In the midst of Movember, there are a number of men doing their best to spread awareness of men’s health issues with their burgeoning bristles. We at Way Too Indie fully support this “mo”vement — especially if it means that we all get to bask in the glory of millions of moustaches walking around us every day for a whole month. Whether you’ve already got an illustrious comb or you’re just straining to sprout something from a few of your follicles, if you are among the bros striving to grow your own facial man stamp, here’s a list of some of the best moustaches in movie history to keep you in the mood to “mo.”

Groucho Marx, Duck Soup

Among the most famous of moustaches, no ‘Best Of’ list would be complete without Groucho Marx’s trademark broomstache. Shaded by two equally substantial eyebrows, Groucho’s (obviously fake) facial hair was the rimshot to his every fast-flowing joke. Indeed, all one has to do is pick up a pair of those trademark fake nose glasses with attached moustache and anyone can be just as funny as he was. Sort of. [Ananda]

Charlie Chaplin, Modern Times

So Hitler’s toothbrush moustache is a shining example of how one person can ruin a fashion trend (and for the record, even the people of his time hated his look calling it rotzbremse or “snot brake”), but anyone who’s anyone knows Charlie Chaplin had it first, and he made it adorable. Swishing his ‘stache like a broom, he swept up audience’s hearts. And never one to pass up on a comedic opportunity, he went on to parody Hitler in The Great Dictator shortly after. [Ananda]

Frederick Loren, House on Haunted Hill

Because it’s the classiest of classic moves to have at the heart of a haunted house flick a mustachioed and sinister host. Vincent Price combines his wonderful lip crown with a pair of incredibly expressive eyebrows to deliver this most delightful performance. It almost makes you giddy. Yes, even you. [Scarlet]

Rhett Butler, Gone With the Wind

You might have thought it was his sparkling eyes or his darling dimple. But, no, it was most obviously that clever little moustache that kept Scarlett hanging on. Maybe Clark Gable didn’t give a damn, but you wouldn’t think so with how much time and devotion he would need to have taken every morning to keep that well groomed look of his so, well, groomed. [Scarlet]

Sentenza, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Ah, Angel Eyes. Nothing like a good twirly, villainous mustache to bring them out, too. Lee Van Cleef was proud of those beady eyes, his main moneymaker. But what better accessory to pair them with than this wonderful example of a mighty moustache? [Scarlet]

Don Vito Corleone, The Godfather 

Marlon Brando is proof positive that there is no need for a dude to be able to nurture a full fledged Yosemite Sam ‘stache in order to illicit the fear of god into those he may need to intimidate. For a good cause of course. Or, at least, family. [Scarlet]

Bandit, Smokey and the Bandit

There are few faces in this world that look downright wrong without their trademark manhandle, and Burt Reynolds is among those people. The Bandit’s smile wouldn’t seem so pearlescent without the accent of a big dark ‘stache. What happens when Burt tries to shave? Deliverance. Enough said. [Ananda]

Peter Mitchell, Three Men and A Baby

Yeah, they were all pretty manly, but there’s a reason Tom Selleck was the Alpha Male of this trio. That facial badge of his just gives him straight up authority among men and they all knew it. Even the baby. [Scarlet]

Hook, Hook

It’s hard to say which is more impressive about Dustin Hoffman’s thin and well-waxed moustache in Hook, the precise way it contrasts under his huge nose or the amazing ability Hoffman had to make it move like its own limb. Never in a movie has a close up on a ticking moustache been so sinister. We’re still getting chills. Good form, old man, good form. [Ananda]

Wyatt and Virgil Earp, Tombstone

Virgil’s moustache is definitely the huskier of the two, but it’s Kurt Russell’s clear blue eyes that would make anyone swoon. And making them pop with that glorious face trophy? It doesn’t help that it’s a perfect replica of something that actually existed in history. #heartbreaker [Scarlet]

The Stranger, The Big Lebowski

As the seminal narrator of The Big Lebowski, Sam Elliott gets very little actual screen time in the film as The Stranger. Which is why it’s even more impressive he made our list. His wisdom for The Dude is added very real depth by the measure of the walrus whiskers accenting his words. The grayness of it has the Gandalf effect of adding poise, even as he mutters such things as “the Dude abides” and “got any more of that good sarsaparilla?” [Ananda]

Bill “The Butcher” Cutting, Gangs of New York

There are villains, and then there are villains with truly impressive facial hair. Daniel Day-Lewis as Bill the Butcher was intimidating enough with his butcher knife and plaid pants, but he took it entirely next level by achieving that most rare of moustaches, what I call the full-bodied rounded point. Like a handlebar, but this version holds on to you. [Ananda]

Borat, Borat

While I would never really suggest anyone sitting through this movie, even for awareness’ sake, there is definitely something to be said for Sacha Baron Cohen’s heavy hitter of man-glory. This was a crowning achievement. How many words can I come up with for moustache? [Scarlet]

Jack, The Darjeeling Unlimited 

When it comes to hitting the facial follicle gene jackpot, Jason Schwartzman had all the right numbers. Jewish Italian pretty much guarantees him the ability to grow whatever kind of facial cover-up he desires. He may play the shortest and youngest of the three brothers, but his distinctive lip luggage gave him all the gravitas he needed.  [Ananda]

Walt Disney, Saving Mr. Banks

When it comes to thinner moustaches it’s (literally) a fine line between your John Waters pencil mark moustache, a pubescent boy’s first attempts at peach fuzz, and the charming subtlety of Walt Disney’s well-spaced bristle. But Tom Hanks definitely pulls it off (I mean, it’s Tom Hanks, he could probably pull off the toothbrush Hitler-look with his overabundance of radiating goodness). Maybe his magic came from the ‘stache? [Ananda]

Theodore, Her

We’re willing to give Joaquin Phoenix some credit and say that his piercing but sad eyes are what made his character so sympathizable in Her, but that common dude brostache added even more of a touch of the everyman. It’s only a shame the virtual Samantha never got to appreciate the comfort some solid lipholstery can bring.  [Ananda]

Charles Mortdecai, Mortdecai

And, coming in 2015, we will finally see Johnny Depp sporting the moustache he deserves.  As a redhead (can I say ginger?) no less.  But that’s your motivation for next year.  Stay strong, my friends. [Scarlet]

Want to contribute to the cause, or grow a ‘stache to support men’s health? Get involved and find details at the Movember website.

In light of Paul Greengrass’ Captain Phillips — in which Tom Hanks’ performance is the tip of an iceberg of Oscar winning collaborators involved in a terse, modern-day piracy movie — the far fewer-studded Danish thriller A Hijacking (Kapringen) has likely fallen by the wayside. My respect for Greengrass (despite Green Zone) aside, Captain Phillips draws few similarities to A Hijacking, even given the shared dramatic premise: white man’s (Danish, American) ship is hijacked by Somali pirates demanding obscene sums of money for hostages. Rather, what director Tobias Lindholm has achieved with A Hijacking seems counter to every trope from which more conventional Hollywood-backed thrillers (among which we can count Captain Phillips) are made.

Yet here are two remarkably gripping and effective movies that are unlikely to escape comparisons to one another, in spite of their vastly different formal and performative sensibilities. This is not a think-piece espousing upon a pious white hat-black hat division with regard to correct or incorrect filmmaking styles. I’m hoping instead to look at their differences as contributing factors to similarly white-knuckle viewing experiences: both have in common highly contemporary presentations of the medium, but in many respects the ways in which the stories are told form a kind of unmissable and inherent flag-waving for the aesthetic, moral and emotional values of their makers and subjects.

We can’t rush these people. Time is a Western thing. It means nothing to them.

A Hijacking

The titular act of hijacking in A Hijacking is never shown: the first clue that director Lindholm has other priorities. The importance is not in reliving the ordeal that young father and Cook Mikkel (Pilou Asbaek) and crew endured when their cargo ship was taken upon, but the fact that—cut—here they are, suddenly in a situation nobody expected and fewer are prepared for.

Back home in Copenhagen, CEO Peter Ludvigsen (Søren Malling) is busy caught between expert hostage-scenario negotiators, headed by frankly-speaking Brit Connor Julian (Gary Skjoldmose Porter), and a board of advisors within the company growing increasingly finicky about the political ramifications for their business as the situation grows increasingly — and unapologetically, with Lindholm’s dispassive tally of chronological title-carding through not days, but weeks and months — drawn out.

With a stoic, subdued but no less impressive performance for its restraint, Malling plays a man-in-charge in too far above his head, incapable and unwilling to let anyone see it. Advised by the experts to let the experts do the talking, Peter insists on negotiating with the pirates personally, feeling a responsibility and accountability for his men that is both heroic and, in a moment of both knowing and dread for the audience, foolhardy.

In extraordinary circumstances where human lives — their families and livelihoods — are reduced to seemingly meaningless numbers of dollars, the common gut reaction is to just give them what they want. That the expert negotiators insist on playing the riskiest hardball (a figure of millions demanded by the pirates is retorted by a nominal increase of tens of thousands to a base of mere hundreds of thousands, for example) is not a tactic driven by profits or money-saving, but a strategy of psychological chess-boarding that more emotionally-attached men like Peter struggle with. In numerous instances, Peter must hang up on a member of his crew begging for their life, offering a curt, dismissive “I will not discuss this with you,” when we can feel he is seeking nothing more than his own redemption through their safe release. Scenes showing Peter alone, before and after these calls, highlight the incredible toll they take and elicit genuine sympathy for the corporate bigwig in a suit. Lindholm understands, and makes us understand, that negotiations of this sort benefit little from bombastic threats or rash decisions: that sometimes silence speaks louder than words, even in the most extraordinary cases.

Onboard, the bargaining on behalf of the Somali pirates falls to interpretor Omar, in a chilling and terrific turn by Abdihakin Asgar both sympathetic and, on a whim, frightening. Omar insists, persistently, to Mikkel and crew that though he speaks their language and speaks for them, he is not one of them. In one scene in particular Mikkel crosses this line, a phone call to his wife dramatically turning into perhaps the most psychologically harrowing moment of the picture. It’s a reminder from Lindholm that regardless of the surface-level formality and sense of ordered, polite transactions he so effectively and unflashily portrays, A Hijacking is dealing with complex, subtextual exchanges of power; where every word selection, every second delayed in response, carries with it communicative consequences that impact the final negotiation.

The turn of events that lead to the resolution of conflicts may well be hardwired into the fact that the pirates understand humanity. But the undercutting of this moment, the closest A Hijacking comes to traditional sentimentality, in the coda brilliantly and daringly underscores that this is a film that remains attuned to the immeasurable and finally unpredictable chaos of the modern world.

If they find you, remember—you know this ship, they don’t.

Captain Phillips

For a director known for his ability to bring a frenetic urgency to action filmmaking, yet do so in a way that the viewer remains oriented and aware of the stakes, Captain Phillips must rate as one of Paul Greengrass’ most accomplished achievements. He showed with the cathartically powerful United 93 (2006) and in the more conventionally thrilling The Bourne Ultimatum (2007’s franchise high) a brand of you-are-there cinematography and rapid-fire editing that has become his signature, but equally found him detractors.

Greengrass’ is a cinema of seemingly mundane scenarios repeatedly revisited and cross-cut amidst a melange of other mundane scenarios, acutely aware and across all the tiny little details that are unraveling a greater narrative tension slowly building. It’s not everybody’s cup of tea, but regardless of whether you want to allow it to, it works. No filmmaker is better at depicting a good day gone bad than Greengrass, and Captain Phillips captures a good day gone particularly bad indeed for Richard Phillips (the inimitable Tom Hanks).

Working from a script by Billy Ray from Phillips’ own memoir, the witnessing of the buildup and inevitable hijacking of Maersk Alabama, the US Cargo ship sailing the Somali Coast, is paramount. It’s a partly dramatic and partly political directorial decision to provide such emphasis on the event: two skiffs approaching fast, one with a more motivated band of pirates than the other, dissuaded as the latter are by the perimeter of high-speed water jets brought up to defend the oncoming attack. Where the Europeans were content with a mere smash-cut to the sticky situation, Greengrass is here purposefully trying to provide an elongated context for Phillips’ heroism beyond whatever even he deemed himself capable: that here is a man who has worked his way to the top through a disciplined study of process and protocol, but that despite his best preparations the ship’s resources — and by extension the institutions that provided them — have failed him; that here is an instance where a man should be able to just reach for a fucking gun. But as marine regulations of the time (circa 2009) dictated all Cargo ships were to sail unarmed, Phillips is left to rely on his own resourcefulness and personality to try and reach a resolution in his interactions with Muse (impressive first-timer Barkhad Adbi), his Somali counterpart.

There is a gleeful sense of schadenfreude when Muse and his crew learn they’ve boarded an American ship, as if they’ve struck some kind of moral jackpot in doing so. Muse makes a habit of mocking Phillips’ Irish heritage, even as they grow to understand each other over the standoff; one of many knowingly cynical jabs at the status of the United States as a much-touted land of opportunity. When things invariably escalate to a point where both Phillips and Muse are backed into their corners, a desperation emerges in each that takes remarkably different forms. Muse finds himself in a life or death scenario: literally on a sinking, claustrophobic lifeboat, his hostage his only bargaining chip, his rag-tag band of pirates variously injured or frustratingly inept, losing hope but seeing no way forward but to commit to a fight he can’t win. Across the boat, we see in Phillips’ eyes the startling realisation that Muse is realising exactly this. As the almost cartoonishly Yankee-sounding S.E.A.L ‘negotiator’ cooly disseminates radio instruction with unfailingly exact protocol, syntax and procedure, we feel the weight of a land with seemingly infinite resources flexing its muscle, but doing so only as and when provoked in the appropriate manner. If the Somalis question the American Dream for non-Americans, there is no questioning this—the finality of the end, and the restoration, however momentary, of order to the modern world.

That we have so deeply related to Phillips is testament to the effortless niceness and rounded comprehensibility of Hanks as a presence and a performer. For all his brave and Big (pun intended) performances in the past, his Phillips resonates because he seems, this time, to be trying so very little; and similarly for all the prevailing America, Fuck Yeah! that can be felt in the inevitable third act, Greengrass too manages to make something subversive by dialing back the largess of the patriotic sentiment. Are our emphatic responses to the clinical efficiency of the Marines not motivated by the same impulses that caused a cackle when the Somalis realised they’d jumped an American ship? In Captain Phillips‘ understated, but unexpectedly moving final scene, Hanks unravels with a kind of ‘un’-acting acting that brandishes any semblance of method, technique, or studied process, and which brings the film to a thematic and experiential converging: we are right there, with him, like him, not knowing where we are — or where we stand.

Cloud Atlas is a big film by all definitions; it contains an inordinate amount of characters spread out across hundreds of years, making the shear scope of the production epic. Not to mention the estimated budget of 100 million dollars (though it was independently financed outside the studio). To pull off such an ambitious feat, the film split the directorial duties among a trio of film visionaries, Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) and the Wachowskis siblings (Andy and Lana, The Matrix trilogy). However, Cloud Atlas’ biggest accomplishment may also be its biggest flaw; the overloaded plotlines are never boring, but at times they can be too much to follow.

When characters are first introduced in the opening sequence, one of them in particular seems to be speaking directly to the audience. That character is an older man (Jim Broadbent) on a typewriter who describes his time spent as an editor has made him dislike gimmicky storytelling involving flashbacks and flashforwards. But he goes on to say that if you have some patience you can then see that there is a method to its madness. That whole scene only lasts a few moments before going on to the next introduction, but it almost seemed to be begging the viewer to embrace what is about to unfold.

The plea to be patient between the back and forth storytelling proved to be necessary as Cloud Atlas contains six different time periods, each with their own plotline and characters. While everything happens in linear fashion in each time period, the film does jump between the six different time periods at will. Even though there are six different storylines, similar themes and characters are shared across them all, making everything connected to each other. The film brilliantly shifts from one period to another by using cleaver scene transitions. One example of this is when the thundering sound of horses galloping from one era leads into the next with a similar sound of a train racing on its tracks.

Cloud Atlas spans across several hundreds of years, ranging from the 1800s to the 2300s and several years in between as well. In the earliest setting of 1850, Adam (Jim Sturgess) is a wealthy pro-slavery American Lawyer who is poisoned by a corrupt doctor (Tom Hanks) for his fortune. He eventually switches his stance on slavery when a slave saves his life. In 1931, an upcoming composer (Ben Whisaw) works closely under one of the best known composers of the time (Jim Broadbent), but fears that his original masterpiece will be wrongfully claimed by his famous superior. Set in the 1970s, the daughter of a famous reporter, Luisa Rey (Halle Berry), is an investigative journalist who is looking to prove herself by uncovering a corrupt business leader (Hugh Grant). In the year 2012, a publisher named Timothy (Jim Broadbent) finally makes it big when an author’s (Tom Hanks) book flies off shelves after he murders a book critic. A few men go after Timothy for his money, which he does not have, forcing him to ask his deceitful brother for a loan who instead offers him a safe house. But Timothy’s finds himself captive in a nursing home instead. A hundred years in the future, a slave restaurant waitress manages to escape from her captivity to start a revolution. The last storyline is set far into the future, a member of an advanced civilization (Halle Berry) teams up with an island tribesman (Tom Hanks) to help solve each other’s dilemmas.

The common theme that stiches the six tales together is the desire of freedom. No matter what age the character lives in, there is someone there that wants to restrict the amount of power and freedom you possess. During each stretch of time, characters are morally challenged to stand up for what they believe in.

Because most cast in the film got to play both the hero and the villain, Cloud Atlas must have been an actor’s fantasy. Take the numerous roles that Tom Hanks had in the film for an example. He wonderfully portrayed the crooked doctor back in the 1800s but got a chance to redeem himself later as a good scientist in a different time period. Hanks, like other fellow cast members, is sometimes unrecognizable at first because of the amazing makeup job that serves as a disguise to their age, ethnicity and even gender.

Cloud Atlas is an entertaining yet dense film that contains many wonderfully told stories which link together seamlessly. All the stories brilliantly peak at the same time, making for one epic climax, once you first let all the stories develop independently. It is easy to get caught up in the web of trying to make all the connections between the characters – making a repeat viewing seemingly necessary. However, the major themes and messages are apparent enough in the film without the requirement of multiple viewings; but you must accept that some of the finer details will likely get lost in the shuffle.

With the announcement earlier this week that the new film by directors The Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer, Cloud Atlas was going to have its world premiere at this year’s edition of The Toronto International Film Festival, a trailer was almost immediately released. And boy is it a stunner. With a story that looks to be spanning hundreds of years and an international cast to go along with it, Cloud Atlas will either be a gigantic success or complete mess. The cast is led by Tom Hanks and Halle Berry but also includes Susan Sarandon, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving and Hugh Grant.

The Wachowskis were last seen with the Speed Racer. A film that I felt was one of the most underrated films of the past decade. They of course are famous for directing the uneven Matrix trilogy. Tykwer is the German mastermind behind such ingenious work as Run Lola Run and The Princess and the Warrior. He also directed the mostly unseen The International.

All the talent behind and in front of the camera is here. The only problem is the film’s runtime. Word is that the studio wanted the directors to deliver a film no more than two and a half hours. Judging by this trailer (which itself is 3 times the length of most trailers) this could put a strain on the story of the film. Let’s hope these guys can deliver. But for now, check out the trailer below.

Watch the official trailer for Cloud Atlas: