Air Force: (1943. dir: Howard Hawks) A flight of B-17 Bombers sets off on a routine mission to Hawaii ... on December 6th, 1941! Alright, for an unapologetic piece of wartime propaganda, it's a gem. The lighting and photography (James Wong Howe is my hero) are fantastic, and Hawks manages to avoid the near-stultifying insect-caught-in-amber stern-faced righteousness that freezes up Ford's PT-Boat hagiography They Were Expendable. It still suffers the two inescapable embarrassments of WWII film-making: unabashed "Nip"-bashing (when a Zero retreats to the safety of numbers, it is cowardice; when a Yank does the same, it's common sense) and ridiculously saintly Americans. These men and women are absurdly hard-working, loyal and cheerful, with all chins up through hard times. And as good as Harry Carey and Gig Young and Charles Drake are, John Garfield blows everyone out of the cinematic water with his quiet magnetism. Sure, he enjoys the advantage of being the only three-dimensional character in the piece, playing a disgruntled gunner who flunked out of pilot school and is looking to skip out of the service as soon as he can. (Think he changes his mind before the final frames? Say, what gives? have you seen this before?) But Garfield is a force to be reckoned with: a Movie Star with capital letters, every bit as good and charismatic (certainly as sexy) as Grant or Stewart or Fonda or Bogart. Toss out a name, I'll set him up alongside 'em, and he'll give them their money's worth.
the Awakening: (2011. dir: Nick Murphy) A stately, old-time ghost story whose loose ends don't quite tie together satisfactorily, but the acting is very good (Rebecca Hall, Dominic West, Imelda Staunton, Isaac Hempstead Wright from Game of Thrones), and it captures extraordinarily well the remnants of a generation of young adults left shattered by the Great War and haunted by all its myriad dead. All grown-ups in the film share three terrible things in common: staggering loss, survivors' guilt, and the neverending search for a way to go on living, regardless.
Your Highness: (2011. dir: David Gordon Green) Are you trying to tell me that this was made by the same guy who did George Washington, Undertow, and Pineapple Express? What happened to his talent? He's got star power galore (Franco, Natalie Portman, Zooey Deschanel, Damien Lewis, Charles Dance, Toby Jones), the same underscored lack of shame he used for Pineapple, but he never finds the laughs, not one. The best bits are between Deschanel as the innocent virgin and Justin Theroux as her evil wizard captor: those two manage some twists to their line readings, which is necessary, since the lines as written are so thumpingly lifeless, obvious, and unfunny. It's not enough, though, not even close. Danny McBride (I actually watched this because I mistakenly thought he was going to be Danny Dyer) never comes to life in the lead, -- he's like a bad Oliver Platt imitation,-- and Franco is duller than you can possibly imagine.
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