Jackie Brown (1997)

It's been a while since I first watched this film, back in the days of my adolescent Tarantino obsession which had me watching Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs every second day.  I saw Jackie Brown around that time, and loved it back then too, although it wasn't as striking as Pulp Fiction I really sank into it.  Watching it again recently I remember why - it's one of the most chill films ever; a crime comedy that doesn't go for drama or or spectacular set pieces, set mostly in bars and apartments, with a brilliant seventies funk and soul soundtrack, comprised almost entirely of conversation that's great to listen to in that Tarantino-esque way while also continually feeding the story and character development, which all centres around money exchange with multiple players looking for a slice of the pie, from Ordell Robbie (Samuel L. Jackson, brilliantly paranoid), an arms dealer who enjoys his shaky persona as a slick, smooth criminal too much, to titular character Jackie Brown (Pam Grier) who wants to get out of working for him and live life before getting old, to her bail bondsman turned lover Max Cherry (Robert Forster) who also feels himself getting on in years, to ambitious cop Ray (Michael Keaton) who wants to put Ordell away, and finally Louis (Robert De Niro), a broken down loser just out of jail who schemes with Ordell's stoner girlfriend Melanie (Bridget Fonda) to steal the money for themselves.  

A simple story but it's the characters that make it, and they're all likeable in their own ways, all funny or interesting, all with great scenes.  Tarantino's trademark stylization is at it's most chill, and it works, it all feels very laid back.  There are plenty of laugh out loud moments and quietly funny moments that have to be seen, bolstered by the subtle performances.  It all adds up to one of the most entertaining crime films ever.  

Quantum Leap - season 1

A new favourite among my favourite TV shows, it's a simple premise that doesn't always make sense logically but doesn't take itself seriously enough to try.  Samuel Beckett (Scott Bakula, just a square-jawed every man hero) assembles a team of scientists including his best friend Al Calivicci (Dean Stockwell, brilliant)  to undertake a time travel experiment in the desert to see if one can travel through time within the span of one's lifetime.  In the pilot episode Sam ends up in the 1950s as a test pilot for an experimental jet plane trying to break mach 3.  He must convince his wife, best friend and air force friends and superiors that he is test pilot Tom Stratton.  In one hilarious instance he is given control of a B-29 bomber and doesn't know how to fly, so just sits while it tilts to one side, all while some hijinks music plays as the plane plummets to the Earth.  Amazingly the brush this near death experience off as a joke.  He meets his "neurological hologram" sidekick Al, a womanizing, cigar-smoking man.  Dean Stockwell in the only role I've seen him in other than Blue Velvet, is hilarious and his reactions are priceless, as are those of Bakula sometimes, despite often being bland.

The first season is great, although some episodes are better than others.  The show is at times funny and goofy, making fun of the 50s, and at other times more serious, when it tries to deal with issues of race or prejudice, like the great episode The Color of Truth, although it's always lighthearted fun.  I'm a quarter of the way into season 2 at the moment, and it's getting better and better.  

Rising Sun (1993)

My favourite buddy cop film and one of my favourite films simply because of how entertaining, unusual, laid back and fun it is.  This is a film that took me by surprise when I first watched it because of how chill and easygoing it is, much like character John Conner, played by Sean Connery, an eccentric detective and friend of the Japanese businessmen they're investigating, who knows the Japanese inside out and is therefore the best man for the case.  It's almost comical to see Connery deal with the Japanese and give wisdom to his "Kohai" played by Wesley Snipes, knock out opponents like a ninja and spout mind-bending expressions, putting the American police department he derides to shame all the way, especially an arrogant, crooked detective played by Harvey Keitel.  Connery couldn't be more perfect as he knocks out a tough body guard and then quips to the other "they say if you have to resort to violence you've already lost...would you like to find out Jeff?"  He's justifiably and hilariously pleased with himself, but not the point of smugness as having learned from a superior culture as opposed to the "fragmented mtv rap video" culture of America he's basically a far better detective.  The Japanese expect to be caught in Japan, but in America they take advantage because they think the American authorities are crooked and stupid, and aren't often wrong, so when a murder occurs in the Nakumora building during vital business negotiations, a weaselly, highly Americanized little subordinate thinks he can sloppily cover up a scandal with murder and forged evidence.  It's up to John Conner to casually play golf with the head of the company get free membership and gain information on the Japanese' terms while Snipes learns and becomes a better detective.  It's also a bit of an educational film about the way the Japanese do things, far more direct, simple and precise, and with honour of course, and I guess some kind of strange Japanese/American relations film.  It's light entertainment, colourful and fun with a great cast all round, also including Steve Buscemi as a reporter who gets told by Sean Connery.  Sean Connery steals the show in quite possibly my favourite performance of his so far, and it's worth watching for him alone.  Also it was great to watch Ray Wise from Twin Peaks play a senator.  There's a Twin Peaks reference at one point, and there's some Leland Palmer in his performance.

Heat (1995)

I used to love this film for the action sequences and that beautiful blue-tinted cinematography, Los Angeles looking as clear and smooth as the ocean Neil looks out on in reflection.  De Niro and Pacino fully inhabit characters that are two sides of a coin, Neil (De Niro) an introverted loner and a professional thief in charge of a crew, and Vincent (Pacino) a disillusioned cop who finds a connection with Neil, who he likes and considers a star, reflecting his own professional, no-nonsense approach, a glimmer of hope in an otherwise dreary career in which he must expose himself to all kinds of horror and sickness which he goes into great detail describing in order to stop his partner from complaining about relationship problems.  Pacino has some of the best and funniest line in the whole film.  It was a stroke of brilliance to have both De Niro and Pacino play characters perfectly suited for them.  Pacino is often accused of hamming it up, and although he does chew scenery in this film, that's the character he plays and I always found him a very subtle actor whose expressions speak volums.  De Niro of course is brilliant, that goes without say, and plays a likeable crook who has found his niche on the other side of the law and does what he does best.  Any attachments they have don't seem to work, and the only real bond they find is with each other through their mutual cat-and-mouse interest in one another.  The film isn't just about those two characters though, and while it is a crime film, that's just a foundation for a sprawling, meticulously detailed yet effortless, interwoven narrative involving many people.  The way it all comes together as the film progresses feels almost cosmic.  Waingro (Kevin Kage) is sort of a spanner in the works throughout the film, a sort of devil of chaos with no awareness of what he's doing (?) who shoots cops in the opening heist and gets Vincent involved in the case and on the trail of Neil.  He vanishes almost supernaturally when Neil tried to kill him and pops up in multiple uncanny ways to botch things up for his old crew and his new employer Van Sant (William Fichtner).  He even manages to bring Neil and Vincent together in the end by being the chief motivator for Neil's detour from his escape to a new haven after the disastrous heist.  Neil kills Waingro in a sort of cathartic cleansing, before being hunted down by Vincent and shot in the final hunt.  They both kind of save each other in the end and it turns out the way Neil wanted it.  It was his wish all along to die at the hands of this cop who knows him as well as he does, and it gives him a sort of release for the afterlife.  I guess that makes Vincent, his hunter, his shephard.  It's a moving ending to a great film, and the final scenes of Vincent holding Neil by the hand in his last moments as they stand in the night against the airport lights, the plane to a life Neil was never allowed departed and his downfall as it illuminates his shadow giving Vincent his cue to take Neil down, are all just perfect.  It all feels very fatalistic in a profound way.  The film is a great noir because it's all about purpose and the search for it.  The supporting cast is also great, after all it's an ensemble film and there's a whole host of interesting, well played characters I haven't even mentioned because I can't be bothered now.

High Plains Drifter (1973)

Burning and killing with a smile

Rewatched it just now, excellent, cathartic, funny, ultraviolent, eerie sort of black comedy western starring Clint Eastwood as a nameless avenging angel who brings some cleansing to a town of corrupt and fearful people who each carry a share of guilt and shame after they allow a marshal to be tortured to death at the hands of bandits. The soundtrack by Dee Barton is very eerie and shrill, often composed of wild animal-like howling that compliments the primal violence. The film is funniest when Clint Eastwood offhandedly rapes a woman without a second thought and takes over the town as if it were his right. The kindly smile he wears as he implies sexual assault to the wife of the hotel owner is priceless. You can tell Eastwood had fun making this film and also starring in it. The pyrotechnics and action are spectacular, especially the finale. Refreshingly simple and fun film.

Citizen Kane (1941)

It never gets old.  I remember I first watched it back in 2008, and I was mesmerized, it sucked me in like Star Wars did when I was seven.  It never ceases to be entertaining and fun, and yet Kane is such a sad character.  Seen only from the perspectives of his friends after his death and from the cold machinery of a newsreel, no one really knows Kane, and sadly not even Kane himself, who after being second-guessed out of his childhood and subsequently second-guessing himself throughout life in search of his new stage or "snowglobe" in which to play, finds himself gazing through his own void, in pain and depression, with only the frozen memory of his happiness uttered in eternity through the walls of his palace in a single word.  Through greed and misanthropy disguised in benevolent intentions Kane finds himself in a prison of things and empty halls, all new toys he acquired and just as hastily discarded, still a child when he played newspaper man, collecting his statues like action figures, all more things to fill the empty void in his life.  When the one person he comes close to loving, Susan Alexander, leaves him, he no longer has anything to cling to and so destroys himself and lives a life of regret and longing.  Susan Alexander is the only one who might have got through cage and saved him, someone who knew nothing of his reputation but just liked him for a night, but he imprisons her too like a pet.

The film shows the effect Kane's lifelong self-destruction has on others, particularly Susan Alexander who ends up depressed and alone, and Jed Leland (Joseph Cotten is great as always) the cynic who sees through Kane's glib charm for what he is.

I can relate to Kane, he's a very human character I think many can relate to.  He may have had a way out of his pain with Susan Alexander, but it never happened, the damage was done early on.  He was taken away from his sled and into the care of a cold, serious, heartless man upon discovery of gold on his mother's land.  His mother seemed very attached and maybe he wanted to be perfect in his mother's eyes too, Leland mentioned that he loved his mother.

In the end it seems there is catharsis for Kane, as all his possessions are burned and his precious sled too, the truth of his famous last word incinerated forever into the atmosphere.  It's very powerful and striking to see all the worth of this man's life turned into black smoke.  The imagery in the film is striking and the way it's filmed too.  Seeing Kane walk through a hall of mirrored reflections really makes me you feel his loneliness visually, and that's what cinema is all about.

Citizen Kane is held up on a pedestal, and much has been and written about it, but beyond the huge importance it has in film history, it's just a really entertaining, fun classic that anyone can watch and enjoy and relate to, not just film buffs, and that's why it's so fondly remembered.