Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

This was a transitional film for Italian director Federico Fellini
(”Fellini Satyricon”/”Juliet of the Spirits”/”Ginger and Fred”), who attempted
to make a break from Italian neorealism (using it as a stepping stone and
not an end all). He would later on move more fully into personal surrealistic
fanciful films where symbols and metaphors hold sway. It’s the film that
first brought international acclaim to Fellini (it also was the first film
to establish his famous signature “Felliniesque” circus motif). Some notables
such as Andre Bazin claimed it was a masterpiece. I saw it more as a well-paved
stylish accessible road picture that did a good job hiding the filmmaker’s
sentimentality (the heroine, with a heart of gold, is like a Chaplinesque
waif to the boorish protagonist who mistreats the innocent for no reason
but that he’s a twisted soul) by making his travelled road a realistic
circus-like look at the desolate provincial towns it passes through as
a tragicomedy for pain, cruelty and suffering. Fellini’s modern-day parable
is cowritten with Ennio Flaiano and Tullio Pinelli, and it tells of an
itinerant strong man and the simpleminded girl in his bondage who is his
foil, mistress and helper in a travelling circus. It’s finely filmed in
black and white (most effectively at night) by photographer Otello Martelli
to give it a dark look, and the score by Nino Rota is memorable

Zampano (Anthony Quinn), the gypsy, a travelling circus strong-man
of questionable character (he’s a whoring and drunken wastrel), buys a
young simple-minded woman, Gelsomina (Giulietta Masina, wife of the director),
from her destitute peasant mother for merely a few lire so she can repair
a roof and he makes her his assistant and clown in his circus routine (he
breaks chains wrapped around his chest). Gelsomina is replacing her dead
sister, who Zampano previously bought. Zampano treats the affection seeking
woman like dirt and mainly ignores her, as they both bask in lonliness.
Things pick up steam when Zampano beats and accidently kills the gentle
clown/high-wire tightrope walker il Matto (Richard Basehart), known as
The Fool, someone who uses his wit to taunt the strongman and someone Zampano’s
jealous of because of his inner strength and because his slave-girl admires
him more than anyone else. The kind-hearted Matto befriended Gelsomina
and broke her spell of lonliness. Matto’s senseless death causes the lonely
woman to die eventually of a broken heart, as the abusive Zampano abandons
the faithful assistant because he doesn’t want her around anymore to remind
him of his foul deed.

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The film has a mythic quality as Fellini symbolically connects Gelsomina
to the water, Zampano to the earth and the Fool to the air. It has less
to do with depicting a craven capitalist society, as the Marxists wished
neorealist films to hold to and more with exploring the “poetry of the
solitary man.” It was a step in the right direction for Fellini and enabled
him to advance his filmmaking to achieve his later greater films such as
La Dolce Vita (1960) and 8 ½ (1963).

Suitable those of us to whom religion holds a less effective part in our lives, the world of any strictly religious community is a unknown in unison. The rituals and rules are bonny much incomprehensible, and the degradation of females in many of the belief systems certainly runs counter to the accepted, if not practiced, attitudes of Western culture. Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai examines the fracas between the epoch of the ultra Popular and secular Jews in his 1999 film Kadosh, which translates as “sacred”. The cover garnered much acclaim through showings at supranational festivals, and earned Gitai praise in the direction of his look at a world seldom portrayed middle the strict Jewish assurance.

Set in the Mea Shearim put up of Jerusalem, Kadosh tells the tale of two sisters, each of whom faces a disaster caused by their unrelenting, patriarchal undeviating organized whole. For Orthodox Jews, there is a rigid repute between male and female roles. Men are expected to devote their days in prayer, studying the Torah, and fathering the sons of Israel. A woman’s place is to serve her tranquillity, bear and raise his offspring, and squeeze in to support him to allow him stretch in search his meditate on. Rivka (Yaë Abecassis) has been married to Meïr (Yoram Hattab) for the sake of ten years, but has yet to develop him children. The son of a Rabbi, Meïr believes he is being cursed by his wife’s infertility towards living an unclean lifestyle apt to their enjoyment of physical desire, despite his frantic and ritualistic prayer. Although she has earnest herself to Meïr on a decade, high Jewish law, a man may repudiate his wife if she has not borne him a son after that time. Rivka is presumed barren and is rejected by the community, and Meïr is ordered to take a new wife to fulfill his role in the continuation of the Jewish people.

Her sister Malka faces a different spot. For years, she has been in love with Yaakov (Sami Hori), a man who left the Orthodox life to join the army, and instanter lives as a non-ecclesiastical Jew, performing as a musician in nightclubs. His presence is ignored and disapproved of by the community, and she has been chosen to league another Prevalent Jew without her authorize. Malka knows her task in academy, but can’t come to terms with losing her true make out, and she battles her devotion to her trust with the future her unloving federation will hold for her. Both women turn up themselves at odds with their faith, and ultimately, they must decide whether to maintain their well-known position in the community or face the consequences of following their hearts and individual interests.

As someone odd with the practices of the Orthodox Judaism, tons of the revelations in this film were enlightening, such as the rituals of prayer that attend almost any endeavor, perhaps most shocking was a scene where Malka’s new pacify prays for longevity and steal with his exhibit prior to taking her virginity. The opening scene, a single shot durable the better part of eight minutes, straight away places the viewer in a different world, following the redundant plea that permeates even a simple activity such as dressing, a prayer in which Meïr thanks Genius for not creating him as a woman. The strictly masculine-centric leaning may also be aggravating object of anyone supporting erotic equality, since the film distinctly delineates a woman’s role as subservient to her husband and the community, and align equalize the menstrual cycle has stern rules applied to it. Interlaced and contrasting with the rigid spear lifestyle and attitudes, are moments of self-probe by the female cast, both psychological and physical. There are synopsis moments of sensuality, which in context are viewed from numbing viewpoints by the participants. The unveiling of all facets of the certainty are done in an nonjudgemental fashion, which makes their brunt even more powerful.

While Kadosh portrays the Orthodox Jewish faith, its message resonates throughout the rest of the world’s fundamentalist religions as personally. Ditty scene in item-by-item sets the tint for the view approaching the outside domain, where, while driving from one end to the other town province on all Jews to come together and reunite their forces, the messenger calls on their Power to vengefully strike down their enemies, while delivering the Jews to their salvation. This certainly flies in the face of any hope towards world peace and interdenominational concord; but is important to comprehend, proper to the political influence these groups contain b conceal in divers countries. Depending on your viewpoint, the glaze require rush at far-off as either a harsh evaluation of religion and a somewhat derogatory swipe at feminism, or an empowering tribute to the feminist purpose and a warning of the extremism found in fundamentalist religions. Regardless, the film’s address encompasses more than just the hub on one faith, and at one’s desire be an eye-opener because less devout audiences, granted the ending red me somewhat unsatisfied.

I wish I were 70 years old, so I could say that "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" reminds me of the many Saturdays of my youth that I spent down at the cinema, paying a nickel to watch Dick Tracy movies all day, and how afterward I'd stop at the drug store for a strawberry phosphate and some horehound candy. But alas, I'm too young for that, and "Sky Captain" only reminds me of what I imagine it must have been like.

This is probably the best throwback to the cliffhanger serials of yesteryear since "Raiders of the Lost Ark." It's a grand, old-fashioned adventure that meticulously follows the plot structures and characters from those old films — which most of us only know by their reputation and imitators, not having seen the actual movies — and truly pays homage to them. This is not a parody. This is the real article, using modern technology to make it look like very little modern technology was used.

The writer/director, Kerry Conran, shot the film entirely on a green screen. That is to say, only the principal actors are real. Everything else was created digitally, with the actors inserted into it later.

The reason for this was so the images would be easier to manipulate. With all the computer wizardry applied, the backgrounds have blurry edges, the foregrounds have a dewy quality about them, the color looks artificial — it looks very much like a film from the 1940s, in other words, and has plots and dialogue to match. The streets of New York look like the streets of Metropolis from Max Fleischer's "Superman" cartoons — and then giant robots attack, just like they did in one of those very cartoons.

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And that's not the only film reference. "Wizard of Oz" parallels are obvious, as are connections to Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" (no relation to Superman's hometown) and various others. Mostly, though, it's the style that is duplicated, and it is done with glee, ingenuity and wit.

It's 1939, and the world's eminent scientists are being kidnapped one by one, and newspaper reporter Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow) has a lead on who might be next. Meanwhile, giant robots invade New York and other major cities to suck up their energy supplies. Only one person to call in a situation like this: Sky Captain.

Sky Captain is Joe Sullivan (Jude Law), a dashing pilot and adventurer and leader of the for-hire army that world governments call upon when there's trouble. His crew, assisted by Dex Dearborn (Giovanni Ribisi), has seen these robots before, but has never been able to determine their source. After Dex is abducted, it's up to Joe and Polly — who have a tumultuous history, of course, and who currently engage in much verbal combat — to rescue him, find the scientists, and stop whichever nefarious party is behind all this.

Jude Law makes a good enough adventurer, though he's no Harrison Ford, who always seemed to be having fun even when all around him was chaos, while Law takes everything so seriously. Better is Gwyneth Paltrow, whose simple beauty makes her a perfect fit for the role of Golden Age screen idol. And better still is Angelina Jolie as Franky Cook, a one-eyed ship commander who helps Joe and Polly late in the game, and who has a history with Joe, too. Jolie's enthusiasm and all-out commitment is infectious; it's rare to see her enjoying herself this much.

Conran keeps things moving pretty fast, and he very nearly makes the style work for the entire film. But there are a few points where the action slows down and the novelty of it wears off and you stop smiling for a few minutes and you think, "Wait, there's really nothing to this, is there?"

And there really isn't. But when all of the movie's elements are working together — the familiar characters, the goofy-but-interesting story, and the eye-catching special effects — it's a magical, wonderfully entertaining ride.

Grade: B+

Rated PG, some mild vulgarity, a few hells and damns