THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL

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"The Bad And The Beautiful" is a great title for this fascinating self-reflexive triptych melodrama about the inner-workings of Hollywood's early '50s Studio era of success.

It's telling that the picture won seven Oscars back in 1953.

Vincente Minelli's direction is breathtaking.

Kirk Douglas plays Johnathan Shields, a big time Hollywood studio exec with an eye for talent, and all the charm in the world to attract those who fit the bill.

Jonathan is also an inveterate backstabber. In order for Jonathan to succeed it is imperative that those closest too him, fail.

We follow three of Jonathan's victims through flashback chapters that accumulate toward a rich character study of each one. The fraught relationship with their mutual frenemy is a tie that binds.

There's the former business partner (Barry Sullivan), the rags-to-riches starlet (Lana Turner), and a hometown novelist turned L.A. screenwriter (Dick Powell).

Lana Turner is out of this world as Georgia Lorrison, an upcoming star contender in debt to Jonathan's underhanded guidance.

Talk about sexy, Gloria Grahame brings sexy forward and back.

"There's always good and bad in everything," couldn't be truer than in this stylish, almost post-modern, look at narcissism in the days when men were men, boys were boys, and women were classy and able. 

Tragedy strikes in the cruelest of ways before Jonathan finally loses control of his manipulative powers.

Never drop your guard around those with an ounce of power. You have to be ready before the punch arrives.

Not Rated. 118 mins.

DEAD CALM

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Quentin Tarantino's opinion that the '80s was a terrible decade for films, gets a cold hard slap from Australian director Philip Noyce's intense 1989 thriller.

Between Billy Zane's best Marlon Brando impersonation as a sociopath, Nicole Kidman's break-out performance as a mother traumatized by the death of her young son, and Sam Neil as her experienced sailor husband, is a movie that stands the test of time.

"Dead Calm" is the only non-3D movie I know of to have a scene capable of making you duck out of the way when it hits.

Wow.

"Dead Calm's" triple climax is a satisfying doozy.

The action takes place on the high seas where Rae (Kidman) and hubby John (Neil) are sailing on their luxurious sailboat on an extended vacation.

Trouble comes fast and furious when they rescue Hughie Warriner, the lone survivor of six-person crew aboard a still sinking ship.

The less you know going in, the better because this movie has so many surprises to take your breath away.

Fun, scary and suspenseful from start to finish, get out the popcorn and beer for this white-knuckle thrill ride.

Bon appetite.

Rated R. 96 mins.

THE NIGHT PORTER — THE CRITERION COLLECTION

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Director/co-writer Liliana Cavani's mind-bending reflection on the Nazi era is a pure filmic transmogrification of power, war, sex, personal identity, and soul-searching.

Cavani reduces her complex wartime narrative to a dead-end reunion between Max (Dirk Bogard), an ex-SS officer and Nazi warder to his former prisoner Lucia (Charlotte Rampling), the imprisoned non-Jewish daughter to a Leftist activist at a Nazi concentration camp.

A chance encounter at the Vienna hotel where Max is employed as a bellman, derails Lucia's post-war life as the concentration camp-survivor wife to a successful American symphony conductor busy on tour in Vienna.

In Cinema, Vienna is the place where people go to die.

Max and Lucia pick up their leftover BDSM desires from the days of their concentration camp experiences together when he was master to her prisoner/slave.

It is significant to realize that Liliana Cavani launched her filmmaking career with two historical documentaries ("The History of the Third Reich (1962) and "Women of the Resistance" (1965), for Radiotelevisione Italiana.

Clearly, Cavani's deep insights into the mindsets of the Nazi's prisoners, as well as that of their tormentor goons, adds significant anecdotal historic depth to "The Night Porter."

The devil is in the details. Even wallpaper sends a message.

To compare "The Night Porter" to any other World War II film would be folly. Not even Bertolucci's "The Conformist" can compare.

The necessary mental, physical, and emotional escape hatch that Max and Lucia employ serves as a temporary life raft from the anger, repression, and violence that rages around them, and deeply inside their tortured souls.

Fearless performances from Dirk Bogard and Charlotte Rampling give "The Night Porter" its humanity. For a film about the lasting effects of genocide, "The Night Porter" gives essential meaning to the madness with a delicate touch of palpable understanding.

Remembering the very thing that most people want to forget is a promise to oneself and a curse.

We are all damned by history, and all that history leaves out.

Rated R. 118 mins.