BUFFALO BILL AND THE INDIANS, OR SITTING BULL’S HISTORY LESSON (1976), dir. Robert Altman

It is said the great ones make what they do look easy. Yet here is a movie about two legendary men of their time – one a white cowboy, the other a Native American chief – in which the saying only seems half true. “Buffalo Bill” shows the hard work that its main character, William Cody, goes through to maintain his image as the archetypal frontiersman, as well as the frustrations this would-be master of animals and killer of Injuns experiences with Sitting Bull, who conjures a near-mystical aura through hardly any labor at all.

There really was a “Buffalo Bill” Cody, a former soldier and Pony Express rider who later starred in the most popular traveling show in the world. Wild West-themed, it featured a variety of skilled performers who did gun tricks and performed stunts on horseback, as well as actors who re-enacted events such as General Custer’s last stand, in which Cody himself appeared as the doomed general. The movie picks up during the troupe’s heyday, around the same time as what ostensibly appears to be a show business coup: the signing on of Sitting Bull, the former Sioux leader.

Federal marshals begrudgingly deliver the chief to Cody and his handlers, who already envision him appearing in a re-enactment of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. But Sitting Bull, who joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West because of a vision telling him he would meet President Grover Cleveland, refuses to participate in their version of the event, in which Custer’s men would be shown massacred. Instead, he demands the re-enactment show the Native Americans being slaughtered, a suggestion Cody flat-out refuses. The show considers firing Sitting Bull, but when a key cast member threatens to walk out as well, Cody capitulates; nevertheless, the incident spurs a battle of wills between the two legends that lasts the entire movie.

“Buffalo Bill” was directed by Robert Altman, and like many of that filmmaker’s works, it’s so many things in one: an ensemble film, a drama with comedic elements, a behind-the-scenes look at a particular corner of show business. But there’s also something edgy and modern about Altman and Alan Rudolph’s screenplay, and one’s appreciation of the overall movie will likely depend on taking to their vision. To them, William Cody – who was a big star before the age of television – is like some kind of 70’s show business icon: handsome and larger-than-life in person (if slightly shorter than one might have expected, thanks to Paul Newman’s perfect casting), but vain, alcoholic, prima donna-ish and a womanizer in private.

I liked everything about this movie, especially how Cody shows an obsession with the public’s perception of “Buffalo Bill” on-par with a modern PR firm. In one of the film’s more humorous moments, he welcomes President Grover Cleveland, who is on his honeymoon, to his own self-titled ranch and resort, allowing the chief executive the use of his own bedroom. When Cleveland expresses an unwillingness to put him out, Buffalo Bill assures him he prefers to spend his nights outdoors among the plains; but of course, the first place he goes is that symbol of civilization: the tavern.

Altman, of course, was no stranger to de-mythologizing the Wild West when he made “Buffalo Bill,” having done something similar in 1971’s “McCabe & Mrs. Miller.” This time around, it’s more the Wild West show he’s dissecting, his roving camera capturing a cavalcade of characters wearing ten gallon hats, only much of it is illusion: the Native Americans are played by black or white actors for the most part; during the brilliant opening sequence, an attack on a frontier town by Indians turns out to be staged; at one point, an actor is told not to get on his horse from behind, for fear it does not look “authentic.” In the spirit of a film that takes viewers “behind the scenes,” “Buffalo Bill” also shows how much intricate choreography, micro-management, and practice went into the acts.

Even the titular character’s ride into each show accompanied by a small herd of bison is far from spontaneous. But if Buffalo Bill is indeed an image whose purpose is preserving the Wild West in its most idyllic form (and that argument is supported by what amounts to a creator, played by Burt Lancaster), the question in William Cody’s mind is whether the same can be said of Sitting Bull (Frank Kaquitts)? Here is another character with a larger-than-life reputation, but when depicted in the flesh, is short in stature, ghostly-silent, with a child-like face.

He packs none of Buffalo Bill’s bluster, but his resourcefulness clearly exceeds that of the cowboy performers. Later, he manages to win over a white audience through his own quiet dignity and grace – without having to participate in the dog-and-pony show the writers initially conceived – and when he mysteriously disappears, also manages to evade the search party led by Cody, despite his reputation of being a world-class Indian tracker.

“He has to look good in front of his people,” is Buffalo Bill’s response to Sitting Bull making a fool of him. But is Sitting Bull a legend, or, like Buffalo Bill, just a man perpetuating a legend? The answer is never clear, but by film’s end Cody, who has started to become aware of his deficiencies, comes to the decision it is better to be a has-been and know it because the alternative is ending up like Sitting Bull (whose fate I will not disclose here). "My God, look at ya! Look at ya!” he shouts. “You want to stay the same! Well, that's going backwards!" Buffalo Bill, on the contrary, continues looking forward, even if his gaze seems blank, and the rest of his image resembles an outdated relic getting older with each passing moment.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

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THE ‘HUMAN’ FACTOR (1975), dir. Edward Dmytryk

Two things elevate “The ‘Human’ Factor” from B-grade pot-boiler to a thriller that’s flawed, but not terrible: one is the casting of George Kennedy, who may be better recognized nowadays as Leslie Nielson’s sidekick in “The Naked Gun” comedies; the second is the score by legendary composer Ennio Morricone, who can make otherwise routine scenes such as men typing away at a computer screen seem downright intriguing.

Kennedy plays John Kinsdale, a NATO employee living in Florence, who suffers every devoted family man’s worst nightmare after his wife and children are murdered. The police have no leads; luckily, Kinsdale works with computer systems designed to predict an enemy’s actions during wartime. Using this advanced technology, he and a trusted co-worker named Mike (John Mills) figure out the killers’ modus operandi, and that they are terrorists targeting Americans living abroad.

Mike assumes this information will be turned over to the cops in order to prevent similar tragedies. But the closer Kinsdale gets to his family’s murderers, the less interested he becomes in protecting others as opposed to exacting revenge. Soon a behavioral scientist and an Italian police inspector are also racing the clock to stop him. Kinsdale, however, shuns them all, since they want to put the thugs in jail, while he wants them dead. “You don’t understand!” he yells. “These people murdered my family!”

Director Dmytryk, along with screenwriters Thomas Hunter and Peter Powell, telegraph early on that Kinsdale will be going the vigilante route: he shoots a television set broadcasting a news report about his dead family. The question is whether this middle-aged family man will succeed against a pack of younger, heavily-armed thugs? Although a computer simulation gives Kinsdale only an eight-percent chance of success, the filmmakers argue that the titular “human factor” – in this case, his grief, rage, and despair – can alter those odds significantly.

In the tradition of exploitative cinema, there are chase sequences, some good acting (Kennedy), mediocre writing at best (the terrorists, in particular, are given as little personality as political ideology, thus making them all the easier to despise), limited production values, and lots of violence. But “The ‘Human’ Factor” is an effective character study about an ordinary man pushed past his limits, and there are flashes of the western as well: Kinsdale is the civilized man driven to uncivilized acts, who finds himself on the margins of society as a result.

The first half is the movie’s best, mainly because of just how unassuming the main protagonist appears, and how that becomes his advantage. Indeed, a middle-aged George Kennedy may not particularly intimidating, but his secret weapon, it is pointed out early, is that he’s perceptive. In one scene, he gathers valuable clues by lending a sympathetic ear to an embassy official who doesn’t know who he is, but is outraged by all the news of dead Americans.

The second half, on the other hand, features car chases, rooftop escapes, and hand-to-hand fight scenes to go with Kinsdale’s emotional fall from grace. But as good as Kennedy is at conveying the emotions and will to vengeance of a shattered man, he is no Charles Bronson, and the action sequences strain credibility too far at times. There is no way Kinsdale should be able to effortlessly evade police pursuit, but he does. He also doesn’t seem like the kind of man who’d know how to whip a chain around someone’s neck, but he does that, too.

Yet none of Kinsdale’s prior superhuman feats compare to the final scene, a ridiculously over-the-top shoot-out in a supermarket, where his family’s killers have taken hostages. Despite being armed with machine guns, they are no match for Kinsdale, who only has a handgun. Adding to the surreal tone are moments of unnecessary levity – specifically, while guns are blazing, the disembodied voice over the loudspeaker calmly announces turkey cold cuts are on sale. Interestingly, there’s little enjoyment or satisfaction to go with these long-in-wait executions, as if the “human factor” that got Kinsdale this far had, ironically, reduced him to an unfeeling killing machine.

Overall rating: ** (out of ****)

TROUBLE THE WATER (2008), dir. Tia Lessin and Carl Deal and Kimberly Rivers Roberts

Sometimes a great film happens by accident. According to “Trouble the Water’s” production notes, Lessin and Deal had planned a movie about soldiers serving in Iraq who returned home to New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. However, after the National Guard cut off their access, they took a side trip to a nearby Red Cross shelter, where they encountered Kimberly Rivers Roberts and her husband Scott. The meeting ended up changing the course of the film.

One week earlier, the Roberts’ had escaped the flooded city themselves, but not without having to take the initiative for their own survival. “Trouble the Water” shows the experience of Hurricane Katrina from their perspective, the impact of which feels immediate and authentic. But the film also chronicles their attempts to build a new future afterward, and tries to examine why thousands of residents, many of whom were poor or minority, were seemingly abandoned by the state and federal government before and after the storm.

The movie could have consisted of talking heads and sound bytes, but Kimberly Roberts brought something besides her own words and memories: roughly two hours of videotape shot before, during, and after the storm. The footage allows Lessin and Deal to structure things differently from a standard documentary: the first half cuts back-and-forth between present times and the footage, and Roberts’ home movies become akin to the flashback sequences found in non-documentary narratives.

Seeing Kimberly and Scott, their low-income neighborhood, and their friends and relatives prior to Katrina's landfall makes the aftermath all the more dramatic. In total, roughly 15 minutes of Kimberly’s video before and during the storm gets used, and it’s easily the most riveting part of the film: there is palpable tension in the air as she interviews relatives and acquaintances waiting for the inevitable to arrive, while the footage shot during the storm itself consists of murky violence as the elements threaten to tear the Roberts’ world apart.

Kimberly’s video captures just how dire the situation was, but also shows people rising to the occasion. “I never thought God would have use for a man like me,” says a man named Larry who, utilizing a punching bag as a flotation device, rescues the Roberts’ and some family members who are holed up in an attic. Indeed, a recurring theme in “Trouble the Water” is redemption: most of the main characters, including Kimberly and Scott, lived life hard and fast on the mean streets. After Katrina, however, they are helping the smaller, frailer, and older get out of New Orleans alive – what the state and federal authorities failed to do, the movie can’t help pointing out.

According to characters in the film, help from either the state or National Guard did not materialize for days, and when the military did arrive, their priorities leaned more toward safeguarding property than providing relief. A confrontation between residents and armed soldiers over the use of an abandoned Navy base is told from multiple perspectives; unfortunately, the military never quite comes out looking pristine in either telling.

Occasionally, the tone gets a little too snarky, such as when a soldier’s comment that “civilians don’t know the basics of survival” is juxtaposed with Scott’s story of breaking into a high school and stealing food from vending machines. The gut reaction is to respond, “Hey, it may be vandalism, but they all survived, didn’t they?”

If “Trouble the Water” has a potential flaw, it isn’t the human dramas captured by Lessin, Deal, or Kimberly Roberts, the latter an aspiring rap artist whose impromptu performance of a song called “Amazing” provides the film its emotional catharsis. Rather, it’s the fact Lessin and Deal have a history working with documentary-maker Michael Moore, whose mention in the press notes alone raises questions about a possible liberal bias. Does it feel as if more effort could have gone into getting the Bush administration’s side of why the response supposedly went badly? Maybe, but there’s no denying the power of the Roberts’ footage, and lest we forget, they are the ones who lived through the storm.

Overall rating: ***1/2 (out of ****)

VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA (2008), dir. Woody Allen

A character remarks to Cristina (Scarlett Johansson), who has spent the last six months directing a short film about love: “That’s a mighty big subject to handle in 12 minutes.” It’s no easier in 97, which is the running time for “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.” But that’s probably the point; despite trading in Manhattan and London for Spain’s picturesque cities and countryside, like Allen’s other relationship comedies, his latest is concerned with the elusive nature of love, how, as he himself put it once: “The heart wants what it wants.”

Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina, two Americans abroad, are best friends with very different attitudes and expectations about love. The former, who has come to Barcelona to do research for her Master’s thesis, plays it safe and as such, is engaged to a boring-but-nice yuppie back home. Cristina, on the other hand, is recently single and on the lookout for love of the fiery kind. After exchanging glances with an intense-looking artist named Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), the trio has another change encounter, at which point he propositions them to spend the weekend with him.

Cristina readily accepts, Vicky begrudgingly to keep her friend out of trouble. Once all the dialogue regarding how Cristina could possibly find his come-on attractive dies down, what follows resembles a Merchant-Ivory production, thanks in no small part to the most adventurous cinematography in an Allen film since “Husbands and Wives” (Indeed, this could be the first time he’s ever used gauzy camera work – seemingly the tell-tale sign of adult sophistication) and the Americans abroad plot. The sights of Barcelona and Oviedo are used to particularly-romantic effect, with fountains, churches, and in one key scene, the famous Tibidabo Amusement Park practically standing-in as characters.

But at its heart, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” is, like “Annie Hall” and “Manhattan,” a relationship movie where the plot goes hand-in-hand with the characters’ psychologies. As such, even after some unexpected hitches and emotional upheavals, Vicky and Cristina continue pursuing what they want, or believe they have always wanted. That, in turn, either takes them to the next logical step in their own respective relationships, back into orbit with one another, or into the company of new characters, such as Juan Antonio’s brilliant, but unstable wife Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz, stunningly dressed-down).

The rest of the cast does uniformly good work as well, moving comfortably with the ebb and flow of a screenplay where events don’t necessarily happen as we expect. But we always have a good idea what the characters are thinking (also due to voice-over narration by Christopher Evan Welch, which actually seems unnecessary and intrusive at times), so the movie never feels dishonest. The end result is comedy and verbal sparring, romance, personal angst, postcard settings, and an underlying message as well, that it’s human nature to long for what we cannot have, and to long for something else once we get what we want. Viewers may long for something more than that seemingly-anti-cathartic lesson, but in the end, the movie is only 97 minutes.

Overall rating: ***1/2 (out of ****)

QUITTING (2001), dir. Zhang Yang

There has been no shortage of drug movies in recent years, but this one is noteworthy, mainly because of how the material is presented. Despite a plot that sounds like standard movie-of-the-week fare – the real-life story of actor Jia Hongsheng’s struggle with heroin addiction – the end result is engrossing. Part of that immediacy comes from director Yang’s decision to take the phrase “art imitating life” at its most literal, casting Hongsheng and his family as themselves in what amounts to a re-enactment of their personal Hell.

“Quitting” chronicles the four years during which Hongsheng’s parents and sister moved in with him, provided for his needs, and tried to help him break free of drug addiction and depression, twin demons that left him disassociated from the outside world. Once a moderately-successful film actor, he had not taken a role in years, instead secluding himself in his apartment to watch television and listen to music. Starting at the protagonists’ lows before crawling toward redemption, “Quitting” shows the family contending with Hongsheng’s unpredictable mood swings, their own stability as a unit exceedingly threatened by his anti-social behavior, which includes verbal and physical violence.

But as unsettling as the movie can get at times, director Yang, who is known for his humane attitude, is less interested in the visceral aspects of conflict, concentrating more on the insides of his characters’ heads. In the case of Hongsheng, he cuts in voice-overs and interviews with his present self, ultimately humanizing the monster into a beast we can partially understand: his urge for higher levels of experience, enthusiastic embrace of western culture, and rage against his parents’ more traditional, bucolic ways turning out to be derived from something as ordinary as a yearning to be special, itself a response to personal insecurities.

Meanwhile, as Hongsheng’s parents do everything we expect of nosy parents, we are made privy to their secret conversations and de-stabilizing of their relationship, how their strictness and nagging turns out to be counterbalanced by the unthinkable: growing fear of their own blood. Given that all these actors are really playing themselves, the performances take on an eerie life of their own; the scene in which Hongsheng, drunk, starts slapping around his father feels especially traumatic. Fortunately, the director chose to frame “Quitting” as a movie about a play, which in turn, is about real-life-events, and whenever things get too intense, Yang pulls back the camera to reveal how this is all theater, which provides the necessary emotional distance.

Some may complain about using such a device at all, but stage drama does take its power from unfolding real life before the audience’s eyes, which is the same effect Yang achieves through his casting. Admittedly, it can be awkward getting used to it at first, as is attempting to empathize with Hongsheng’s self-absorbed, ungrateful young man, but one comes away respecting his willingness not to be likeable. As Hongsheng himself learns about going cold turkey, sticking with “Quitting” long-term is a good decision.

Overall rating: ***1/2 (out of ****)

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FELLINI – SATYRICON (1969), dir. Federico Fellini

Here is ancient Rome envisioned by someone with a fever in his brain, and as it happens, Fellini was recovering from a serious illness when he picked up Petronius’ novel Satyricon, and found the inspiration for this depraved, fantastic film.

It should be noted the original novel only exists in pieces. Rather than try and rebuild it, Fellini left the narrative gaps in, and as a result, “Fellini – Satyricon” has a disconnected, dreamlike quality. It is effective nonetheless: we are haunted by its images and sounds; a hollow chime, which reappears throughout the movie, will heretofore be implanted upon the brain. But ask how various scenes of visual opulence are connected, and I could not tell you. As best I can figure, the plot involves two young Romans (Martin Potter, Hiram Keller) who may be scholars or artists, vying for the affections of a younger, androgynous-looking boy (Max Born).

These characters not so much travel as are magically shunted to various locales: a lavish bacchanalia, a galley ship full of captured slaves, into the desert helping kidnap an albino prophet, and face-to-face with the legendary Minotaur. Some amazing costumes are provided by Danilo Donati (who collaborated with Fellini numerous times), and production designer Luigi Scaccianoce’s sets include a building that resembles the Guggenheim Museum crossed with Dante’s Circles of Hell.

Meanwhile, Fellini and cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno try to fit as many garish colors, layers of detail, and strangely-shaped faces and bodies into the frame as possible. Entire background shots are crammed full of people, and at certain times, they are coordinated with a precision that seems mind-boggling. Luckily, the filmmakers also provide a few stark, intriguing moments to keep the feeling of being fatally-overstuffed at bay: panoramic shots of deserts and coasts, the two male leads cavorting with an exotic woman they find inside a cave.

Like many Fellini movies, an earthiness balances out the beauty, but we are not just talking griminess. Characters shout at one another, belch, and lust in such a way that reflects their vigor for living. However, despite how fantastic the whole production is, there is great darkness here, too, as “Fellini – Satyricon” shows the dangers of excess, and explores man’s potential for limitless appetite.

The most powerful and successful secondary characters are depicted as willing to cross what viewers might consider ethical boundaries for art and experience sake: a great actor cuts off somebody’s hand as part of his stage act; a famous poet drinks himself stupid, carries on with a young boy in front of his wife, and has another guest beaten; the emperor himself, who remains unseen, orders boats to sail forth acquiring slaves for his pleasure.

Granted, laws existed in the ancient world, and the historical accuracy of “Fellini – Satyricon” could probably be debated, but the underlying question is a universal one: Can we live our lives solely for seeking pleasure? The movie dramatizes this question by involving the two main protagonists in what is essentially a pointless second half, carried along by exterior forces, greed, or lust. Naturally, when one develops sexual dysfunction, the quest for a cure becomes all-consuming (and leads to that whole fighting the Minotaur-thing – in a labyrinth, no less!). Fellini does tend to reflect his own insecurities in his art, and the theme of male potency reappears in his “City of Women” more than a decade later, but if anything, that only proves the universality of the earlier question.

I am not saying everyone will love this movie. You might argue it’s nothing more than the director indulging his subconscious through a parade of pretty trash, followed by sexually-charged nonsense. My response is: that’s all accurate, but that’s also the whole point.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

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ULTRAVIOLET (2006), dir. Kurt Wimmer

Based on the opening credits, “Ultraviolet” is supposed to resemble a comic book adaptation, but frankly, it contains everything one could expect from an Asian action flick. Of course, one could argue since the turn of the century, Asian cinema has been overwhelmingly influenced by “The Matrix” series, in which the camera became progressively more innovative, and so it is no surprise finding the lens moving through solid objects here, as well as framing special effects-laden sequences of elaborate mayhem from all crazy angles.

Nor is it shocking to see the use of “bullet-time,” the process pioneered by the makers of “The Matrix,” wherein the action proceeds in slow-motion but the camera does not. In “Ultraviolet,” writer-director Kurt Wimmer does try and mix things up, partially filming the “bullet-time” scene through the point-of-view of an actual bullet, which gets fired at the movie’s central fighting machine played by Milla Jovovich.

Aside from the choreography in some of these one-versus-many scenarios, most traces of creativity are visible in the costumes and production design of Wimmer’s otherwise routine dystopia film. Give him credit, though, for conceiving of giant bowling balls transforming into ninjas; weapons that fold out of wristbands; and something called an “anti-gravity” well, which can turn reality upside-down for both the protagonists and viewers; and all that’s just in the first half-hour.

Unfortunately, once the ultra-cool Violet – get it? – gets saddled with a cute little boy (Cameron Bright), you can pretty much plot the trajectory of her character from dismemberer to nurturer. Six, as the tyke is named, may represent a threat to Violet’s genetically-engineered, vampire-like race, but he’s also a call from the past, a surrogate for the baby she lost during her labored origin. Naturally, she tries to keep Six at an emotional distance while they’re on the run from an evil corporation, but her badass-hood is no match for maternal instinct, and it isn’t very long before her would-be callousness merely resembles a single mom’s tough love.

Luckily, there isn’t too much schmaltz, as the movie, in keeping with its resemblance to Asian cinema, is heavy on action but light on characterization. Indeed, conversations between Violet and the supporting cast are kept to the necessary minimum, and although we see two sides to Violet, everyone else – the child-like Six, the evil bad guy, the good friend – more-or-less fulfill types. No, there’s not much depth to “Ultraviolet,” but at least the surface visuals look cool. Maybe Wimmer can try adapting an actual comic book for his next project.

Overall rating: ** (out of ****)