Welcome to Hale County, Alabama, where the people are poor and black, and life is low-key but intriguing.
Locals talk to the camera, and we get to know them, and eventually feel a connection with them, with the whole town, really. Kids play with penny fireworks. Teenagers and adults mingle at the park, in their cars, in their yards, at school, at church, and on the basketball court. A toddler runs and runs and finally runs into the camera.
Nothing much happens, except a few years in these people's lives, compressed to less than an hour and a half.
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| NEVERENDING FILM FESTIVAL #317 [archive] AUG. 2, 2024 |
Put yourself in the right mindset, though, and it's a terrific film. The town has charisma, character.
Nominated for an Oscar as Best Documentary, it won a Peabody instead.
And all the way through, the camerawork is remarkable. Do-it-all moviemaker RoMell Ross holds still when people are talking, but always has a fabulous eye for visual composition, and delivers dozens of shots suitable for framing. The one I want on my wall is the leisurely look up, through a basketball hoop, to the sky and stars above. Breathtaking.
Nope, I'd never heard of Ross before, but yup, I'd see anything he makes.
Verdict: BIG YES.
♦ ♦ ♦
Hallelujah I'm a Bum (1933)
Streaming free at Internet Archive
In the depths of the Depression, they're living in New York's Central Park, where there's a town's worth of civilized homeless men. The plot gets underway when Bumper rescues a woman who's trying to drown herself in a lake, and of course he falls in love with her.
It's a comedy, and it's funny, but also a slightly biting satire of the rich and useless. It's dated, quaint, and Jolson has a peculiar screen presence, but the film is warm and bubbly and jolly good.
The story is by Ben Hecht, the songs by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart (who have a cameo together on screen), the score by Alfred Newman, and it's directed by Lewis Milestone (All Quiet on the Western Front, Mutiny on the Bounty 1962, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers).
Silent star Harry Langdon has a supporting role, his only significant appearance in a talkie. Frank Morgan, who later played the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz, plays the Mayor of New York, and in an odd moment of foreshadowing, he delivers the line, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home."
Also noteworthy and excellent, especially for 1933: Bumper's buddy Acorn is black, and has a silly voice, but other than that he's an equal, not subservient.
Verdict: YES.
♦ ♦ ♦
Hallucination Generation (1966)
Streaming free at Tubi
The film wastes not a moment even hinting that drugs could be fun. Do drugs, and your life is ruined.
Ah, well, it's better than Reefer Madness. Hallucination Generation has some memorably overwrought lines ("This universe is a jawbreaker, a sour ball, lemon flavor, round and hard."), and the script is sometimes literate, even intelligent. It's mostly just the story that's ludicrous.
Verdict: YES, as camp.
♦ ♦ ♦
Hamilton (2020)
It's the story of the Alexander Hamilton, one of America's founding fathers. The cast is mostly or entirely black, which adds a layer of irony, even snark — "America then, as told by America now," says Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote the music, lyrics, and book, and starred on Broadway.
Despite Disney branding at the start, this isn't quite a movie. It's a filmed performance of the play, starring Miranda. There's an enthusiastic audience in the house, so every number is followed by a somewhat distracting round of applause.
There's almost no dialogue that isn't rapped, so it's more a rap opera than a musical. I've never seen anything like it, and there's no denying that Hamilton is good. Hell, maybe it's great. The songs and rhymes are smart, often funny, and "You'll Be Back," King George's lament on the colonists' revolution, had me laughing out loud.
For all its strengths, though, Hamilton remains rap, and I remain an old white grump who's rap-resistant.
Rap is music that doesn't much bother with melody, so it can't be whistled, and if I can't whistle a few tunes after seeing a musical, that's a disappointment.
Verdict: YES, but it's for a younger, more open-eared audience than me.
♦ ♦ ♦
Hammett (1982)
This is based on one of those novels, and features Dashiell Hammett as the main character. Hammett, of course, was a writer — The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, etc — but before taking up the typewriter, he was a detective, so putting him into a mystery is not the craziest idea.
It's directed by Wim Wenders, produced by Francis Ford Coppola, with cinematography by Joseph Biron (The Glass Wall), music by John Barry (Dances with Wolves, Somewhere in Time), and a fine cast — Frederic Forrest as Hammett, Peter Boyle as the Continental Op, Marilu Henner as the dame, Elisha Cook Jr as a cabbie, Jack Nance as trouble, and Sylvia Sidney (from the film of Hammett's City Streets) as ancient wisdom.
Hammett is clearly a major league production, with lavish sets and costumes, and has all the familiar ingredients of gumshoe noir. Trouble is, it never clicks, and never becomes more than superficially interesting.
Verdict: MAYBE.
♦ ♦ ♦
• Dashiell Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons
• Spike Lee interviews Martin Scorsese for Interview
8/2/2024
• • • Coming attractions • • •
Hand of Death (1961)
The Hands of Orlac (1924)
Hands on a Hardbody (1997)
Hands That Bind (2021)
Hang 'em High (1968)
... plus schlock, shorts, and surprises
Now accepting movie recommendations,
especially starting with the letter 'I'.
Just add a comment, below.
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