Steven Spielberg | 154 mins | streaming (HD) | 16:9 | USA / English | 15 / PG-13
These days, Steven Spielberg is as well-known for his Oscar-worthy historical prestige pictures as he is for his action-adventure genre movies, so it’s kinda strange (at least for me) to imagine the time in his career at which this film came about. I mean, it’s an adaptation of a controversial literary novel about the miserable lives of black women in the American South during the early decades of the 20th Century, directed by the white guy known for Jaws, Close Encounters, E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Temple of Doom. To give it a modern frame of reference, it must’ve been a bit like if Zack Snyder had made Precious.
Beginning in 1909, the film tells the life story of Celie, played as a teen by Desreta Jackson and as a woman by Whoopi Goldberg, in her debut role. She’s surprisingly good, actually — often understated, doing a lot with just her eyes. Anyway, over the next 28 years Celie is systematically abused and downtrodden, first by her father, then by her husband Albert (Danny Glover) and his unruly kids from a previous marriage. Her beloved sister Nettie (Akosua Busia) disappears, never to be heard from, despite a promise to write. Various characters and their subplots weave in and out of Celie’s life, like Sofia (Oprah Winfrey), a strong-willed woman who one day slaps a white man and suffers for it; and jazz singer Shug Avery (Margaret Avery), the object of Albert’s affections, who eventually helps Celie find greater independence.
If it all sounds a bit grim then, well, it is. I’m sure it can’t’ve been a great time or place to be a black person (though any suffering at the hands of white folk doesn’t play into this particular narrative too much, aside from Sofia’s storyline), nor is it exactly the greatest period to have been a woman, so put the two together… Yet because it’s a Spielberg film, 
it never quite feels like we’re getting the full force of the story’s brutality. That’s a mixed blessing: as a viewer, we’re spared all the horrors you can infer from what actually happens; at the same time, how much should a story about such horrors be sparing us from them? Though as it was at one point advertised with the tagline, “Remember how good it made you feel… See it again.”, someone clearly thought it was meant to be a feel-good movie.
Nonetheless, the lack of gritty realism isn’t just Spielberg’s fault, I don’t think, but also the era of filmmaking. These days I imagine such a story wound make for a much grittier movie, like the aforementioned Precious, or 12 Years a Slave, but this comes from a ‘prettier’ time. Look at something like Once Upon a Time in America, released the year before: it’s a film about violent crime and associated dark deeds, but it’s also an historical prestige movie, tinged with nostalgia. There’s not a whole lot of nostalgia in The Color Purple, but there’s something of a similar tone.
That said, Spielberg’s handling of tone here is certainly not as accomplished as Sergio Leone’s in Once Upon a Time. The really grim stuff rubs up against slapstick comedy, and Spielberg’s patented sentimentality is unleashed in undiluted force in a final act where everything comes up roses, and even some of the grim stuff from earlier is retrospectively re-written (some of that is a fault inherited from Alice Walker’s novel, of course). It’s also far too long, in need of a good streamlining rather than losing any one part in particular. Famously, it’s the only Spielberg film not scored by John Williams (until he was too ill to do Bridge of Spies). Ironic, then, that Quincy Jones’ score often sounds quite Williams-y, particularly one motif that constantly feels like it’s going to evolve into the Jurassic Park theme.
Spielberg’s first foray into Serious filmmaking is a long way from being an unqualified success, but it’s not a bad movie either, and at least it was the gateway to him making some superior dramas. Bonus points, too, for a mainstream big name director tackling a story about the historical lives of black women — depressingly, that still feels like it would be a noteworthy move 30 years later.
Score: 
In this sci-fi romance, an alien intercepts the invitation included on the Voyager 2 space probe and tries to visit Earth, but is shot down. Taking the form of Karen Allen’s recently deceased husband, Jeff Bridges, he forces her to drive him to Arizona, where his people will rescue him in three days — if they can escape the attention of the government agents chasing them, anyway.
there are stalking POV shots as the alien arrives at Allen’s house, and then it grows a human body, a sequence in which the ugliest (prosthetic) baby you’ve ever seen stretches and creaks as it grows into an adult in mere minutes. It’s pretty freaky. Indeed, as per the BBFC, Starman “contains mild language, sex, violence and sci-fi horror”, but is rated PG. Ah, the good old days!
Released in the US as Five Fingers of Death, this popularised kung fu Stateside… before 
In this atypical espionage thriller, Brit Marling is a private security employee sent to infiltrate an underground activist group who are exposing the illegal activities of mega-corporations. Faced with the group’s honourable intentions vs. her employers’ indifference, will she go native?
W. Somerset Maugham’s semi-autobiographical novel Of Human Bondage is, per 
so she destroys his belongings and disappears. Eventually he meets her again, when she’s in search of his medical opinion. She has contracted syphilis from working as a prostitute, but rejects Philip’s advice to quit. Her ultimate fate remains unknown.
The film begins in Paris, with Philip (Leslie Howard) being told he’ll never make it as an artist. He instantly decides to become a medical student, during which time he meets Mildred (Bette Davis). From there, the rest of the film follows the plot described in the second paragraph, albeit with some notable modifications (which I’ll come to later), with parts of the third paragraph (the patient, his daughter, abandoning travel for marriage) surfacing during the third act.
In the film it’s not syphilis that does for her, but tuberculosis, and prostitution is never mentioned, or even really alluded to. The changes were no doubt due to the infamous Production Code. (There are paintings of naked French women all over Philip’s apartment, though, but I guess that counts as Art. Sadly, there’s no meta-funny dialogue about painting anyone like one of his French girls.) Of Human Bondage is often labelled as a Pre-Code film — as coming from that narrow era between the Code being invented and anyone seriously bothering to apply it. The latter came about in 1934, when an amendment to the Code stated that any film released after July 1st 1934 had to receive a certificate of approval before it could be released. Of Human Bondage premiered on June 28th, which I guess is why it gets labelled a Pre-Code film, but it went on wide release from July 20th, so fell under the Code’s new remit after all. The print held by the Library of Congress (used for the US Blu-ray release) even has the Code certificate at the start (it’s #53, if you’re curious).
When Davis is off screen, it feels like the film is waiting for her to return. Her arc aside, it’s a take-it-or-leave-it damp squib of a drama — there’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just not all that engaging. Howard has definitely been better; his romance with Sally arrives too late to have much emotional weight, though it’s easy to believe he could fall in love with Frances Dee at first sight.
and independent firm Price Waterhouse were hired to manage the voting next year — a job they still do today.
Scorsese tells the story of Jesus in this controversial epic adapted from Nikos Kazantzakis’ novel. I have no idea how much is actually rooted in scripture — a disclaimer is keen to establish the film isn’t based on the Gospels, but obviously that’s just to appease the devout.
With Warner Bros’ universe-launching superhero epic now in its second weekend (unless you live in Myanmar or Poland, anyway), you’ve probably more than had your fill of spoilerphobic reviews. So allow me to provide a spoiler-filled one. (There are a fair few of those around too, of course, but not all reviews can be beautiful or unique snowflakes.)
to good people turning bad; the Joker-graffitied Robin suit… This isn’t fan-pleasing/teasing background detail, it speaks to Bruce’s mindset. He’s become the kind of person who believes lines like, “if there’s a 1% chance he’s our enemy, we must take it as an absolute certainty.” He’s a bit of a right-wing nut, basically. If you want to find a character or emotional throughline to the movie, it’s Bruce learning to be a better hero again.
But if we are criticising the screenplay, let’s turn our attention to the story and its structure, which leaves something to be desired. This isn’t just the writers’ fault, of course, because myriad things affect a film once the screenplay is signed off. In the case of story structure, editing seems a likely culprit — not the actual cutting together of individual shots to craft a sequence or scene, which is as good here as in any action blockbuster, but in terms of storytelling. Frankly, that’s a bit of a mess. Or a lot of a mess, maybe. Whole scenes serve literally no purpose or are clearly in the wrong place — the bit where Perry wanders up to Clark Kent’s desk and wonders if he’s clicked his heels and disappeared back to Kansas, for example. What purpose does it serve? None. But where it might have a role is where it clearly belongs: a couple of minutes later, right before the scene where Superman is in Kansas, chatting to his mom. Why is it not right before that scene? It’s like someone accidentally dragged it out of place on their computer editing timeline and never noticed. Sure, this is a minor point in the grand scope of the film, but it belies a sloppiness to the entire storytelling.
The only purpose it might serve is teasing the future — what is the giant Omega symbol? What are those flying devil-creatures? DC fans know that’s all related to alien supervillain Darkseid, and late in the film Lex Luthor makes a veiled reference to imply that some such alien badass is on the way. Yep, it’s Marvel-style foreshadowing, where every film is just a stepping stone to the next. Except BvS does it even more heavy-handedly than Marvel. As I said, the dream/vision is utterly unnecessary; Lex’s line is nonsensical (how does he know?); and the way other members of the Justice League are teased… You know, I don’t even want to discuss it. It’s a bad Marvel post-credit scene shoehorned into the middle of the movie. It feels like someone accidentally cut a teaser trailer into the actual print of the film. It’s not even so bad it’s good, it’s just tacky. And, I have to say, though I’m not the biggest fan of 
to look for clues you missed, not rethink to see if that even fits with everything we’ve seen. That’s because even if you do latch on to the almost-throwaway sliver of dialogue that indicates Lex put all of this together, the way it’s presented in this cut makes it come a little out of nowhere. However, I believe it’s a plausible explanation of events (within the realms of the version of the genre these films are in), and would tie the whole thing together neatly, were it just a little clearer.
“Give audience an idea what future film(s) will be about while saying absolutely nothing concrete about what future film(s) will be about.” But in that mess (the mess I mentioned at the start of that last really long sentence, remember? OK,) there is stuff going on; there are ideas the filmmakers want to put across, possibly with the intention that they’ll actually be thought about.
As I was saying: not a perfect movie, but one with a lot of material to provoke thought about both the inherent concepts of superheroes and, external to that, the genre itself, especially the way it’s presented in cinema. I’m not going to slag off the Marvel movies, because they are fun, but the entirety of the big-screen MCU
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