The man who hires the assassins is morally worse than the assassins—that, at any rate, is the case in Robert Siodmak’s The Killers (1946), a dignified and mostly interesting noir mystery.

The titles sequence calls the film Ernest Hemingway’s The Killers since it is based on a story of his, but this is not Hemingway’s creation.  It is a cinematic work scripted by Anthony Veiller.  (And that’s that.)

The solid allure of Ava Gardner lasts from the minute she appears on screen to the end of the film.  Burt Lancaster is the star, but his acting is inadequate.  Far better are such performers as Sam Levene and Albert Dekker.

In 1964 Don Siegel released a grittier, very entertaining remake of The Killers starring Lee Marvin and Ronald Reagan (who is a bit beyond passable).  Considered too violent for TV, the medium it was made for, it opened in theatres instead and is worth seeing despite some obvious faults.

The Killers (1946 film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The 24 reboot on Fox (Live Another Day) is getting shockingly intense.  Terrorist insanity streams forward and the U.S. President (William Devane) had better start relying on Jack Bauer in a wholehearted way.  Er, the U.S. government has really been blowing it.  The zealous CIA agent, Kate Morgan, joins Bauer in his anti-Psychopath With A Drone cause, and a Marine commander peevishly complains about Morgan and gets her removed from the case!  And this is in the face of an on-coming drone attack that will fry thousands of Brits!  Way to go, government!

The action scenes in 24 are adroitly handled and most of the acting is delightfully good.  It’s a creepy role, Michelle Fairley, but you’re doing an impeccable job in it.

Title card for 24 (TV series) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The dialogue in the movie Drinking Buddies (2013) is so natural it is eminently dull and banal.  At least it’s a romantic drama that doesn’t care about the conventions of American romantic flicks, but it is pretty thin.  Also, why the women in the film are so fond of the bearded, uninteresting schlub named Luke (Jake Johnson) I don’t know.  Man, is Olivia Wilde a friendly tease to him. 

It’s very well acted, this Joe Swanberg film, but other people liked it better than I did.

English: Olivia Wilde at the 2010 Comic Con in San Diego (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Light in the Piazza (novel) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Clara is a young American woman with the mental age of a ten-year-old.  Fabrizio, who lives in Florence where Clara and her mother Margaret are vacationing, falls in love with the American without knowing about this childlike mind.  Ineluctably Clara is happy in the young man’s company and Margaret wants this happiness to go on for her.  Failing to guide Fabrizio and his family to the truth about Clara, Margaret disconcertedly wants, yet does not want, the marriage between Clara and Fabrizio that will be forthcoming.  Her ambivalence ends, however, even in the face of her husband Noel’s disapproval of the relationship.

Margaret is the main character in Elizabeth Spencer’s short novel, The Light in the Piazza (1960), and although a flawed person, she is also a loving mother standing on a precipice for the sake of her daughter.  After the marriage has taken place we read, “Her head was spinning and she leaned . . . against the cool stone column.”  Did Margaret do the right thing?  The disconcertedness exists to the end, and yet Clara is a woman, not a girl, and is being loved by Fabrizio.  The novel is about when moral ambiguity leaves us suffering.  It is about the dilemmas people incur when another’s deprivation can be halted.  Or so they think.

Light is a notable tale which happened to inspire a sophisticated stage musical of the same name.  Lucidly written, it is nicely structured and memorably character-driven. . . I’ve read it twice and have not detected a blemish.

Underwater, and abovewater, seascapes abound and offer much in the Pixar cartoon feature, Finding Nemo (2003).  I couldn’t catch everything the fast-talking sea creatures said, but I saw the sights.

Triple-colored clown fish suspended (floating) above the anemone, legions of pink, transparent jellyfish filling the frame, a distant white light and the distant underside of a boat in depths either dim or utterly black, a scary overhead shot of greedy sea gulls beginning to cover the wooden dock on which two appetizing fish out of water lay.

Really, human-like fish are a puny subject for a narrative movie, but Nemo reminds us that a strange and fascinating underwater world is there.  I have no interest in the script, one which children will enjoy, but was indeed turned on by the visual beauty and thrills.

Cover of Finding Nemo