Caliber 9

 

After having a discussion about cinema with a friend, I sat down and watched Caliber 9, aka Milano calibro 9, aka The Contract, an Italian crime thriller from 1972.

Caliber 9 is all about Ugo Piazza, a gangster who is suspected of stealing $300.000 from his boss, L'Americano. Shortly after the money ends up missing, Ugo is sent to prison for a botched robbery, and the movie kicks off as he is released two years later. In case you're wondering why everyone is so keen on a mere 300K, that is almost $2 million is today's money.

There is a strange subplot concerning two senior cops, one who has fascist leanings and one with communist sympathies. Their arguments, while interesting in and of themselves, lead absolutely nowhere and are essentially pointless. The director even said so, but he liked them too much to leave on the cutting room floor.

So Ugo is released and immediately lands in hot water because of the money, but no one can kill him until they know whether he is innocent or if guilty, where the money is. Ugo swears he is innocent and plays a dangerous game to find the real thief. No spoilers here, so you'll have to watch it yourself to discover the truth.

The acting is mostly very good. Ugo is played by Gastone Moschin, perhaps best known to modern audiences for playing Don Fanucchi in The Godfather: Part II. His girlfriend Nelly is played by Barbara Bouchet and the movie also stars Mario Adorf, Frank Wolff and many more. It is directed by Fernando Di Leo and is based on three short stories from the short story collection Milano calibro 9.

I should point out that the character Rocco Musco is pretty over the top. Very entertaining, but Adorf chews the scenery every time he shows up, which is a lot.

The cinematography is mostly good. Milan is lovely to see and the scenes are tight and interesting. Caliber 9 has the strange tendency one sometimes see in movies from that era to zoom the camera in and move it around violently. This is a technique I'm not a fan of as it just makes the scene confusing instead of interesting.

Caliber 9 is not Goodfellas, it is by no means a masterpiece, but I was glued to the screen the entire time. It is incredibly compelling from start to finish, but I really feel that the story needs to be a short TV series. This would make sense on many levels. It would have time to validate the police characters and their politics in the fractured Italian climate of the early 70's. It would give the gangsters more time to be characters and not just tough looking goons, particularly with the mystery of who took the money. It would give us an opportunity to experience and understand the relationship between Ugo and Chino, a tough as nails hit man, and his boss Don Vincenzo. This is all important to the story but we barely get to know any details in the 90 minute run time.

I absolutely recommend Caliber 9 if you like crime dramas. I watched the subtitled version in the original Italian but there is a dubbed version out there if you prefer. I don't like to give movies ratings, but if I did I would rate it quite high, even though I can't put the finger on exactly why. IMDB gives it 7.5 stars. I say give it a shot.

 

That's that and all that. Join me again next time for more Eccentric Spheres and until then, have a great and safe week!

Midsommar

Every once in a while a movie comes along that, if not everyone is talking about, than most people are. One such movie is Midsommar (2019). Seeing that it is almost midsummer it's even appropriate to talk about it.

To illustrate the statement above, my wife even wanted to see it based on the hype, and she doesn't care for horror at all.

Yes, Midsommar is a horror movie, written and directed by Ari Aster, who is most famous for writing and directing Hereditary, which I haven't seen.

Anyway, we sat down and watched Midsommar a couple of days ago, and I was both surprised and delighted. It wasn't at all what I expected but I'm not the least disappointed.

In a nutshell, the movie is about a small group of American college students who accept an invitation from a Swedish friend to visit his home village for midsummer. I'm struggling with how much to tell since I do not want to spoil anything, but I mentioned it's a horror movie so it's no shock that bad things start to happen, right?

Midsommar is 148 minutes long which is pretty long for a horror movie, and that always makes me a bit apprehensive. In the case of Midsommar however, it needs the length. From the initial setup, to the story itself to the conclusion, nothing is wasted. It's the slow burn of slow burns, but for having said that, it isn't boring at any time. It's all bout the journey rather than the destination.

This is also the kind of movie that contains a lot of small clues and hints of things to come. In many ways it is pretty predictable, in fact if you have seen The Wicker Man (1973), you are probably going to figure out what's going to happen. It isn't so much what happens that is impressive but how it is done.

I paid a lot of attention to the Swedish dialog, as I speak Swedish, in order to see if they were going to give away anything important, like the start of The Thing (1982), but I found nothing. The script is very tight and little is left to chance.

The ending was missing some details I wish they would have included, but there is a directors cut that may answer some of those questions. I don't actually know what is contains, but I thought I'd mention it. I had to go read the IMDB trivia to get some final answers. It's nothing that ruins the movie but I like getting all the details.

If the Swedish makes you worried about understanding the movie, don't be. Almost the entire thing is in English which is actually my main gripe. It wasn't weird that some of the isolated Swedes could speak flawless English, but they could explain their archaic traditions in flawless English and that felt strange. It's not a big deal, but I thought I'd mention it.

The actors are great, the cinematography is beautiful and the sound design reminded me of Chernobyl (2019). I have no technical complaints. The gore when it comes is shocking and suitably gross, but it doesn't dwell on it. It appears and moves on, and I think it's in showing such restraint that the movie really shines.

Do I recommend Midsommar? Yes, I do. I'm really glad I saw it, but I probably won't watch it again. It is an experience as much as a story and having had both, I'm satisfied.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week.

New Games

 

I just finished the Bethesda and Xbox showcase at E3 2021 and as always it was a massive overload to the senses.

I also watched the Summer Game Fest the other day, but the only game that grabbed my attention there was Elden Ring. This incredibly anticipated game by From Software (Dark Souls, Demon Soul, Bloodborne etc.) in collaboration with George R R Martin finally has a release date: January 21, 2022. I am interested in finally coming to grips with one of these games, but I'm far from committed to playing. I will at the very least enjoy watching lets plays.

So, back to the Bethesda/Xbox thing.

The first thing that struck me is that this truly is the season of the sequel. There was a small handful of original games, but I can't even remember them anymore, with one exception. We'll get to that later.

Another thing that struck me is how popular snarky, cutesy and quirky has become. Between the Summer Fest and the Xbox presentation, there was a ridiculous amount of games what lean heavily on one or more of those three. I guess it is a change from the ever present gray and brown military shooters with their overly dramatic machismo, but it grates on the nerves after a while. Does everyone have to have a quippy comeback? Does every team need someone to trip and pratfall in an exaggerated way? Well, no. But it has become pretty common and as with all forced comedy, it's rarely funny. I hope they pull it back a bit going forward.

I'm not going to list all the games, there were 27 of them, but some of them were Stalker 2, Psychonauts 2, Age of Empires... sequel, the new Halo game, The Outer Worlds 2, a Pirates of the Caribbean add on to Sea of Thieves, Far Cry 6... the list goes on and on and on.

They cleverly started off with presenting a small teaser for Starfield, Bethesda's upcoming sci-fi RPG. It is the first original setting they've done in over 20 years but I still have no idea what you're supposed to do in it. Seriously, no clue except you are in space and you seem to be an astronaut of some kind. Apparently it launches next year so hopefully we'll find out more before then.

They also showed a pretty little movie for RedFall by Arkane Studios (Dishonored, Prey). This was the original mentioned above. It shows a colorful group of vampire hunters in a sci-fi near future. But again I have no clue of the game play. They did say that you can play solo or in co-op which is nice. So many games insist on multiplayer only, probably in order to sell micro-transactions.

The absolute stand out however, was Forza Horizon 5. Set in Mexico this time, the game is near photo realistic. The skybox is in fact photographed and it all looks incredible. No, scratch that, it looks impossible. I'm saying that as a dude who doesn't even care that much about cars or motor sports. I really urge you to watch that trailer/showcase as it is just that beautiful.

So far, this is the first E3 in years that haven't shown me a single game that has made me sit up an go “Whoah, I need to play that”. That's alright though, as a patient gamer I have no shortage of games to play in the near future.

 

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!

The French Connection

 

Today we're looking at The French Connection (1971).

This film has been high on my list of classics that I really want to watch, so I did. I was inspired to do this after an old friend did and gave it a good review.

What we have here is a pretty straight cop movie. It's tagged Action, Crime, Drama on IMDB, which is correct. It stars Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider as the two central NYPD detectives and Fernando Rey as the French drug smuggler.

It's directed by William Friedkin who is perhaps best known for directing The Exorcist two years later, and it shows. The French Connection has many scenes what felt like The Exorcist in tone and color, though there are no demon possessed girls here.

The French Connection is one of those movies that have seeped into media on multiple levels. I had never seen it before, but there were scenes that I have seen parodied elsewhere, like the subway chase being lampooned in The Simpsons episode Sex, Pies and Idiot Scrapes. I also got the feeling I was watching a kind of 70's prototype version of The Wire. I can't point out anything in particular, I just got a strong vibe of it.

I was warned that there is no twist here. Just a Frenchmen who wants to sell a large amount of drugs in New York and the police wants to stop them. This is literally the truth, and it's also based on a true story. It's more about the journey than the destination and you get a lovely tour of New York watching this. The acting is good, that almost goes without saying and the action is excellent. The above mentioned subway chase stands tall even today. It is worth noting that they didn't really have permission to film this highly dangerous scene and it's amazing that no one got hurt.

What surprised me though, was some really jarring plot holes in an otherwise carefully crafted film. Mild Spoilers ahead:

At one point, Hackman goes after a sniper up on the roof of a tall building. From there he sees that the shooter has eluded him and is now sprinting down the street. Somehow, Hackman has time to run some five or six stories down and give chase, and it's a tight chase.

At another point, the cops tear a car apart, and I do mean tear apart. Yet somehow they put everything back together so well that the paranoid owner suspects nothing in what must have been a single afternoon.

These are perhaps the most glaring problems but the script has a couple of similar lesser scenes. Not that they detract from the experience, but it is weird that they exist.

I probably should mention that as this was filmed in 1971, social norms were a bit different. Hackman drops the N-word very early on and it's not the only racial slur either. Apparently he initially refused to say that line, but when he found out that the real person his character was based on talked like this, he relented.

Do I recommend The French Connection? Yes I do, but not for everyone. It is slow, really slow at times. If you get bored easily, this is not the movie for you. Otherwise it is an excellent slice of New York in the early 1970's.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!