Style and theme are everything in the exquisitely made Italian film Eclipse, or L’Eclisse (1962), one of the four or five major pictures of Michelangelo Antonioni.

This is the one about Vittoria (Monica Vitti) and Piero (Alain Delon) in the modern age.  Here, reinforced by the visual black-white contrasts, indifference and insensitivity eclipse love, worry eclipses passion, aimlessness eclipses belief.  For all this, however, Antonioni makes clear that ours is a fascinating world, not only because of nature but also because of what human beings have wrought.  Airplanes, light poles along a street, the stock exchange, a rural café—all are presented as having the power to captivate.

Eclipse is less sad than L’Avventura and La Notte, even though, granted, the world of the film is menacing.  The closing sequence is famous, and according to Stanley Kauffmann, it has been seen as Antonioni’s “statement that man must come to terms with his new environment before he can love.”  This is probably as good an interpretation as any, if interpretation is needed.  Whether or not such a sentiment about love is true, though, we are led to observe that, at the film’s end, main character Vittoria certainly seems accepting of her life—obviously a good thing.

(In Italian with English subtitles)

Cover of L’Eclisse – Criterion Collection

Queen Christina (1934) transcends its flaws.  Directed by Rouben Mamoulian and starring Greta Garbo, it relates historical nonsense about the 17th century’s Queen of Sweden who abdicated her throne, but the historical nonsense is not a flaw.  We can take comfort, after all, in such elements as S.N. Behrman’s literate dialogue and the disturbing effect of the abdication scene.  Mamoulian worked well with what he had, albeit he didn’t have much in the way of production design.  For outdoor scenes (not all of them), there is too much studio fakery.  Garbo deserved better, I think.  Not only is she beautiful, she also supplies just as much femininity and tomboy toughness as Hollywood’s Queen Christina needs.  The real Christina—or Kristina—was a lesbian; Garbo’s queen renounces her crown for a man’s love.  The man in question is played by John Gilbert, who, unfortunately, overacts for a while.  Garbo’s acting is steady.

Queen Christina ought to have been a stronger achievement, but it entertains us all the same.  That is all it was meant to do.

Cover of Queen Christina

In the movie version of Jersey Boys (2014), Vincent Piazza does deft work as Tommy DeVito, an obnoxious member of the Four Seasons pop group.  The part is an Italian stereotype, though, which is hardly surprising for a film that has zero character exploration.

Here and there Clint Eastwood’s semi-musical is as likable as the Village Voice critic says it is, but it is also insipid.  A nun takes a swallow of wine and burps.  Every girl either sashays or makes a fool of herself, often while listening to the Four Seasons.  The movie is obtuse.

Winning performances come from Christopher Walken and Renee Marino (who plays Frankie Valli’s wife).  Also from John Lloyd Young (Valli)—in his singing.  It was his falsettos that were in the Broadway show.

Clint Eastwood (Photo credit: Siebbi)

SPOILER ALERT if you haven’t seen the latest (June 23) episode.

In my view, the final season of the old 24 series was lousy.  For one thing, Jack Bauer committed the immoral act of shooting down an unarmed Katee Sackhoff.  In the reboot, he throws an unarmed Margot Al-Harazi (Michelle Fairley) out of a high window—just like Jezebel—but no one cares because Margot is so incredibly, appallingly evil.  Just like Jezebel.

Other individual deaths have occurred as well.  Sorry to see you go, Jordan. . . I’m not sure whether Margot’s daughter Simone (the very pretty Emily Berrington) is dead 0r not, but I don’t think so.  She’s had quite an experience with vehicles lately (being hit by a bus, being involved in an insane car chase).  Everybody is waiting to see when Steve Navarro (Benjamin Bratt) gets it in the neck.  How do so many cold-blooded “moles,” which is what Navarro is, manage to get inside CTU?  Why such background check deficiencies?

Cover of Driving Miss Daisy (Keepcase)

Bruce Beresford often fashions wonderful endings for his movies, and Driving Miss Daisy (1989) is no exception.  Nowhere does the film display more heart, more humanizing feeling, than in its last sequence.  The feeling doesn’t seem as legitimate as that in, say, the Taiwanese picture Eat Drink Man Woman because Miss Daisy (Jessica Tandy) is not quite as sympathetic a character as those in Ang Lee’s film; she doesn’t change much in the course of the piece.  She is scrappy and sharp-tongued from start to finish, but that in no way means we don’t like her, don’t care about her, and a moving ending is a moving ending.  The one encouraging fact about her is that she ultimately acknowledges her black chauffeur, Hoke (Morgan Freeman), as her best friend.  Miss Daisy is a white Southerner.  She’s also Jewish, though, and seemingly less inclined toward racial pride and prejudice than many, or most, Southern white Gentiles.  She and her grown son Boolie (Dan Aykroyd) are liberals in the Fifties and Sixties.

Written by Alfred Uhry and based on his play, Daisy is minor Beresford but, like his Breaker Morant, beautifully transferred from stage to screen.  The Aussie’s directorial care is a pleasure to behold even in a comparatively unambitious work like this.  On the minus side, there is an excess of music; on the plus side, it is a family film.  I am persuaded to add, however, that as I watched Miss Daisy, et al. grow older and thus slow down as the years advanced, as I watched Miss Daisy’s increasing fragility, I was saddened to think of all of us having to live in a fallen world of irreversible time.