knucklebreather

Much has been written about the cinematography of "Walkabout" and it's certainly a beautiful film, with amazing visuals of nature in the Australian outback, but also contrasting shots of the built environment of modern civilization. Certainly anyone interested in a visually stunning film should check this out and few will be disappointed.

Looking at it as a broader film, it's still very interesting. The story of a brother and sister abandoned in the Australian outback and surviving with the help of an Aboriginal teenager, it feels like an experimental film at times but has a coherent and easy to follow story at its heart.

I chose to interpret it as a pretty straightforward story about humans rejecting their simple roots as hunter/gatherers to live in the built, civilized world where meat comes from the butcher, and the regret at having made that trade off, at having given up Eden to live tediously in the city. The film certainly lays on this sort of symbolism heavily. This sort of story might be enlightening if I hadn't seen and read it so many times before, but nevertheless it was done powerfully here and provided me with something to think about.

In "The Desperate Hours", we have Humphrey Bogart in his second-to-last film as hardened criminal Glenn Griffith, who has escaped from prison with his brother and a brute named Kobish. They happen upon the typical American family, the Hilliards, and invade their home with great brutality for a 1955 film.

"Man must protect his family" has become a very long-lived genre to this very day, and this movie is a fine entry in it. Fredric March's Dan Hilliard is realistic and even inspiring, in an early scene he explains to his son that he is afraid, and he's not ashamed of it. Through his dialogue and thoughtful acting, we are able to believe in Dan Hilliard as an honest everyman doing the best he can in a difficult situation, which keeps these sorts of movies from become unrealistic flights of fantasy.

The pacing is very good, with nary a dull moment as the desperate hours tick by. Bogart's tremendous acting kill any chance of audience boredom, as you see his character's interesting clash between the desperate honest man and the desperate criminal.

The soundtrack is almost nonexistent, rare for Hollywood in this era, but it's quite welcome, as it adds to the gritty, desperate feel of the film.

This is really a very fine thriller that has stood the test of time. It may not have explosions or death-defying stunts, but the emotional conflict is what these movies are based on, and this movie has it in spades.

"Batman: The Animated Series" is such a rare jewel. The episodes are short and self-contained, aside for some 2-part cliffhangers. The animation is at times crude, with all of the big blocky male characters. The storytelling is definitely aimed at children.

And yet this is so much more than the sum of its parts. The series is perhaps most notable within Batman for bringing moldy, golden-aged villains and stories into a respectable modern form. It also introduced some of Batman's greatest characters, like Harley Quinn. For an afternoon cartoon series, this had an amazing and totally positive impact on the Batman franchise.

More than just its innovations, I enjoy the episodes for their oddly perfect rendering of the Batman mystique. They are dark without being disturbing, they capture the feeling of a man who wanders the city at night fighting crime in such an interesting way. The music is wonderful, all of the shadows and bleak settings are perfect, and the extensive use of classic cars and art deco architecture sets an incredible mood, capturing the feel of golden age Batman with none of the corniness. Sometimes the stories seem a little simplistic, there are plenty of plot holes and technical implausibilities, but the episodes just look so good and evoke such a powerful mood that I'll probably be rewatching this series on and off for the rest of my life.