Here is Your Life, Hesher, and a few more movies

My pledge to you:
Only the basics of a movie's premise,
with no spoilers after that.

Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)
Streaming free at Tubi

Death comes calling for a big-time boxer who's also an all-around great guy. Ah, but Death is mistaken, and the boxer wasn't supposed to die yet, so to make things right, the angels insert his soul into another guy's body.

This is a fairy tale, familiar to me because it was remade in the 1970s as Heaven Can Wait, starring Warren Beatty, and what's striking is how faithfully they remade it. Usually a movie remake keeps only the general idea, but reworks every plot element. Not so here.

#330  [archive]
SEPT. 3, 2024

This original is filled with the same scenes, the same jokes, even the same names for the same characters, right down to the minor supporting roles. The only substantial change is that the early-dead dude, boxer Joe Pendleton (Robert Montgomery), was a pro football player in the remake.

Claude Rains, Edward Everett Horton, and Evelyn Keyes co-star, and I don't have much to say about it, but it's definitely a good movie, sweet and funny.

I'd probably think higher of Here Comes Mr Jordan if I hadn't seen the remake, because element by element, this is good but falls short by comparison.

Verdict: YES. 

♦ ♦ ♦     

Here is Your Life (1966; Sweden)
Streaming free at YouTube

"Everyone runs away, sooner or later. One day, I'll run away, too. I've done it before. It's difficult not to."

It's the 1910s in Sweden, Olof is 15, his father is seriously sick, and the family can't afford to feed him. By necessity, the boy moves out on his own, and he's soon hired as a timber-dragger, bringing freshly-logged trees to be milled.

One shitty day, he's not ten feet away when a pile of logs topples onto a 14-year-old co-worker, killing him. The boss tells the surviving crew to be more careful, but magnanimously says that they'll be paid, even for the time they'd spent trying to rescue the boy who died.

Watching his friend die hits Olaf hard, so he quits that killer job. Next he's hired to sell sweets in a movie theater, but between shows he also has to chop and deliver wood for the manager's restaurant. The manager, by the way, wants to be addressed as Mr Manager, which gets Olaf thinking further about the stupidity of work. He starts reading Kropotkin while operating the saw.

It's a movie about working stiffs, with plenty of horseplay and shenanigans, but smart enough to discuss literature, politics, and philosophy without ever seeming 'heavy'. It's cautiously pessimistic, visually an eyeful all the way, and the actor playing Olof has an exquisitely expressive face, but never seems to be acting.

Here is Your Life is an hour longer than most movies, but it never feels it, never brings a yawn. It's a thoughtful Nordic epic coming-of-age story, written, directed, photographed, and edited by Jan Troell, and dang close to perfect.

Verdict: BIG YES.

♦ ♦ ♦     

Heretic (1931)
Streaming free at YouTube

When it comes to dance and choreography, the Martha Graham Dance Company is supposed to be the best. Ms Graham herself, of course, was either old or dead for all my life, so if I think of her at all it's as choreographer, not dancer. 

She started as a dancer, though, and here's your chance to see Ms Graham dance. It's only four minutes, and it's weird, but I like weird.

Wordless, Heretic is more about conveying an emotion while standing there, than what you'd think of as 'dance'. But the emotion is conveyed, as Ms Graham dances and stand-interprets being despised and subjugated, maybe tortured by the church.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦     

A Hero Ain't Nothin' But a Sandwich (1977)
Streaming free at Tubi

Cicely Tyson and Paul Winfield play the parents of a growing boy named Benjie (Larry B Scott), who's 13 and seems like a nice enough kid. Early on, there's a harmless scene of Benjie and some other teens smoking reefer, but from the vibe and look it's clear that we're supposed to worry about them.

Indeed, it's not long before Benjie is rolling up his sleeve for his first shot of heroin, and as in all drug-scare movies, it's, "Give the man a free go, on the house."

Instantly addicted, Benjie's teacher spots him strung out in class, and he's rushed to a hospital. At the ER he's promptly tested, treated by a compassionate doctor, and committed to a drug-rehab facility. 

Drugs are a problem that cries out for a solution, and the movie is pushing for that. It has some clichés, but it's a quality picture, and it stokes neither tragedy nor an unrealistically happy ending. It's among the best I've seen in the drug-scare genre.

But the kid's family is poor and black, and there's no mention and no worry who's paying for treatment. And Benjie's been spotted high only once, but there's no wait-list for admission to a sweet-looking rehab facility with a lawn and spacious rec-rooms. And after he's discharged, there's kind, compassionate counseling available from staff that actually worries when he doesn't show up.

And that's bullshit. Drug rehab is simply not available as depicted here, and never has been. If it was, America's drug-scares would be uncommon, and downtown AnyCity would no longer be crowded with zombies.

Written by Alice Childress, based on her novel. Directed by Ralph Nelson (Charly, Requiem for a Heavyweight). Winfield is always good, and he's terrific here. So's Scott, as the kid — never seen him do anything but silly comedies, but the dude's got chops.

Verdict: YES. 

♦ ♦ ♦     

The Heroic Trio (1993; Hong Kong)
Streaming free at Daily Motion (Cantonese)
Streaming free at YouTube (dubbed)

Someone is kidnapping infant males. Eighteen of them, so far. If I'm following the plot, which is iffy, one lucky winner among the victims will be named ruler of China, while the rest will receive the lovely parting gift of death. Seems distasteful, but the movie's bigger problem is that it's incoherent, throwing a wide assortment of weirdness at the screen.

That's on purpose — the moviemakers are spoofing the chop socky genre. The dramatic scenes are mostly played for lowbrow slapstick with silly reaction shots, and the action scenes are augmented with slow motion, or fast motion, and special effects, which I always wish they wouldn't do.

It stars Michelle Yeoh, Maggie Cheung, and Anita Mui, making it a frenetic feminist fantasy. Any ten minutes of The Heroic Trio are a good time, but it grows tiresome after an hour or so.

Verdict: NO.

♦ ♦ ♦     

Hesher (2010)
Streaming free at Tubi

There's this very sullen boy who looks about 8, but attends school with kids much bigger and older. He's bullied relentlessly by one of them, and also bullied by a homeless man named Hesher (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who keeps explosives handy and is seriously psychotic.

Hesher moves into the boy's house without an invitation, and inexplicably, the boy's father (Rainn Wilson) and grandmother (Piper Laurie) never call the police about the intruder, and instead accept him as part of the household.

Hesher is the movie's Magic Caucasian, offering occasional words of wisdom to the boy and others in his family, but just as often threatening the kid, or entrapping him into being an accomplice to Hesher's assorted explosive and fire-driven criminality. Whatever it takes, you can count on Hesher to make even the worst situation worse.

The kid's only friends are adults — the madman Hesher, and a clerk at the grocery store — but nobody's worried about that. Nothing about Hesher's bizarre behavior is explained, and a few scenes that seem necessary to the narrative are missing, as if the studio demanded too many edits.

For a simply enjoyable film, it's the best on this page, but Hesher is messy and incomplete, and doesn't make sense when it's over. Still worth watching, though.

I'm guessing the movie bombed, because 15 years later it's still the only feature film writer-director Spencer Susser has made.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦      

• The troubling truth about Joan Crawford 

• A conversation with Mel Brooks

  9/3/2024   

• • • Coming attractions • • •     

Hester Street (1975)
The Hidden Fortress (1958)
Hide and Seek (2005)
The Hideous Sun Demon (1959)
High and Dry (1954)

... plus schlock, shorts, and surprises

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Now accepting movie recommendations,
especially starting with the letter 'I'.
Just add a comment, below.
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Illustration by Jeff Meyer. Click any image to enlarge. Arguments & recommendations are welcome, but no talking once the lights dim, and only real butter on the popcorn, not that fake yellow stuff. 

 

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