the bus home on the last day of school.

Three's Company; Four's a Crowd?

by Tony Dayoub

The latest entry in what has become an arthouse cottage industry, the Retirement Ensemble film, also happens to be the directorial debut of one of the finest American actors, Dustin Hoffman. Quartet is a cut above other films of its kind. The most recent one to come to mind is The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, perhaps because the two films share one star in common, Maggie Smith. Here she plays Jean Horton, a former opera diva forced to retire to Beecham House, a nursing home for musicians. At Beecham, the temperamental vocalist is reunited with three of her closest collaborators, libidinous Wilf (Billy Connolly), bemused Cissy (Pauline Collins) and the reserved Reg (Tom Courtenay), who still holds a grudge against Jean for betraying him on their wedding night.