White Cargo (1942)

Plot:  In 1910 Africa, a British plantation executive falls under the spell of a beautiful, but evil, native girl.
Stars:  Frank Morgan, Hedy Lamar, Walter Pigeon,  Ralph Carlson.

Well-acted and entertaining piece of hokum about  British plantation execs wilting under the heat, fighting each other, and falling for Tondelayo, (Lamar).
The movie's primary purpose is to show sexy Lamar  being sexy, and it succeeds. Wearing the minimum allowed by the Hayes code and sporting a deep tan, Lamar dominates the screen without doing much acting. Mostly she just looks seductive/evil and utters lines like "Tondelayo must be very proud. She's "Mrs. Langford". She must have more things than anybody else!"

Everyone else does their part well.  Carlson is the newbie who meets a bad end, Pigeon (pinch hitting for C. Aubrey Smith) the cynical old hand, and Morgan is the drunken doctor. Most of the movie takes place in one room, so the direction is unremarkable.

Favorite Quote:
Ashley: The natives have been looking at me lately, in a queer sort of way.
Witzel: Maybe they're wondering how you can walk without a spine.

Summary: If you're expecting Shakespeare or a realistic depiction of  1910 Africa, you'll be disappointed.  However, if like Hedy Lamar, or you wish some escapist entertainment, you'll be rewarded.

The Best Years of Our Lives - Or Punching Nazi's

Some one has a post up, commending this scene from the "Best Years of Our lives" 

And its literally the phoniest, worst scene, in an otherwise great movie . We're supposed to believe that someone would defend - in public - to a disabled Vet (!), the "Japs" attack on Pearl Harbor.  Even worse,  this guy is such a horses ass, he tells him his Shipmates "Died for nothing".

What an absurd straw-man. 

What's even more absurd is after Ray Teal tells the disabled vet to " Just read the facts" Harold Russell attacks him.  And when Teal defends himself, Dana Andrews self-righteously comes out of nowhere and sucker punches Teal into a Glass Case.

Andrews should have been arrested for assault and thrown in jail! Instead, he just quits his job, and we're supposed to applaud him for attacking a middle aged man and possibly causing him some serious permanent injury!  I'm sure the Midway Drug Chain had to pay the Ray Teal character a tidy sum - assuming he lived.

Its scary how the Left, has *always* been against the American value of Free Speech.

BTW, Wyler wanted the script to read "Jews in Washington" not "Radicals in Washington" - but was overruled.

La La Land (2016)

Plot:  In contemporary Los Angeles,  a struggling jazz pianist and an aspiring actress fall in love.

Stars: Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling

This is nice, enjoyable, old-fashioned musical, that's been hysterically over-praised.  Stone and Gosling, whatever their other talents,  aren't particularly good singers or dancers. Nor are they particularly charming.

To me, Musicals are like Westerns or Comedies, who's telling the joke, singing the song, or riding tall in the saddle makes  a LOT of difference.  And Stone and Gosling aren't Astaire and Rodgers.  They aren't even Janet Leigh and Van Johnson.  Stone and Gosling are excellent Film ACTORS - but they aren't stars.  And it makes a difference.

Of course, if the musical is good enough, it doesn't matter. Rex Harrison couldn't really sing, and Audrey Hepburn couldn't really dance - but the great songs/book made up for it.  But the book/songs for La La Story really aren't that good.

Summary:  Your opinion of La La Land, will probably depend on how many great "old time" musicals you've seen.  Seen a lot - and  you may wonder what all the fuss is about. Seen very few - and La La Land may strike you as fresh, charming, and full of charisma.

Dunkirk (2017)

Plot: Surrounded by the German Army, the British Try to Evacuate 400,000 British and French Soldier off the Beaches of Dunkirk.

Stars: Fion Whitehead,  Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy, Kenneth Branagh

Dunkirk as a remarkable movie, and probably the best war movie since Das Boot or the Thin Red Line. Only 1:40 minutes long,  Nolan doesn't let you breathe for a second, as the film constantly pushes you along until the rather Patriotic and stirring ending.  It really needs to seen in a theater (I saw the 70 mm print) to experience the incredible cinematography and direction.  Whether it was made without CGI or not, it certainly looks like it wasn't. I'd be surprised if it doesn't win the AA.  However, the sound can be overwhelming at times.

The other remarkable thing is the minimal dialog. To misquote Churchill: never in movie history have so many, said so little, for so long.

The result? Undeveloped characters - but that's actually a good thing. We focus on 6 characters & root for them. But because we're not given their background, we think Nolan might kill them off at any moment. This avoids a common war movie mistake - while the extras die by the bushel, we know "our heroes" will either survive or die heroically in the last reel.  Nolan avoids all that.

Further, we get none of the usual war movie cliches. No big stars, no women, no false heroics, and  no demonization of the Enemy.  Unlike Saving Private Ryan, which is a 1940s war movie, with 1989 photography, Dunkirk is completely unconventional and realistic.

**Spoilers**

A good example, of Nolan's approach comes at the end. In a wonderful touch, instead of having a cliched scene of  Churchill orating "We shall fight them.." while we see Brits prepare for the upcoming battle of Britain,  Nolan has a returning solider read the speech to his mate.  It makes it the ending much more effective.

Of course the movie isn't perfect.  Like any war movie it gets things wrong.  In reality, the "little boats" weren't that important, plenty of French soldiers were taken off, and it was the bad weather and the Luftwaffe's night bombing failures that saved the BEF.  And in reality, artillery shells were hitting Dunkirk, the beach was littered with lorries and discarded equipment, and the Allied ships had plenty of AAA. It wasn't just the RAF fighting the Luftwaffe.

The movies most unrealistic scene shows some Tommies getting aboard a trawler, stranded in no-mans land, at low-tide.  The crew is gone, so how are they going to sail the boat? And why would the Germans just use it for rifle "target practice" instead of using machine guns/mortars to disable it?