Six Degrees of Film

The Bad B’s of Summer

The Bad B’s…I got it bad, and that ain’t good. Meaning I like to watch Bad B Movies at times and they are not always bad enough to qualify as “Good/bad”. Sometimes they are terribly bad, or they can be consciously bad (the worst kind), and then there is ”unwatch-ably” bad-those kind are alright because, frankly, I couldn’t stand it. The rules of engagement are simple: Know your Bad B

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’s before the Summer starts: Beach Blanket Bingo should be near the top of the list. Here’s a guide from seasons past:

In Praise of Bad Cinema Many years ago I wrote about really bad movies. Since that time, the list of contenders has grown but the criteria by which we judge deliciously awful films remains the same

Number One– The plot must be non-existent or at least not relevant to the action of the movie. It helps if the actors stink up the joint but that is not a prerequisite.

Number Two-Most of the time it must have a very low-budget. Major films have been known to join the ranks, but as a rule, classically bad cinema usually is in the range from tin-foil robot hats to plastic doors and cardboard rocks.

Number Three-The gold standard to aim for is “Plan 9 from Outer Space.” The title is fairly important, and most bad movies are judged from the base camp of Director Ed Wood’s enduringly awful examples.

Number Four-Science-fiction is preferred, but other genres are always acceptable. If the film does delve into science-fiction, the science portion of the script is usually based on the merits upheld by a television show originally aired in the 1950’s.

Number Five-This is an important element. At some point in the action, the dialogue must be unknowingly funny. If the story line makes too much sense or they try to salvage a movie with a brave attempt at logical plot points, the film cannot qualify. Tonight movie patrons around the country are being treated with a showing of the classically bad, “Plan 9 From Outer Space”. Some bad movies are just plain bad and boring to watch. The Plan 9 club for Bad B’s is in a class that is separate and apart from your typically awful movie. Some modern nominees I have seen (over the past 20 to 30 years) are Donny & Marie’s “Goin’ Coconuts”, Snakes on a Plane, Alexander, all Chuck Norris movies, all foreign martial-arts movies, any movie with Godzilla in the title made in Japan, The Night the Lights went out in Georgia, Mad Max, Old Hercules movies, Jason & the Argonauts, the Ryan O’Neal movie, “Tough Guys Don’t Dance”, Lee Majors as a Viking in “The Norseman”, and any Paris Hilton movie. It is important to note that in my day, we did not have the luxury of “fast-forwarding” through a movie with a button. That is cheating. The dialogue must be enjoyed or endured, however you want to look at it. By the way, my favorite Ed Wood movie is not “Plan 9” but “Glen or Glenda.” It beats Plan 9 by a mile with the wooden dialogue & the inexplicable cuts of buffalo running across the plains, but the clincher is the man behind a desk explaining to the audience what a transvestite is and why they are different than homosexuals. It’s a hoot in any era!

Posted 20th August 2009 by Mary Lee

Capsule Review: Lockout

“Lockout” is a strange brew that is formulated much as “Cowboys and Aliens” seems to have been mixed last summer. The concoction includes one wisecracking “Die Hard” hard-nosed and cynical cop who has seen it all. There’s a beautiful blonde that needs rescuing, there’s a space station that is stranded, and oh, yes, there’s some terribly politically incorrect Irish gangster types who are the bad-ass criminals intent on murder and mayhem. There are a few mob scenes during the course of the film that show the whole criminal prison gang but they have almost as much character development as the mob from “Frankenstein” sans torches. Hollywood is stuck on formulaic models. They say: “Let’s do what’s worked in the past over to the nth degree and add on everything including the kitchen sink ‘just to make sure’ it’s a hit”. So in this one, just for insurance, there’s a scene right out of “Star Wars” where the pilot flies into the heart of the space station to destroy it… The film is fairly entertaining at times, and doesn’t move at a slow pace. But most of the critics seem to be insulted by the lack of effort made to even try and make it look like something other than what it is. What it is is a “hodge-podge” of ideas that have worked in the past that are baked together to brew a script that will make money. That is the oldest trick in the book, and sometimes in Hollywood, it does work!

About Doris Day

Note: Originally Published in 2012

Her roles have been stereotyped and her acting dismissed for decades. She has become a parody of herself, with songs like “Look at me, I’m Sandra Dee, Lousy with virginity…” and the famous Oscar Levant quote, “I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin”. But she is part of the mythos of Hollywood and is indelibly linked with the fifties persona of the American Dream. She was a major part of Hollywood box-office business for almost two decades and she was a powerhouse who shaped her image and influenced many women who have followed in her footsteps. She knew how to craft an image and to give the public what they wanted. And in the fifties, after two World Wars and the Cold War in progress, America wanted to be entertained. They wanted to be “bathed in banality” at times, the way Marshall McCluhan described the newspaper we “slip into” in the mornings. People often go to the movies to absorb nothing more than beautiful images and to relax in much the same way one goes to get a massage. That is the point of the Doris Day era. She was better than a relaxing massage at times and the public loved her. She was definitely “cornball” and “hokey” and “banal” and eventually syrupy sweet, but she did have talent and made the most of it and some of her films were quite good.

My picks for the best of Doris Day:

1. Love Me or Leave Me: With Jimmy Cagney, she plays the real-life Ruth Etting and she is never better belting out the bluesy theme song, “Love Me or Leave Me”.

2. Pillow Talk: She made several movies with Rock Hudson, and this is the best of the lot. Rock Hudson makes fun of himself in this and that is usually a good thing with movie stars. Day plays a strong, determined woman who in the end, will always “get her man”. Her image is shaped from the first frame to portray a “modern” female who works as an interior decorator and doesn’t like the way the smooth-talker on her party line treats women. That, in a nutshell, is a good reason for women to champion Doris Day’s characters.

3. Calamity Jane: A favorite of mine, she is a frontier woman who is portrayed as a loveable tomboy. Her quirks and comic turn as a rough and tumble pioneer with a characteristically feminine side is one of her best roles

4. Please Don’t Eat the Daisies: Doris Day is surprisingly good with David Niven in all of their scenes together. She doesn’t ham it up as she tended to do in later years. And the sophisticated Niven was equally effective as her mate in this adaptation of the popular bestselling book of the same name. There is a touch of schmaltz that went into overload in her later projects, but in this film the couple is believable and her part as a wife and mother who is navigating the sophisticated world of New York Theater is a nice touch.

5. That Touch of Mink: No self-respecting critic likes this movie. It does look like Cary Grant, the lodestar for all sophisticated male leads, is simply walking through and collecting a paycheck in this part. However, the role suits him and there are some great comic turns. Doris Day is working at one point in the film at an early-fifties era computer company and the size of the computer is so outdated and hilariously large that it, by itself, is enough to make anyone laugh! But the comic overtones tend to wear well even in this day and age. This film almost has the feel of one of those British sex comedies that someone like Terry Thomas would have played in. John Aston has a small but extremely funny part as the “louse” that is used to make Grant jealous. This is not intended to be rocket science, therefore, if you see this on the small screen, it is not to be dismissed so lightly. Day made many pictures far worse than this piece of fluff.

Other films worth seeing with Doris Day are her one Hitchcock film, “The Man who Knew Too Much” with Jimmy Stewart and the James Garner film, “The Thrill of It All”. The scenes in the latter are funniest when they spoof commercials and mass marketing early in the film. And with Hitchcock, Day is never allowed to run away with the syrupy goodness that was a trademark element and a fatal flaw in her later films. Today, some of the actresses linked to Doris Day by 6 Degrees are Renee Zelwegger, of Bridget Jones fame, plus Drew Barrymore, who has her own production company. Goldie Hawn, who shaped her image as the loveable and kooky ditz used that image to carry her to many successes at the box office. And there’s also Sandra Bullock, who has shaped an image, formed her own successful production company and starred in many light comedies that should make Doris herself proud!

Americana in American Films

There are three films that capture the “essence” if you will, of Americana. The films are “The Wizard of Oz”, “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “To Kill a Mockingbird.” In the characters and stories these films introduced to the American public in general and to the psyche of audiences worldwide, the definition is evident of what is best in American life and in the American spirit The Wizard of Oz is a film about a little girl and her dog as they travel through a fantasy world called Oz looking for a way back to her home in Kansas. This is a fantastic story but also a coming-of-age movie for many generations of Americans. Yet this children’s film has been shown in so many countries and to so many different children that it has become an iconic image representing America. There is so much hope and promise in the performance of Judy Garland and her face radiates with so much youth and innocence that she becomes the representation of a beacon of light for all ages. We see in her a promise of something better, something that she is striving for as she sings about a vague Utopia that is “somewhere over the rainbow.” In the vision that was created in that greatest of Hollywood dream factories in the Greatest of film years, 1939, we see an image of Hollywood at its finest. There are wonderful performances found here with a string of character actors that pop up in so many movies from years past. There is Bert Lahr, the old Vaudevillian, and Billie Burke, the veteran from the silent era. There is Margaret Hamilton, who gives us this iconic image of a villainess that is forever ingrained in our minds as she becomes the embodiment of the Archetypal Wicked Witch. There is Jack Haley as the Tin Man and Frank Morgan in a variety of roles. Then there is the mythos surrounding the cast of little people-the Munchkins-but the entire story is woven around the character of a young Judy Garland. Her fresh face and innocent but earnestly quivering voice have stayed with us for almost a century now. She is the stuff that dreams are made of. That is the greatness of the film. When it was introduced to those of my baby boomer generation, it had not been shown for many years and Danny Kaye introduced it in the sixties with a reverent pitch to his voice that gave a new spin to the never-forgotten scene where Dorothy opens the black and white door to a gloriously Technicolor Oz. This is almost a metaphor for the life we had lead in the fifties. It was an era of black & white television and a simpler time before technology brought us to the moon and then brought us lots of gadgets that we learned we could not live without. This was our introduction to a different life, a life where we have all “Gone Hollywood” so to speak. In It’s A wonderful Life, Capracorn is invented. It’s the type of film that Frank Capra believed in, and he believed in it enough to “bet the farm” that Jimmy Stewart was the one to play George Bailey. This movie was not a big hit at the time of release. That is to be expected as it’s a long film, an involved story, and it’s one that needs to be digested after several viewings. It’s the type of film that many people cannot imagine spending Christmas without viewing. There’s a great secular quality to it and yet there’s also a Spiritual dimension to this film. And like Americana, there’s a lot of “hoke” built into it-hence the term: Capracorn. Critics don’t often like to see emotive sequences consisting of God and Mom and Apple Pie. In this instance, George is not always a “goodie two-shoes”. He’s a cynic, at heart, but he’s fallen in love with a small-town girl and he’s fallen into the shoes of an inherited business that depends on his presence for its survival. In other words, this is not the life he chose, but rather one that was foisted upon him by others. He has many burdens to bear and the weight of his life is telling as the strands are becoming unraveled. The theme of religion is never overt but always interwoven in the fabric of our American existence. The story of George Bailey culminates with one of the most moving epiphanies of faith seen in American film. The moment on the bridge when George asks God “Please God, let me live again. I want to live again.” is an affirmation of faith that is declared by all who identify with the character of George Bailey in this movie. We are all buried underneath the yolk that is our lives; the yolk of debt, or of other burdens, and obligations plus family responsibility sits heavily on our shoulders at times. This is perhaps why his character can resonate so forcefully with so many that watch this film. George’s life is a litany of lost dreams and broken promises that are a part of his persona and make him the lovable yet sometimes cynical man that he becomes. In To Kill a Mockingbird we see the elements of Americana throughout. The goodness of the main characters, the innocence of the children, the racism and bigotry in the small town are all interwoven and held up as a mirror for our changing lives and changing society….. The movie is also a coming of age film within a courtroom drama. There is a life or death quality to it at times and the stark reality of small town America and the bigger dreams of the triumph over evil and the fight that Atticus wages as one man alone against a sea of bigotry and hatred represents a large part of our collective American story. We can identify with George Bailey for the dreams he has lost. But we identify with Atticus on a different level. Atticus is the embodiment of so many hopes and dreams that we aspire to in this country. The character of Atticus, as portrayed with quiet dignity by Gregory Peck, becomes someone we see in the same light to be found within the mythical beacon of light in Reagan’s “shining city upon the hill”. When we fight for the rights of the downtrodden and help the poor we are embracing the values that are an intrinsic part of Atticus’ makeup. He is the best in all of us and the person that we aspire to become. In the same movie, we see Scout as someone that many of us can identify with. She is curious and completely innocent of guile and vitriol, yet she has a temper and is easily swayed by many things that she sees and hears. We, the viewing audience, are all gullible to a certain extent and need to have boundaries set to guide us at times as we seek the truth in our ever-changing, fast-paced media savvy culture. Of the three films of Americana, perhaps the most innocent of all the characters is Dorothy, someone who is simply on a quest to come home. She is someone that we all have known and her life in part parallels our own. As a larger symbol of Americana, we are the innocents abroad that refuse to believe the world is the dark and menacing place that it is for so many people who live without our freedoms. Yet, we are a big-hearted society and we do open our hearts to many cultures, many beliefs and many different places throughout the globe. As Dorothy helped others to achieve their dreams, so are we a culture that still believes that helping others up is the only way we will survive. Yet always, in our heart of hearts, we have a great longing for our homes. When the troops were overseas in World War II, one of the top songs of the day played, “I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.” And another hit song spoke to the belief that “There’s no place like home for the holidays”. There’s no place like home is the mantra for the American abroad. We are all vested in the dreams and hopes found in these three films. They have shaped our lives and described our shared destinies. They are a part of Americana and are arguably some of the best parts of our separate yet interwoven and uniquely American stories

Centurion vs The Eagle

One of the things Hollywood likes to do at times is to make several movies on the same subject and release the two {or three} which are basically about the same themes. “Country” and “Places in the Heart” were very similar films released in almost the same year. Two Wyatt Earp/Doc Holliday movies were done at the same time-the endless stream of Batman and Superman comics-all run together. They are about to release two stories of “Snow White”, one with Julia Roberts as the Evil Queen, one with Charlize Theron. In 2010 they chose the heartwarming story of the lost Ninth legion of Rome. The two films were “Centurion”-critics rated this one the better of the two, and “The Eagle” with Channing Tatum. Personally, I thought “The Eagle” was the better of the two for several reasons. “Centurion” was overtly violent in spots where it was pointless and needless to exhibit gore. When a corpse has no head, do we need to see more blood gushing from the body? I think not. The culprit, I suspect, is the world of gaming videos that show violence as a part of a game and it rises to the level of a cartoon. I would add this on the subject of violence in film. When grizzled, elderly, World War II veterans gather together, they don’t want to talk about the gore that was on the battlefield. Sometimes understatement works best. When Hitchcock made “Psycho” he understood the chilling effect of blood circling a drain to underscore the horror of the violent murder of Janet Leigh in a shower. “Centurion” also featured a chase sequence that, at first, vaguely reminded me of the classic chase from, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”. The tag line for the movie poster from “Butch Cassidy” was, “Who are these guys?” and they used a paraphrase of this same dialogue in the new film. A vague reference or subtle homage is expected. But I knew they wouldn’t end the chase by having the group jump off the cliff. That would be too much. But not, it seems, for the makers of “Centurion”. By damn if they didn’t end the chase with a leap off of a mountain cliff. That means that the last gasp of original thought has left the building for the makers of this movie. Recently, “The Grey” used a similarly too-close for-comfort sequence from another film. This was so close in detail to the moving episode in “Sometimes a Great Notion” where Paul Newman attempts to keep a man from drowning and fails that I couldn’t help but wonder if they would be fined for lifting material so blatantly from the original storyline. Where is the line drawn in films when the sequences begin to look more than vaguely familiar? Just askin’

Why I’m not going to see "The Hunger Games"

Why I have no desire to see this film: I won’t go see “The Hunger Games”. I’m glad people, especially young people are reading about a post-apocalyptic world. They should be the ones to discuss the consequences of our actions as a government. They should be thinking and talking about reasons we need to stop and think about the consequences of our actions as a nation, and as moral and ethical human beings. Perhaps they will change the culture we live in for the better. The book “1984” was the Orwellian vision of a totalitarian future. I’m reminded also of the infamous “War of the Worlds” broadcast that had some nervous folks out in the streets fearing a real alien invasion. But the movie that “Hunger Games” brings to mind for me is “Spartacus”. The climactic end scene was a fight to the death between the characters played by Tony Curtis and Kirk Douglas. It underscored one of the main themes, which was that Greater love hath no man for another than to sacrifice his own life. The twist, if you will, was that the two friends who loved each other as brothers were slated to fight each other to the death. The winner would be crucified so the “loser” actually is the one who wins the fight and kills his beloved friend, thus sparing him from the pain and torture that will inevitably be inflicted on the winner. The brutality that was Rome is a recurring theme of Spartacus. But it is man’s nature to be brutal and violent that is an unspoken theme, as it gives us the metaphor in Spartacus for the sacrifice which Christians see in Jesus Christ. There are films that use violence to make a point about man’s inhumanity to man that are greatly effective. But in this age, I do wonder when enough is going to be enough. Spartacus was made in 1960. The film was about the Roman Gladiators, who were killing machines created to satisfy the public’s love of gore and violence. The Gladiators would fight to the death and were surrounded by cheering mobs. In “Spartacus”, the same horrific death that Rome inflicted on Jesus Christ is given to Spartacus. The barbaric nature of crucifixion is a constant reminder throughout the film of the violent brutality that lies in each of us and makes up the darker parts of our human nature. This reminder seems to be a theme of “The Hunger Games”. The violence is something we are immune to and we are accepting of it and we watch as jaded spectators watched the Gladiators. Such is the consequences of creating a world of video gaming, perhaps? One good point to make in this film’s favor: This IS a fictional movie. And like novels, films are representations sometimes depicting small segments of the human condition. So Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and The Hunger Games are one part entertainment, one part protest and one part morality tale interwoven into an entertaining story. That explanation for the popularity of this film I can live with. Because I would posit that a certain man from Avon could fall into that category. I would bet that William Shakespeare, were he alive today would be out there on the cutting edge. In his own words he put it best, “The Play’s the Thing.” Thoughts on violence and the world of video gaming: One of the main differences in action films that were made twenty years ago and ones made in the twenty-first century is the amount of violence that is not only expected, but expected to be graphic. The concern is that there will be a kind of benign acceptance of pain and suffering taken to the extreme level. To convey the horrors of war and of death, sometimes less is more. Hitchcock proved it in ‘Psycho” with the shower scene and in ‘Torn Curtain” where Paul Newman has to kill a man with the help of a young peasant woman by using nothing more than his hands and the two of them manage to asphyxiate the Russian after a tortuous struggle. Hitchcock wanted to illustrate that it’s not easy to take a life. Another chillingly effective death struggle was seen in “Saving Private Ryan” where the two men fight to the death and it takes on the aura of a sexual encounter as the German slowly plunges the knife in to the chest while telling his victim to be quiet and accept the inevitable. Hopefully, there may be a pendulum swing back to the era of using film to illustrate actions without graphic violence and large amounts of blood and gore. **One other aspect covered in “The Hunger Games” is the public’s insatiable appetite for entertainment. Again, we are reminded of Rome and the Gladiator contests. I suppose if people are watching inordinately large amounts of cooking or exercise shows to the exclusion of all else-or staying on Facebook for more than eight hours-there is a real danger of losing focus and balance in your life. Personally, I don’t watch “Dancing with the Stars” or “American Idol”. But some of my best friends do and they are wonderful people with full and engaged lives. As boring as it may seem, moderation is the key to all things. So…people, especially young people, seem to be worried about a post-apocalyptic world. So do we all-and hope and wish and fervently pray that it will not come to pass. There are those who work every day to stem the tide of apathy and bigotry and hatred and ignorance that leads us to a path of destruction. I,for one, worry that I’m not doing enough to prevent Armageddon every day of my life. But then again, the point may be that there is hope yet for a generation that has role models willing to sacrifice themselves for others, as is the case with the heroine in “The Hunger Games”.

21 Jump Street-Capsule Review

Channing Tatum-star of both “21 Jump Street” and “The Eagle” is an up-and-comer along the lines of Keanu Reeves, who also showed us a new breed of actor that specialized in looking confused and dumb, sweet and “hunky” all at the same time. (It’s not just me-the best line in “The Matrix” comes from someone saying to Keanu: “You’re not too bright, are you?” The movie has gotten pretty good reviews-actually well over-rated reviews as one person wrote, “This is what a re-make Should look like!” This is at times an amusing film, but it’s not a great film. The characters/action tends to jump around and there’s very little character development. There are some amusing sequences, but they are surprisingly short. In other words, you can definitely “wait for video” on this one….

The Artist: Capsule Review for 6 Degrees of Film

The Artist is playing this weekend at Tampa Theatre. This review was originally published on 6 Degrees of Film in 2012. Here’s the updated version:

One of the best sequences in “The Artist”, the Academy-Award winning black & white silent film, is the one where sound is used. That’s not to say that films without sound are not worth seeing. Some of the most moving sequences ever filmed have been moments that have no sound. Liam Neeson had the role in “Suspect” where he plays a mute, and it was apparent early on that he was the only one in a cast that included Cher with real acting chops. In “There Will be Blood” one of the most creative sequences in this dark look into the psyche of a self-made 19th Century robber baron was the opening of the film where Daniel Day-Lewis doesn’t speak for a good ten minutes into the film. In The Artist the scene where the very successful and extremely egotistical star dismisses the viewing of the “talkies” as a fad finds him waking up in a cold sweat in the night after he dreams of hearing sound on film where none had been before. That is perhaps one of the more creative moments in the film. This film stands really as a series of vignettes, a kind of homage to the way that early films were made.

They were short one-reelers and like the one and two-reelers, you could find the plot of this film written out on a half page of notebook paper. Boy meets girl, they fall in love; conflict ensues; they overcome obstacles to be together; the Denouement-Finis-The End.

That really is a short history of the movies encapsulated in this film. The power of silent film has been lost on so many generations that have missed out on much that was conveyed through film in the silent era, Actor and Comic Bill Murray recently spoke of watching a DW Griffith silent film in France that was totally riveting. It seems the French have a higher appreciation of the silent medium in general. I don’t believe that just everyone would simply fall in love with this movie. That is conveyed in the box office numbers, which show this film to be probably the least viewed of any Academy Award winner in recent years. It is not an action flick or a comedy or a chick flick. It is a film about film in the sense that it conveys some messages about the appreciation of a medium-silent film- that is not in existence save for a few random viewings on select cable channels. This is the nature of show business and this film is unique in that there are less than six degrees of association to arrive at the beginning history of film. It serves as a perfect example for anyone interested in the history of film, and it’s definitely a must see for those playing the game of “Six Degrees of Film!”

The Grey-Capsule Review

My first impression of this film is, “Surely they have shots of wolves living in the wild they could insert in this film? Why do the wolves look so fake?” The person I was sitting with thought the same. In this day and age, with this type of film here’s a tip: use the stock footage and edit it in with the “Automatron” wolf. This is NOT a “feel-good” type of movie. One other bone to pick: one plot point makes little sense. These people risk their lives to climb over a ravine to get away from the wolves. The wolves are territorial, but there should have been something to make us understand why the wolves are still after them. My thoughts were, “Really…still…with the wolves?” I mean, you expect us to believe the wolves also climbed over the gorge? They just cannot shake these particular wolves. If it were sharks, you can understand it. But wolves should just be one of the major dangers you might face after surviving an Arctic plane crash…These wolves are the Jaws of the Arctic-never relenting, never giving up. Liam Neeson is a great actor. There is one scene in particular, early in the film, where he calmly tells someone they are going to die. That is the point where he can emote to the extent that Clint Eastwood and John Wayne never could. Here is the “go-to” guy for action films of the age and he also happens to be a great actor. Nothing about the film in the latter half gives us pause to see him exercise his “chops”. I would recommend this to anyone who likes Liam Neeson films. A lot. This is not an action-adventure movie in the “Die Hard/Terminator” mold. This is more of a Jack London/Joseph Conrad tale. You see Man v Man; Man v Nature; Man V Himself and Man v Animal. All of the main storylines are rolled into one fairly predictable, fairly dark story. Don’t go see this if you’re looking for a light, upbeat escapist film. It’s not. One other point of privilege to note: there is a drowning sequence late in the film that could have come straight out of the Paul Newman/Henry Fonda film, “Sometimes a Great Notion” from 1971. Just sayin’

Capsule Review: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

***Is about as convoluted a plot as anyone could wish for. This is a subtle film with so many nuanced looks and character references one must keep track of every tic and blink that passes from eye to eye.

This is also the type of film that makes me wonder if there is going to be a coming “great divide” in this country between age groups who watch movies. There are films for a certain age that I know my 21 year old niece refuses to watch. The Black & White & low-tech films of yore are not high on her list.

On the other hand, the girl with a Dragon Tattoo is someone that she can easily identify with. I thought that I, a middle-aged woman, would not be able to identify with this character. But in the way of cinematic magic, there is a universal element that everyone who has been dumped or has been alone or has been asked to fend for him or herself can find in this vulnerable yet hardened young woman.

In “Tinker, Tailor”, we are back to the low-tech world of the early 70’s and the Cold War era where all eavesdropping requires elaborately placed listening devices and the real world of James Bond emerges. There is nothing remotely similar to the antics of the comic-book action figure that Mr. Bond has become. This world is inhabited by quiet men in tweedy suits wearing unassuming expressions with glassy stares.

I must admit that there are a few moments that teeter on the edge of attention-deficit danger in the middle of the film. But the plot is definitely one where all lovers of mystery and good story-telling will want to know how it all ties together in the end. It is simply convoluted, if it is possible to be both simple in technological jargon yet convoluted in the realm of sophisticated dialogue and plot.

With the low-tech world nicely portrayed in this and the recent “Killer Elite”, we are forced to remember what the world was like before Tom Cruise gave us Mission Impossible to the nth degree and only high-technology will do to entertain the mass viewing audience.

We are still expected to think and therefore, the old fashioned Sherlock Holmes-ian style of critical analysis and logical thinking applies here. We must do our homework for this film, and that, in the end, is a good thing!