Our Hearts were Young and Gay

It's strange sometimes how two films within a single week's viewing complement each other by throwing a different light on the same theme.  The contrasting films here are the highly-considered "A Single Man" (2009) directed and written by the designer Tom Ford and the Italian flick "Loose Cannons" (2010) directed by the Turkish-born, Italy-based Ferzon Ozpetek.  Both concern the life choices of gay men, but they could not be more different in their approach to the subject.

Based on a novel by Christopher Isherwood, it has taken me a while to get around to watching the Ford film, for which lead actor Colin Firth was Oscar-nominated.  It portrays one day in the life of his buttoned-up academic, a day on which he contemplates ending it all, having been in mourning for the past year for the sudden death of his lover of sixteen years in a motor accident.  He goes about his daily routine at the university, but takes time out to write a number of suicide notes, arrange documents concerning his assets in tidy piles, laying out the clothes for his funeral including specific instructions on the correct knot for his tie, and practices different angles for best shooting himself.  After a boozy evening with good friend and neighbour Julianne Moore, he postpones the final act by going to a local bar, where he again encounters one of his students, Nicholas Hoult, with whom he had a cryptic conversation earlier in the day.  Hoult was first noticed in the Hugh Grant starrer "About a Boy" (2002), but now at twenty has matured into a singularly pretty young man.  This does not go unnoticed by Firth, who takes him back to his ever-so-modern and chilly house, puts aside all the suicide paraphenalia, and then promptly SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER drops dead with a heart attack, just as the possibilities for a renewed love of life have presented themselves.

There is something ever so cold, calculated, and clinical about the entire movie.  While beautiful to watch and with an immaculate performance from Firth, the film remains, like its creator, a designer triumph, but cold and bloodless with it.

"Loose Cannons" (not to be confused with the 1990 comic cop caper starring Dan Aykroyd and Gene Hackman) is a slightly messy, but very winning comedy-drama.  I've not seen any of Ozpetek's earlier films apart from his excellent first flick "Hamam: The Turkish Bath" (1997), but I gather his later Italian-made movies often focus on gay themes. Here we follow the story of heart-throb Riccardo Scamarcio (best-known to us for his lead role in the film version of "Romanzo Criminale" in 2005 but also amongst the large cast in the Woody Allen flick reviewed below).  He is the youngest child of an extended family of pasta-manufacturers, living in Lecce, a small city in the Southern heel of Italy.  Having just returned from his business studies in Rome, he comes out to his older brother, saying that he does not want to get involved in the family business, but wishes to return to his friends in Rome to pursue his writing ambitions.  However, at dinner that evening, with the entire family in attendance including his matriarch grandmother and his dotty aunt, his brother uses the opportunity to come out first, promptly giving his homophobic father a mild heart attack and lumbering our young hero with responsibility for the factory -- the older brother now having been disowned and the sister married to a no-goodnik despised by her parents. His parents believe him to be 'straight' especially since the young and beautiful new female executive at the factory seems to fancy him.

Nothing could be further from the truth as we can observe for ourselves when a carload of his Rome friends arrive for a short visit, including his actual own love interest.  They are as camp a bunch as you could imagine, but try to maintain appearances before the staid family -- although grandma, the sister, and even the gorgeous executive can soon see through the charade. The grandmother, beautifully played by Ilaria Ochcini, is in fact the most interesting and modern-thinking character.  The present-day action is cut with her back-story starting with her wedding day, where it becomes appparent that she will proceed with the planned ceremony despite the fact that she is madly in love with the groom's brother.  The implication is that he too is not interested in female company in a sexual way, but the pair remain soulmates throughout his remaining years. Of all the family she is the most tolerant of her grandchildren, regardless of their shortcomings.  In the end (another SPOILER here), she dies after dolling herself up and stuffing herself with all of the forbidden sweet foods forbidden her as a diabetic. At her funeral we can see the first signs of the family finding a way to reconcile their differences, and the end scene of the various characters from both the past and present dancing together and changing partners is joyous to behold.

Given my druthers, this is the film which I would select to promote gay sensibilites, rather than the beautifully-composed but empty world portrayed by Mr. Ford.

To Rome with Love (2012)

I've said it before and no doubt (hopefully) I'll say it many times again: I have a lot of time and a heightened degree of tolerance for Woody Allen films.  Over the last ten to twenty years, the naysayers have been proclaiming (with the exception that proves the rule, last year's "Midnight in Paris") that his latest movie is his 'worst one ever'.  I can not hope to convince the sceptics, but I know in my heart that his legion of faithful fans perseveres.

His latest film after a run of love letters to London, Barcelona, and Paris, is of course set in the Eternal City, and Allen marks the occasion by giving us beautiful panoramic views many steps above a mere travelogue and also manages to incorporate a medley of Italian musical favourites from "Volare" and "That's Amore" through grand opera.  The film is some twenty minutes longer than his average, uses a vast army of generally unknown Italian actors, and even has the audacity to present a good proportion of the flick in Italian with (horror) subtitles -- which in itself is enough to put off the Allen-knockers. While the film is certainly not amongst his very best, it is still highly entertaining and provides the requisite dose of laughs, particularly when Allen's own character is on screen. 

There are four separate story-lines, each vaguely about love in its many forms, that unexpectedly do not intertwine.  Two of these are completely in Italian and two are in English.  The main tale concerns Allen as a retired opera director who travels to Rome with his psychiatrist wife Judy Davis (never missing an opportunity to throw little digs at Allen's various neuroses) to meet the parents of the left-wing lawyer whom their beloved daughter, Alison Pill, has met, fallen in love with, and plans to marry.  They live in the apartment behind his father's mortuary -- occasioning a run of gags from Allen regarding both his fear of flying and his fear of death.  The meeting is not going too well until Allen hears the magnificent tenor of the mortician as he sings in the shower. He becomes obsessed with the idea of bringing this great talent to an appreciative audience, but when he discovers that his reluctant discovery can not sing outside this familiar setting, he stages an opera where every scene has his lead singing from a movable shower stall.  This is the same director who once staged an opera with the cast dressed as white mice! While the undertaker receives glowing reviews, impresario Allen is described as an imbecile -  which, since he speaks no Italian, he takes as a glowing compliment. While the gag may have been done before somewhere, these scenes are hilarious.

The second American story was to me the least satisfactory, although it had its moments.  Jesse Eisenberg is an architectural student living in Rome with girlfriend Greta Gerwig (a current critic's darling who normally raises my hackles, but who is fine in a subdued role here); her neurotic friend Ellen Page comes to stay and prepares to win away Eisenberg's affections with her non too subtle mix of pseudo-intellectual pretensions and make-believe sexuality.  Alec Baldwin, an older successful architect whom Eisenberg meets, initially as a real character, morphs into a fly on the wall proffering advice and admonitions to Eisenberg who has become the embodiment of his younger self.  A cute idea, but one that would have worked better if the usually likeable Page wasn't so annoying here.

The first of the two Italian story is a semi-homage to Fellini's "The White Sheik" where a provincial couple (they claim to be from Pordenone, home of a famous silent film festival) have come for their honeymoon.  He is to meet some influential cousins who will help his career prospects.  While she goes out and becomes more and more lost looking for a hairdresser, he is mistaken for a client of belle du jour Penelope Cruz, bursting out of her skimpy red dress, who has been gifted an afternoon of her attentions. In burst his relatives and he tries hopelessly to pass her off as his wife. Meanwhile his real wife has fallen in with a film crew making a movie with one of her many film idols and she is tempted into his hotel bedroom by his cajoling flattery. Both of them manage to be unfaithful to the other, in not necessarily expected ways, and decide in the end to return to their boring small-town life.

The second and possibly more successful Italian strand stars Roberto Benigni who can be one of the most annoying screen clowns of our era.  However his role here fitted him like a glove and had some piercing comments to make about the nature of celebrity.  He is your average Joe jobsworth, living a quiet life with his dowdy wife and two children.  Out of the blue and for no discernible reason, he leaves his house one day to a crowd of photographers and interviewers who seem determined to follow him everywhere and hang on his every word as something of profound wisdom.  What did he eat for breakfast? What kind of bread? Was it toasted? Does he wear boxer shorts? and so on, as if these replies would seal the fate of the world.  At first he shrinks from this unwanted attention and the glittering invitations he receives, to say nothing of the hordes of glamorous females who suddenly crave his body, but he soon takes it all for granted. Then one morning his crowd of admirers spot another nonentity in the road and switch their attentions to him. Having tasted undeserved fame, Benigni soon misses all the attention and his usually hyper personality works well in this parable on the emptiness of modern-day celebrity.

Carry on making these confections, Woody!  Long may you wave!  I know I am not alone in waiting to discover how you next will tickle our funny bone.

Albatross (2011)

Before I get to the topic at hand, I find that I've some undone business; I also find that I am no longer able to count from one to ten!  After my first FrightFest review, I wrote that there were nine films left to consider, but I somehow only managed to mention eight of them in my second column. So what did I miss? Only one of the more unforgettable screenings, although to my warped perception not necessarily one of the best, namely the Soska Sisters' "American Mary".  These two young Canadian sisters (twins actually), Jen and Sylvia, are revered in certain quarters for their first feature "Dead Hooker in a Trunk".  This is something of a cult item for self-appointed pundits like Eli Roth; personally I found it a pile of unwatchable, juvenile rubbish.

Their most recent production, which has now been taken up by one of the major studios for distribution, is the story of medical student and aspiring surgeon Mary Mason, played by the "Ginger Snaps" break-out actress Katharine Isabelle.  Plagued by financial problems and after being doped and raped at a party hosted by her previously revered instructors, she falls into the shady world of body modification surgery.  There is apparently a parallel population of weirdos who are prepared to pay big money for unthinkable alterations to their flesh.  Isabelle embraces this underground world with a kind of insouciant nonchalance which is amusing at first, but which soon becomes tiresome. Among her clientele are the Soskas themselves who wish to exchange body parts -- an arm for an arm as it were.  No doubt this film will also attract a cult following, but I'm afraid that I won't be among them.  And just out of curiosity why is a Canadian-made film by a pair of Canadian sisters and starring a Canadian actress called "American" anything?  Are we to assume that Americans by definition are more prone to freakdom than their sober Canadian neighbours?

Back to the present.  I had originally intended to write about "One Day" (2011).  The book by David Nicholls, which I have read, was enormously popular here; it follows two Edinburgh University acquaintances, Emma and Dexter, who hook up on their July 15 graduation day for a non-sexual encounter and it then focuses on their respective lives on the same date for the next twenty years or so. Their individual successes, failures, foibles, and attempts to find love are well-charted, and the reader waits for the day when the two finally realise they are hopelessly in love and emotionally bound to each other.  The author himself adapted his book for the screen, but the rolling years and events had a bitty feel to them. Emma is played by the American actress Anne Hathaway, presumably for box-office potential, and her slipping Yorkshire accent is less of a problem than the relative lack of chemistry between her and the male lead Jim Sturgess.  If you've not read the novel, the film is possibly an acceptable alternative, but a far lesser pleasure.

I was not expecting anything too special from "Albatross", one of Sky's premiers of the week which fell into the category of 'Where do they find them?', since it certainly made no impact at the box office. It was however something of a pleasant surprise, a quirky coming of age story, with a remarkably starry cast.  Julia Ormond (she who was quickly killed off two reviews ago) is married to German writer Sebastian Koch (immediately recognizable from "The Lives of Others" and Paul Verhoeven's "Black Book").  He had a major publishing success at an early age, the proceeds of which purchased the seaside bed and breakfast establishment that Ormond runs, but he has struggled with writer's block ever since, spending most of the day masturbating in front of his laptop.  They have two daughters, 17-year old Felicity Jones (who has been having her own break-out success recently) who is studying hard, hoping to enter Oxford, and a bratty, precocious 6-year old whom Ormond is trying to thrust into show-business to compensate for her own earlier glory days as an actress.  Into their lives as a chambermaid comes young 'Selena Molina the Cleaner', real name Emilia Conan-Doyle, who believes she is the great-granddaughter of Sir Arthur and that she has writing in her blood. Emilia is played by Jessica Brown Findlay in her first big-screen role and steals every scene from the more experienced cast.  She is apparently one of the stars of the television series "Downton Abbey", but since I have never watched this, she was a revelation.

She befriends the young and inhibited Jones, helping her to break out of her introversion, manages to consistently tick off the shrewish Ormond, and unthinkingly starts an affair with Koch who is theoretically helping her learn to write.  While she obviously has some talent, she delights in copying passages from the works of well-known writers for him to critique and delights in his pretensions in managing to negatively criticise all of them.  Her flaky mother who encouraged the Conan-Doyle connection has committed suicide and she lives with her grandparents, a dementia-suffering grandma and grandpa the lovely Peter Vaughan.  After the former's death, he finally admits that her long-gone father was indeed called Doyle, but the rest of it was a figment of her mother's imagination, and that the baggage we each carry is our own albatross.  All hell finally breaks loose when Ormond thinks Jones is pregnant -- all part of Emilia's bad influences -- and the Emilia-father affair becomes known to the rest of the family.  Dad is thrown out of the house and Emilia becomes persona-non-grata all round.  But as Koch prepares to drive Jones up to Oxford, and as we realise that Emilia has now successfully penned her first novel, a glimmer of grown-up realisation softens the faces of both girls.

The film is a quite well-done, an amusing yet serious study of family relationships and the pains of facing the adult world.  It is however geographically confusing; meant to be set in a small mainland English resort town, it was actually financed by the Isle of Man Film Board or whatever and shot on that island with its distinctive, majestic scenery -- not that this detracted from the tale. All in all, however, well worth seeking out.

Frightfest the 13th - Part Two

Only because I said I would, I am now committed to finishing my recollections of FrightFest, even if one or two of the movies have now slipped into the 'I wonder what that was all about' category. Anyhow let me deal with the remaining four British films first.

The organisers, quite rightly I suspect, feel they must give some prominence to British entries in their horror-cum-fantasy selection.  If the truth be known, we often avoid watching these if there is an alternate possibility in the Discovery sidebar theatre.  I'd be hard-pressed to explain this prejudice.  It's partly because they often seem less original than other countries' output and partly because I know, realistically, that many of them will soon receive a cinema or TV release here and that it will therefore be easy to catch up with them. In fact two of the remaining four have already been released this week.

The opening film "The Seasoning House" falls more into the category of a horrible storyline rather than straightforward horror. The directorial debut of make-up and splatter guru Paul Hyett, the tale is set in a Balkan brothel during war-torn days. It is populated by kidnapped girls kept in a drug-induced stupor and forced to endure continued sexual violence from both soldiers and civilians.  Our little heroine is a mute orphan who has seen her family slain and who is treated as something of a pet by the cruel head pimp.  In a breakthrough role, young actress Rosie Day scuttles in the crawlspaces of the house, tending to the girls, watching, learning, and planning her escape -- but not before meting out her own form of justice to the nasty group of soldiers, led by Sean Pertwee, who massacred her family.  Harrowing and rather unpleasant stuff, with a unhappy sting in the tail.  The closing film "Tower Block" was also some distance from a horror film pure and simple.  It concerns the residents of the top floor of a soon to be demolished government block of flats, waiting their turn to be rehoused, being picked off one by one by an unseen sniper.  Our feisty heroine is the ubiquitous Sheridan Smith, who seems to be flavour-of-the-month here, as she leads their diminishing number down to the ground floor and safety. The role enables her to flex her would-be action muscles, but the whole scenario and its ultimate explanation verged on the unbelievable. 

As for the two films which have now been widely released here, my reactions didn't quite agree with those of the local critics.  The first, with the unlikely comic title of "Cockneys vs Zombies" was a patchy business, but not without a certain charm.  When construction workers uncover a sealed ancient burial site, they unleash a subsequent plague of zombies (ho hum).  Fighting the growing horde of the living dead are a bunch of youngsters with little charisma and the residents of an old people's care home (also about to be demolished in the name of progress).  These include such cinema stalwarts as Honor Blackman, Richard Briers, Dudley Sutton, and Alan Ford, whose armed response tickled my old funny bone.  And there was one scene of Briers on his zimmer frame shuffling along to outrun the even more shuffling zombies that is bound to become a classic. The second film and one that I was quite looking forward to was "Berberian Sound Studio", which has been reaping lavish praise all round.  Set in Italy in the seventies when Italian horror and giallo were at their peak, it's the story of a mild-mannered introverted Englishman, nicely embodied by character actor Toby Jones, hired to work on the post-production sound effects on a particularly nasty example of the genre.  Apart from the front credits, we never actually see the movie in question, but its talk about witches, goblins, and extreme sadism begin to turn Jones' sensitive nature into something rather more unstable, as he hacks away at vegetables to achieve the necessary splatter noises and turns up the amps to get more convincing screams. With its not-so-sly references to the Italian horror scene of the time, I had expected something rather more interesting, but watching Jones' psychological collapse just didn't do it for me nor did the film's ambiguous ending.

Italian movie-making of that period was also the theme of the American documentary "Eurocrime!", which dealt with another strand of Italian cinema history, often ignored. Following on from Spaghetti Westerns, crime movies inspired by the like of "Dirty Harry" provided work for many second-string Hollywood actors and also created home-grown stars. These quickie hit-or-miss productions, ripped from the headlines, were filmed with rough bravado and with the actors being asked to do their own dangerous stunts, and were churned out by the dozen. The doc featured surviving talking heads like Henry Silva, John Saxon, Richard Harrison, and Franco Nero and was a fascinating compilation of an all but forgotten genre. I can't now say much about another American film "After", also receiving its UK premiere, since it was yet another story of two isolated survivors from some inexplicable disaster, who must bond together as their fragile world seems to be closing in -- and that's about all that's stayed with me. The programme blurb suggests that it was better than this -- maybe watching it was all a dream!

"Chained" was the latest offering from David Lynch's daughter Jennifer, which while infinitely superior to her first terribly-slated film "Boxing Helena", was again nasty, without being overly graphic, and which again had a frankly unbelievable denouement.  Serial killer taxi-driver Vincent D'Onofrio kidnaps and kills young Tim's mother (a blink or you might miss role for former A-lister Julia Ormond) and keeps the lad chained to pallet in his remote home, where the boy grows to manhood witnessing his tormentor's bloodlust  and helping with the cellar burials-- a path which he is encouraged to follow when D'Onofrio decides that Tim needs some sexual awakening. Finally there was "The Possession" an American movie from the Scandinavian director Ole Bornedal, produced by horror supremo Sam Raimi. The most positive thing I can say about this film was that it was probably the most polished and slickly produced of all of the weekend's movies -- Raimi's experience certainly showed and the slam-bang ending was strictly from his "Drag Me to Hell" school of shocks.  The actual story concerns weekend-father of two Jeffrey Dean Morgan, divorced from wife Kyra Sedgwick, who must face the disruption of a dybbuk when his younger daughter acquires and becomes obsessed by an antique wooden box with Hebrew inscriptions.  It was all rather well done but in the end a little forgettable.

So there we go!  Now the real mystery is whether or not this is my last FrightFest report.  Tune in next year for the answer to this puzzle, although I trust we will meet in the interim.

Frightfest the 13th - Part One

I hate writing this, but I think I may be coming to the end of an era. After faithfully attending all (or initially part) of this 'horror' fest for the last thirteen years -- and before that when it was a shorter weekend event at the National Film Theatre -- I may have reached my satiation point.  I still thrill to discovering an inventive horror or fantasy movie, but I no longer have the stamina to sit through an assortment of dross in search of the odd gem.  My weary old bones have started to rebel.  Last year we decided to stay at a nearby hotel in order to see the late-night selections without a mad rush to catch the last train home, but were rather disappointed with them -- apart from the increasing difficulty of keeping our eyes, ears, and brain open.  So this year we decided to 'limit' our viewing and only managed to see 19 films over the four and a half days.  I suppose that's still pretty impressive going, but unfortunately too many of the movies failed to warrant the time. So next year, who knows...

Unfortunately those nineteen included three of the worst films I have ever forced myself to sit through, eight which I thought so-so at best, leaving only eight that I found more or less praiseworthy.  Of these, there were a mere three that I would choose to watch again. I will attempt to write something about all of them over this and the next entry, and it will not be difficult for you to work out which were the bummers, which were the tolerable, and which were amongst the best:

I had been actually looking forward to "Nightbreed: The Cabal Cut", since the 1990 release of Clive Barker's fantasy was amazing albeit confusing viewing.  A couple of bright boffins decided to locate all of the fabled missing footage to pad out the theatrical print to better reflect Barker's original vision before it was hacked about by the studio, with the original 97 minute movie spun out to 153 minutes! It's a pity that they did this by inserting barely watchable video footage (in fact much of it looked like fourth generation footage) into the existing film.  I was under the impression that it is now possible to clean and sharpen videotape into something approaching modern standards, but this was not done here, leaving me with headache-inducing viewing, none of which made the storyline any clearer or more convincing. On the one hand I wish them well with what now seems an unnecessary restoration, but there is much to be done before they have a worthwhile or even viewable conclusion to their quest.

Frankly, I've had it up to here with scratchy found-footage films. The 'World Premiere' of the Irish film "The Inside" was both bad and painful to watch.  A bunch of gals celebrating their friend's birthday at an abandoned warehouse (why???) decide to document the evening on videocam and face violent vagrants and satanists in the next hours -- at least I think that's what was going on as the camera recorded the unmerry mayhem in the dim light.  Then there was the UK premiere of the much-hyped U.S. compendium "V/H/S", consisting of intermingled video footage by six varyingly "talented" directors, none of which was particularly scary, gory, or gruesome. After these three there was no way we could bring ourselves to watch the Spanish film "(Rec)3 Genesis", which again views the action through the eye of a camcorder.  Having seen the first two films in this series, I know well that I am in no rush to see this third entry, despite reviews claiming that it is rather more humorous than the preceding flicks.  I just may see it in due course -- but not this time around.

One thing that I've always like about Frightfest is the opportunity to see a number of non-English language films which may never receive any widespread distribution here.  Most of the other films we skip will, I know, eventually turn up on TV or DVD.  Despite the Far Eastern renaissance in horror film production, there was only one example in this year's programme, the jolly-sounding "Dead Sushi" (from Japan obviously) which was in a missed late-night slot and which I must therefore try to get hold of.  We did watch seven other 'foreign' films: three from Italy, one from the Netherlands, one from Germany (the best movie of the festival), one from Spain, and one from the unknown wilds of Chile.  The Chilean film "Hidden in the Woods", despite its exotic provenance was the least interesting of this bunch -- the sordid tale of an incestuous, drug-dealing dad living an 'eat-what-you-can-kill' existence in the wilderness with his two nubile daughters, and spawning a mutant feral son; if this makes it sound better (if this is the right word) than it was, forgive me. The Spanish flick "Sleep Tight" sounded promising and starred the well-known actor Luis Tosar.  He plays a kinky janitor morbidly involved with some of the tenants; he drugs his current obsession Clara to sneak into her apartment each night, with increasingly drastic results. I would classify this film as something of a near miss.  The Dutch movie "Kill Zombie" or "Zombibi" to give it its original title was a load of laughs, despite the hackneyed scenario of a mismatched band fighting off a horde of hungry zombies.  Unusually the four male leads played a pair of Moroccan brothers and a pair of pals from Surinam, with only the tasty female cop looking suitably Dutch. Filled with improbable sight gags and the requisite sprinkling of gore, this was something of a treat in the surrounding desert and a truly droll giggle. The three Italian films included "The Arrival of Wang", a sci-fi fable previously screened at the fest's Glasgow programme earlier this year and a stylish fantasy from the Manetti Brothers.  While waiting for the special effects to be finalised on that film, they shot "Paura 3D" in their downtime.  This was a pretty good example of the medium and followed three mates planning a wild weekend at the lavish villa of of a vacationing Marquis, before he returns unexpectedly and before one of their number finds the naked woman chained in the basement.  The Marquis is not just annoyed by the intrusion but turns inventively murderous as well, creating a number of effective shocks.  The third Italian film "Tulpa" was only completed a few days earlier and was hoping to enjoy a successful World Premiere for this return to the classic "Giallo". Unfortunately the hoots of derision from the audience throughout the screening must have been depressing for the attending director and his cast.  His big mistake was presenting this audience with a dubbed version, full of trite lines spoken by a selection of actors who could barely speak English, contrasting with the intervening scenes played in Italian with subtitles. A pity really since with some tightening and re-editing (all in Italian I would suggest) this black-gloved killer re-run with its occasionally stylish presentation might have become something rather better. That leaves the German entry "We are the Night", a well thought out Vampire story set in the decadence of Berlin.  The 200-year old leader of the all-female pack (they've killed off all the males) has been looking to replace her lost true love and hones in on and 'turns' petty thief Lena. Lena fights her transformation, and despite her new taste for blood and hatred of the light, she can't quite forget the lonely cop that befriended her. Good, slickly filmed, top quality pulp fiction.

Half-way through.  This leaves the nine British and American films of the weekend, which I will try to cover (or dismiss) next time round. In the meantime, watch out for marauding zombies.  Ho ho.        
  

Shadowlands (1993)

I can remember not being particularly taken with this film at my first viewing and have barely thought about it over the years,  However a chance second viewing has left me rather more reflective about its merits.  Directed by Richard Attenborough from the play by William Nicholson, I originally found it a little humourless, rather wordy, and definitely 'worthy'. While I was aware of the basic story of the autumnal romance between the Oxford don C.S. Lewis and the American divorced poet Joy Gresham, I do not recall being reduced to tears.  That was then; this is now!

Debra Winger plays Gresham and was Oscar-nominated for her role as the brash woman who manages to locate the heart of a confirmed bachelor and who then inconveniently dies, leaving him to question his faith.  (She certainly had the form for this part from her earlier role of a woman who dies young in "Terms of Endearment".) Winger did not win, but it is a pity that Anthony Hopkins was not also nominated for his turn as Lewis, since he has never been better or more moving, not even in "The Remains of the Day", where he played a similarly repressed character. Set in Oxford in the 1950s, Lewis has a comfortable niche with his fellow academics at his Oxford college, enjoying a pint of beer, and joshing about this and that.  How, they tease him, can he be the author of successful children's books when he knows nothing about children and how they think.  He replies that his brother was once a child, as was he. He shares a home with this bachelor brother, Warnie, touchingly played by Edward Hardwicke, and theirs is a regular and routine existence.

Into this set world arrives an American fan who has been corresponding with the author.  Originally when they meet for tea in London, Lewis brings his brother along, not as a chaperone, but for moral support.  He is ill prepared to communicate with such an open and and uninhibited woman, but is strangely fascinated as well.  He invites her to visit him in Oxford and she asks if she can bring her young son Douglas along as he is a massive Narnia fan. The son is played by Joseph Mazzello who had some major roles in the early 90s.  I have always remembered him in the now forgotten "Radio Flyer" (1992), where his childhood heartbreak and aspirations really said something to me. (I was therefore unprepared to realise that he is now a man and to see him most recently in "The Social Network".) Anyhow the young Mazzello is equally memorable here.  He asks to see Lewis' attic and is immediately drawn to the wardrobe in a far corner.  As he rummages through the musty old coats, you can sense his deep disappointment that they did not somehow lead to the entrance to a magical land.

When Gresham returns to England after her divorce their friendship begins to deepen and she has no qualms asking him to marry her to afford her the opportunity to remain in Britain.  Theirs is a civil ceremony and it is strictly a marriage of convenience with Lewis back in Oxford and she and Douglas in their London basement flat. Then she falls ill with inoperable cancer and all bets are off.  Lewis, who lectures to hat-wearing matrons, giving comforting talks about man's place in God's plans, and who teaches his students that the most intense joy is not in the having but in the desire -- as pain is God's way of perfecting us, must leave his own 'shadowland' -- the landscape that man inhabits before finding the light. A woman called Joy Gresham really teaches him what 'joy' means. They have a religious marriage ceremony in her hospital room and, during a brief remission, a delayed honeymoon.  However this happiness is short-lived and she soon dies. The penultimate scene of Lewis and young Douglas falling into each others arms with uncontrolled tears in front of the fabled wardrobe is too moving for words.  I must have had a heart of stone the first time around.

I understand that the author first told his story as a television drama with Claire Bloom and Joss Ackland in the leads.  I have not seen this, but somehow I think I might have liked Bloom more than Winger; there was just something about her performance that seemed a little cold and calculating and, dare I say, unlovable. However while Ackland is also a fine actor, I doubt he could have given the complex Lewis character the same intellectual depth and genuine anguish that Hopkins brought to the table.

Guess what Folks?  It's FrightFest yet again so that's me out of general circulation for the next five days.  All things being equal, a more or less full report will follow....eventually!

George Sanders

I wasn't joking when I wrote last time that my Olympics viewing was really cutting into my film viewing. However, now that it is all fading into several many happy memories, I can get back to the business at hand. Looking at what I did manage to view over the last fortnight, there is not a lot that deserves anything but the briefest of comments.  I was surprisingly rather taken with a Ted Danson-Mary Steenburgen TV two-parter from 2002 called "Talking to Heaven", where he convincingly played a reluctant psychic helping to solve a series of youth killings, but there's not much to add to that summary. Then there was a rather nasty British 'horror' that I skipped at Frightfest a few years back called "Panic Button" that proved that it was indeed a missable movie.  Zoe Saldana was certainly watchable playing a dedicated assassin in the preposterous "Columbiana", but it was one of those movies that painlessly fills the time and can then safely be forgotten.

What got me thinking about George Sanders is the fact that BBC2 has been filling its daytime schedules during the past fortnight with a selection of films from RKO's 'Saint' and 'Falcon' series from the early 1940s.  Although I have seen them all before, I thought I would like to take copies of some of them which starred Sanders, an actor for whom I have always had a soft spot.  He was never a leading man in A-films, but lent a certain indelible suavity and sophistication to all of his supporting roles. He had a distinctive, slightly disdainful, voice and never lost his clipped English tones (despite being born in St. Petersburg -- Russia, not Florida-- to English parents).  Unlike the current crop of Brit actors who have 'gone Hollywood', he never made any effort to disguise his origins and therefore was a natural choice for the roles of cads, Nazis, and miscellaneous villains.  He started as a chorus boy in London, but swiftly moved to Hollywood where he appeared in more than 100 films peaking with a best supporting-actor Oscar for "All About Eve" (1950).  His numerous subsequent appearances were in a number of not so memorable movies, but he was certainly the best choice for voicing Shere-Khan in 1967's "Jungle Book" and his turn as a cross-dresser in one of his last roles, "The Kremlin Letter", must be seen to be believed. In the end he committed suicide, leaving a note reading "Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored.  I feel that I have lived long enough,  I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool.  Good Luck."  A rather sad and flip ending for a famous, oft-married womaniser and romantic.

Anyhow getting back to these shortish 1940's films, they were great fun, well-written, and rather jokey mysteries in which Sanders is undoubtedly the best thing in them.   He did not actually originate the Saint role in films -- that honour was Louis Hayward's -- but took over from the second in the series, for a total of five films before he moved to the first Falcon film "The Gay Falcon" (not a title that could be used on the marquee today!) On many levels the two series seem indistinguishable, especially since the same RKO supporting actors could be seen playing different supporting roles in the next release. Most notable amongst the regulars are Wendy Barrie as his most frequent love interest, James Gleason (not fat Jackie G) as a dim-witted inspector (shades of Sherlock Holmes), and  Alan Jenkins as sidekick "Goldy" Locke; but the films are redolent with familiar faces.  And long before James Bond became known for his clever comebacks, Sanders' gentleman detective was chucking these about with dry wit.

The most interesting movie in the two series is "The Falcon Takes Over" (1942) which is based on Raymond Chandler's "Farewell My Lovely", remade a mere three years later as an A-list production starring Dick Powell in his first non-musical role.  In the Sanders version, Moose Malloy (later a memorable Mike Mazurki) is played by John Ford regular Ward Bond and he cuts an equally menacing presence.  The film also provides meaty roles for Anne Revere, George Cleveland, Edward Gargan, Hans Conreid, and Turhan Bey (naturally playing a turbaned mystic.) Eventually the jaded Sanders, who seemed to become easily bored, became fed up with playing Gay Lawrence and was written out of the series by gifting the role to his real-life brother Tom Conway in "The Falcon's Brother".  Conway isn't a patch on Sanders but proved surprisingly popular, going on to don the Falcon suit for another nine movies.  He continued appearing in a variety of minor films until drinking himself to death some years before brother George decided that he'd had it with the world and found his answer in an overdose of barbituates. All very sad, if you ask me. 

Visions of Eight (1973)

In case you've not noticed (or have been visiting outer space over the past few days), the Olympics are taking place in London. Most of the population here appears to have gone bling-mad as we crow over each new gold medal, but it's not altogether surprising considering this country's investment in the Games and the boost that home crowd support can give athletes. I too have been watching with interest, cutting into the time that I would normally be watching films, although some of the disciplines have yet to entice me -- handball, archery, shooting to name a few.  Still there are enough other awe-inspiring sports on offer to keep me glued to the set.

With all the Olympic hype that has been on display here, I am rather surprised that the television programmers -- especially those not involved in the BBC's wall-to-wall coverage, have not siezed the opportunity to screen one of the many Olympic-themed films in their back catalogues.  It is of course too much to hope for the best and grand-daddy (or grandma) of them all, Leni Riefenstahl's "The Olympiad" (1936), to be shown, since she has become persona-non-grata because of her Hitler connection; but if truth be told, it is one of cinema's landmark films.  However other possibilities were similarly ignored.  I found a showing of the above movie, which I have seen previously a long, long time ago, on German television, and I set it to refresh my pretty favourable memory.

It is a compendium film with eight different directors of eight nationalities giving their impressions of various facets of the Munich 1972 Olympics -- the one that is best remembered now for the murder of eleven Israeli participants.  This is perhaps not the legacy for which the Munich city-fathers would wish to be remembered, but seven of the eight manage to ignore this event completely. The film opens with Russian Yuri Ozerov's "The Beginning", which gives a brief overview of the setting and the athletes, with tantalisingly brief glimpses of legend Olga Korbut and the oft-seen image of multi-medalled swimmer Mark Spitz. The next section by Swedish actress-turned-director Mai Zetterling is titled "The Strongest" and focuses on the heavyweight category of male weightlifters.  I too find their feats amazing -- this is well illustrated by a shot of five German soldiers straining together to move the fully-loaded apparatus off the floor -- but the contrast between then and now is really noticeable.  Then they were a bunch of burly, sweaty mammoths in their singlets and shorts, letting it all hang out as it were; now, in their one-piece body suits and belts they seem nearly svelte in comparison. 

Rapidly going through the next five contributions, Arthur Penn's "The Highest" (concentrating on the pole vault) and Kon Ichikawa's "The Fastest" (the short sprint runners) show the Riefenstahl legacy by deconstructing the athletes' movements into a slo-mo medley.  Never before or since has the 10-second 100 metres (even faster now) become a seemingly endless fifteen-minute ballet, using 34 cameras and an original 20,000 feet of film. (Incidentally Ichikawa also directed "Tokyo Olympiad" glorifying the 1964 games, another film not broadcast this year.) Michael Pfleghar (a German TV director unknown to me) contributes "The Women" with a flattering look at some of the beauteous ladies on display (mainly the Germans let it be said) and captures the grace of one of the Russian gymnasts -- not ironically Korbut with her perfect 10 scores. We then move to Milos Forman's "The Decathlon" which has little to do with this event, but which takes a jokey and pretty irreverent approach by intercutting the athletics with kitschy images of buxom bell-ringers, beefy yodellers, an oompah-pah band, and a full-fledged symphony orchestra pounding out their 'Ode to Joy'. Claude Lelouch ("A Man and a Woman") follows with "The Losers" focussing on the heartbreak of not winning, which occasionally became a display of bad-losing.  Once upon a time we're told, it was the taking part that mattered.  Try telling that to the various jingoistic nations today -- we know who you are!

It was left to John Schlesinger's "The Longest" to create the most meaningful and heartfelt section.  Ostensibly he was concentrating on an English marathon runner, showing his lonely ritual in training on empty English roads for a race that he would not ultimately win. When asked about the Israeli team, he appeared totally indifferent (or focussed one might allow), complaining that to him it only meant a 24-hour postponement of his Olympic marathon participation. The director then cuts to the closing ceremony with a quick shot of the jubilant Israeli team marching in at the opening and another of a Jewish group mourning, while Avery Brundage rabbits on about good will and brotherhood being the Olympic tradition.  He also includes a shot of a single African runner, still plodding Munich's streets in the pouring rain, some hours after the other athletes have finished, to finally arrive exhausted into the stadium.  This was a lovely image, reinforcing the original Olympic ideal that participation and doing one's best are the hallmarks of success.

While fascinating to revisit this film, I must admit that it is actually something of a parson's egg with no coherent overall flow or success.  Still it was an interesting time capsule between then and now.  Minor observations, once one gets over seventies' afros and whiskers, are the streamlining of team uniforms to the extent that most of the female athletes now seem to be racing in bikinis (!), the growing preponderance of tattoos, and the virtual disappearance of hairy armpits amongst all of the female participants and a surprising number of the male participants as well.  

The Help (2011)

You'd think by now that I wouldn't decide in advance whether a film is really worth seeing, especially when I normally end up viewing all of them -- the good and the dross -- anyhow.  It is true that I was in no hurry to view the above movie, despite the generally good notices it received. I decided -- unfairly as it happens -- that it would be too worthy and preachy for words.  I also thought that having a virtually all female cast (the male roles are minor at best) that it would have only chick-flick appeal.  Well, folks, I was wrong on both counts. This is a largely marvellous, intelligent, and engrossing film.


Set in Mississippi in 1963 when the civil rights movement was beginning to gather steam, especially after the murder of Medgar Evans, the cast is mainly made up of the rich, spoiled, vapid, and bigoted women of the town and their downtrodden black maids, and what a cast!  While the entire ensemble deserves credit, among the stand-out 'white' performances are: Bryce Dallas Howard as the ringleader rich bitch, crusading for separate toilets in each house for the maids to use to avoid contaminating the family with all their well-known diseases (!); Jessica Chastain (Oscar-nominated) as the white-trash gal who has dared to wed one of the local good-old-boys that Howard once fancied; Sissy Spacek as Howard's outspoken and slightly senile mother whom she dumps in a nursing home; Emma Stone, proving her non-rom-com skills as the local bachelorette who wants to tell the maids' true story, with her mother, Allison Janney, harping at her full-time to get a boyfriend and flying the flag for the traditional values.  The black cast is led by a feisty Viola Davis (also nominated) as the first to begin to tell her tale to Stone, Octavia Spencer (a deservedly-memorable Oscar winner) as the force of nature falsely fired and accused by Howard when she stands up to her and finally hired by outcast Chastain, and a small but memorable part for veteran actress Cicely Tyson, who tells us more with a single heart-broken glance then could be conveyed in a hundred words.  In fact all of the female casting was nothing short of first rate, down to the smallest part.


The director and screenplay writer Tate Taylor has little in his background as a minor actor and would-be director (only one previous little-seen big screen outing) to suggest that he could put together so skilful a film.   It turns out that he was a childhood friend of the original novel's author, Kathryn Stockett, which may explain why he was chosen to give form to her story.  At any rate, he has done so masterfully.  While one might carp that the basic premise is slightly simplistic, given the advances that blacks have made over the last fifty years, it is undeniably beautifully done with believable drama and a strong streak of humour.  Witness the recurring theme of Spencer and her fabled chocolate pie! Davis who partially narrates the action drives home the point of how a caring woman can raise even the homeliest child of an uncaring mother to believe in herself ("you is kind, you is smart, you is important") yet be mystified how the same loving children can morph into intolerant adults. Stone may be the catalyst that ultimately shakes up the community, with even her mother finally won over and admitting that "courage sometimes skips a generation", but one is aware that her primary motivation is to prove herself to publisher Mary Steenburgen in New York and to swan off to a career in the Big Apple. Meanwhile,the black 'help' who have given her this opportunity by reluctantly confiding their stories have little in the way of new opportunities and possibly only reciprocal hostility to anticipate in the short term.


Yes, I was impressed.  The film was nominated for a best picture Oscar, which it did not win, but it certainly deserved to be considered among the best of its year.  

The Big Picture (1989)

My original intention for today was to write about Spaghetti Westerns, having just watched a weird example -- unfortunately and badly dubbed as usual -- called "Deaf Smith and Johnny Ears" (1972) starring the charismatic Franco Nero (star of one of the most violent of the genre, "Django"), Anthony Quinn playing a deaf-mute, and an ageing Pamela Tiffin as one of the town whores.  However, not only was it not terribly good or stylish, with rather poor continuity, I decided in the end that I really don't have much to say about these films in general. Obviously the ones by Sergio Leone are in a class of their own, but most of the others I've seen have morphed into an inseparable vague morass.  As in this film, out-of-work or down-on-their-luck American stars regularly found work in these largely forgettable movies. Were I a little more enthusiastic, it might make an interesting article, but it would require a heap of mind-refreshing.


So I shall comment on the above title which I've not seen for the best part of twenty years and I note from my rating on IMDb that I wasn't all that taken with it the first time around.  Well, either I've mellowed or the film has legs, since this time it struck me as a gentle and largely good-natured satire on the fiendish ins and outs of the Hollywood scene.  It was the first directorial effort from Christopher Guest, whose subsequent mockumentaries have all had a certain charm.  Co-written with Michael McKean and producer Michael Vartel, it traces the early career of would-be director Nick Chapman, as portrayed by the fresh-faced and eager Kevin Bacon.  Bacon was actually over thirty when this was made, but he captures the enthusiasm and naivete of a recent film school graduate whose prize-winning short has garnered some fawning attention from various Hollywood bigwigs.


He acquires an agent in the hilarious shape of an uncredited Martin Short, with unreal dyed red hair and a camp manner, and is taken up by a ruthless producer brilliantly played by the late, great J.T. Walsh.  He has firm ideas about the black-and-white film he dreams of making, but his concepts are gradually whittled away by Walsh and his yes-men.  Instead of the intimate tale of three 40-year-olds, he reluctantly agrees to a younger cast, a completely different story, a score full of pop tunes (rather than a film without any music), and of course technicolor.  As Walsh tells him, a black-and-white movie would get colorized for TV anyhow -- and a background clip from the wonderful "It's a Wonderful Life" proves his point. However the idea of becoming a Hollywood success completely turns his head.  He ignores his best friend and earlier cinematographer McKean, dumps his live-in girlfriend, a charming Emily Longstreth, for the siren charms of an OTT-sexpot Teri Hatcher, and over-extends himself financially.  Then Walsh's producer falls out of favour with his studio, and the entire project and hangers-on disappear in a flash.  Nick is no longer the flavour of the moment and can get nowhere with the power hierarchy, despite grovelling at their feet with increasingly unworkable concepts.  He is reduced to making a living with a series of menial jobs, until his video for kooky pal Jennifer Jason Leigh's pop-group goes viral and he is again in unbelievable demand by the same folk who previously wouldn't give him the time of day.


The producers deny that the movie is based on actual Hollywood players, although it is tempting to put real names to some of the characters, but it is certainly based on actual Hollywood stereotypes. While possibly not as full of in-jokes as "The Player", this film still manages to portray the grasping nature of the Hollywood scene where cut-throat behaviour may well be the norm of the day.  The movie features special cameo appearances from the likes of Eddie Albert, Fran Drescher, June Lockhart, John Cleese, Roddy McDowell, and an uncredited Elliot Gould and manages to remain largely good-humoured despite the excesses on display.  One wonders whatever became of Longstreth, who only made TV movies before and after this film and who has disappeared from the scene since 1994. Maybe she found a real life outside Hollywood!

Same old...

Well it looks like another one of those all too frequent weeks where I have sat through -- rather than enjoyed -- a depressing number of films and there has been no single one crying out for its own review. It's probably just as well that I'm not a newspaper or magazine film critic -- although I probably would have loved the idea once upon a time -- since I would find it increasingly difficult to write several hundred words or more on a movie that has left me cold.  For example, last night we watched a French sci-fi flick that has been gathering dust amongst our DVD backlog, "Eden Log" (2007), and I thought to myself 'Great, there's tomorrow's subject'.  Wrong! A more boring and less coherent waste of 97 minutes can not be imagined: a washed-out colour, virtually black and white, apocalyptic future where our hero, the totally uncharismatic Clovis Cornillac, awakes in a darkened industrial maze and must work out not only where he is but how to get the hell out of there.  I know the feeling!  Nearly unwatchable with constant fades to black, it has now gone into the 'discard' pile.


OK, it hasn't been all bad.  I did see three properly black and white films from the 50s that were new to me: "Imitation General" (1958) with Glenn Ford pretending to be a slaughtered general to inspire his fellow soldiers, "The Blue Gardenia" (1953) an earlyish-noir and probably one of Fritz Lang's least impressive films with Anne Baxter convinced that she has murdered masher Raymond Burr whilst in a drunken stupor, and "Backfire" (1951) with the rather weird cast of Virginia Mayo and Gordon Macrae (in a non-musical) trying to clear buddy Edmund O'Brien of a murder charge.  While I was pleased to catch up with these films, particularly the last two, none of them were sufficiently stylish or involving to warrant repeat viewings.


Then there was this week's dire premieres from Sky.  While I admit that at least two of them could boast some pretensions, I remained unimpressed.  Firstly there was Rachel Weisz in "The Whistleblower" (2010) as a peace-keeper in Bosnia exposing the trade in cross-border prostitution to the indifference of just about everyone else with vested interests (ho hum).  Then there was the third in the "Paranormal Activity" series which I believe was a box-office winner Stateside;  I was singularly bored by the first two films with their video-eye footage and the third had at best two minor scares, lost in the middle of its rather humdrum proceedings. A TV movie "Cupid Inc" (2012) was impossibly obvious in its heroine's coy quest for Mr. Right, having ignored the obvious contender in her own office, and something called "Formosa Betrayal" (2009) put me to sleep ( it must have since I can recall nothing about it).  Finally what should have been the gem of the week, the Iranian film "A Separation" (2011) which took home the best foreign film Oscar this year left me mystified as to why it won this trophy.  I think I have seen just about all of the highly-thought of Iranian films that have made it to the West and can't think of a single one that I would wish to add to my own collection.  Perhaps that says more about me than about the films in question.  In this one a couple have separated since she wishes to immigrate with their 11-year old daughter and he refuses to leave his Alzheimer-suffering father.  He hires a pregnant day-carer and is accused of causing her to miscarry; he therefore faces a murder charge unless he pays the necessary blood money.  We know that he may have pushed her, but that other circumstances are the culprit.  As yet another insight into a culture alien to us, this film was little more than 'worthy' and like so many similar movies, I was annoyed by the too open ending.  The film just stopped at the moment that we began to care whether the family could indeed be reconciled.


What else?  A two-part miniseries from 1995 "Love and Betrayal" with Mia Farrow and Woody Allen clones acting out their ten-year relationship and ultimately bitter split, complete with Andre Previn and Frank Sinatra clones in the back-story.  A television movie from 1979 "Champions, a Love Story" -- yet another tale of a female figure-skater finding a male ice hockey wannabe to partner her to the championship.  The only difference between this and umpteen other similar tales is that he is killed in an airplane crash before that goal can be reached.  Finally, there was the old stand-by: re-watching favourites from the past.  This week included "Things Change" (1988), a sweet yet slightly strained story of elderly shoe-shine man Don Ameche being hired by the mob to take the fall in a murder case and being baby-sat for the weekend by Joe Mantegna in Lake Tahoe, where the simple, Italianate Ameche is taken for a Mafia bigwig. Then there was another outing for "Absurdistan" (2008) which I have favourably reviewed previously, an enchanting peasant fable shot in Russia (and in Russian) by a German director.  Finally I am having a mini Josef von Sternberg season (formerly known as Joe Sternberg) re-watching his three great silents.  I've viewed "The Last Command" (1928) a major success starring Emil Jannings,  and"Underworld" (1927) with his pet actor George Bancroft -- considered the first film to look at crime from the criminal's point of view. That leaves "The Docks of New York" (1928) to complete the trio which is on today's programme.


I sometimes think I should restrict myself to only watching old favourites together with the best of the current crop and those oddities languishing on my 'must-see' list, but that wouldn't be PPP. I have this weird compunction to watch anything I've not seen previously and therefore find myself with' blah' results like some of the above.  I don't suppose I'll ever learn! What's the saying about old dogs and new tricks? 

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

I wasn't able to schedule a cinema visit when this sweet movie was released some six weeks ago, but managed to catch up with it in repertory at the Prince Charles.  Although his output has hardly been prolific, I have really liked the films (with the possible exception of "The Darjeeling Limited" which was just a bit too twee, even for me) of the Texas-born auteur Wes Anderson -- not to be confused with the Newcastle-born hack Paul W. S. Anderson.  His output is quite probably insufficiently action-filled for contemporary tastes, but his individuality and sly humour shine in films like "The Royal Tenenbaums", "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou", and even the stop-motion "Fantastic Mr. Fox".


This fable of childhood is set on the mythical Cape Cod island of New Penzance in 1965, some four years before Anderson himself was actually born; yet it is intended, I am sure, to recapture the feelings and emotions of adolescence as he himself remembers it. The main protagonists, young teens Sam and Suzy, portrayed by Jared Gilman and Kaya Hayward, both making their big screen debuts, carry the picture and the A-list supporting cast are not actually given a great deal to do.  Sam is an orphan being raised by a foster family and is spending his second summer camping on the island with the 'Khaki Scouts'.  Suzy, whom he first saw at a church performance of "Noye's Fludde" a year before, is the eldest child of Bill Murray and Frances McDormand, an intellectual but unloving couple.  Suzy rattles around in their big house, alienated from her three much-younger close and clone-like brothers, and listens to Francoise Hardy while reading gothic literature.  She and Sam decide they are in love and arrange to run away together.  They follow an old Indian trail and find the idyllic, untrodden Moonrise cove of the title, where they establish their camp for the three days they are on the run. Suzy's parents insist that she must have been abducted and the search is on led by lonely local police chief Bruce Willis and scout-leader Edward Norton with his pack of young charges (none of whom can stand Sam).  However when the young lovers are caught and separated, the scouts decide to support the pair's escapade, just as a mighty storm approaches the island, along with 'Social Services' in the form of Tilda Swinton who is flying in to take Sam to an orphanage (after his anti-social behaviour has alienated his foster family).  Needless to say, all eventually ends satisfactorily, even after the young couple go through an illegal marriage ceremony performed by another scout-leader on a neighbouring island.  All of this may sound a little convoluted and contrived, but believe me when I tell you, that it all falls sweetly into place, without over-stretching one's credibility.  I could however have done without Anderson's killing off a cute little dog in the melee.


Despite the high-powered cast names mentioned above, there are also roles for Harvey Keitel, Bob Balaban, and Jason Schwarzman. However none of them, with the possible exceptions of Willis and Norton -- both very likeable here -- make much impact.  No doubt Bill Murray is in the cast as Anderson's 'lucky charm' since he has been a 'given' since 1998's "Rushmore"; however he is not asked to demonstrate much other than his usual laid-back charm.  Harking back to the trauma in his own life when his parents divorced, Anderson seems to be trying to recapture both the innocence and passions of childish dreams and possibly his own remembered formative years; his two young leads do all the work for him.  


The film is quirky and poignant, mercifully short and very bittersweet -- a slight trifle full of yearning and nostalgia.  Anderson's regular composer Alexandre Desplat makes good use both of "Noye's Fludde" (forecasting the impending storm) and "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra" in creating the compelling background score to this fantasy of a child's memories.

Shirley Temple....again!

I know I've written about child-star Shirley Temple several times previously, usually when I need a speedy antidote to an attack of the blues.  Her ability to cast a ray of sunshine into people's drab existence is what made her the top-grossing movie-star in the dark days of the l930s Depression.  However it was not a sudden case of the glumps that inspired me to write about the two following films from 1934, but rather the unusual fact (for me) that I had not previously viewed either of them.  Because they were both made on loan-outs from her home studio Fox (a situation never again repeated when her financial worth was realised), they tended not to be as readily available for television, video, or DVD viewing as her other films until relatively recently.  Both movies are fascinating, both in their own right and in contrast to her other pictures from the period:


Now and Forever:  One of Shirley's least-known films, it is unusual for its starry leads -- Gary Cooper and Carole Lombard.  Cooper in particular is atypically cast as a weak-willed grifter, living the high-life abroad with Lombard, relying on his wits and speedy evasive action to avoid their creditors.  In passing he mentions a daughter from a previous marriage -- conveniently never mentioned earlier -- whom he hopes to flog for $75,000 to the stuffy relatives that have been looking after her since his first wife's death.  When he goes back to Connecticut to get the dough, he finds himself charmed by the tyke, who obviously is not exactly having much fun or much of a life in her cloistered environment -- and off he goes with her to meet up with Lombard in Paris, raising the cash by selling a mythical gold mine to an old duffer, played by Sir Guy Standing, who turns out to be as big a con-man as Cooper.  Temple is rapturous about having a Daddy and fond of Standing's Uncle Felix who is escaping the law on the same ship, but wary about Lombard's sharing her father's affections.  She gradually warms to her, especially when she sees her new mother encouraging her father to take a job and live a more sedate life like real families.


However, thirty-five dollars a week from a real estate company doesn't go far in maintaining their lifestyle, especially when they want to send Shirley to a posh school; Cooper is soon reduced to stealing a necklace for Uncle Felix to fence from a wealthy dowager who has taken an interest in the winsome child.  Things end badly with Felix shot, Cooper wounded, and the old lady agreeing to take over responsibility for the child.  This is not the sort of happy scenario which usually forms the centre of a Temple film, although director Henry Hathaway manages to hold our interest in the brief 79 minute running time.  Shirley has no dance numbers and only one song "The World Owes Me a Living" (shades of Cooper's philosophy here) which while cute, is rather less fetching than her usual 'Good Ship Lollipop' repertoire.


Little Miss Marker:  Although I hadn't seen this version of Damon Runyon's tale before, it felt as if I had, since I have certainly seen the later versions: Bob Hope's 1949 "Sorrowful Jones", Tony Curtis' 1962 "Forty Pounds of Trouble", and Walter Matthau's 1980 take on the Sorrowful character (back to the original title and also featuring Curtis in a different role).  The basic story is therefore well-known and is clear from the alternate title "Girl in Pawn".  Here the usually dapper Adolph Menjou plays bookie Sorrowful Jones, known by his lowlife associates as a shabby tightwad.  When a little girl's father, desperate to place a bet, leaves his daughter as security, Menjou reluctantly agrees.  The 'sure-to-win' horse (a con initiated by Charles Bickford's Big Steve Halloway and agreed to by Menjou and the mob) loses, and the distraught father commits suicide, lumbering Sorrowful with little 'Marky'. Bickford skips town for a while leaving Menjou to register the horse in question in Marky's name before their plans to dope him and probably kill him in his next outing.  He also leaves his girl friend, a torch singer (Dorothy Dell) for Menjou to keep an eye on.  Her supposedly hard surface is touched by the youngster and she grows fonder of both the child and Menjou, finally smartening him up.


Several things make this version of the story rather different than the subsequent ones and again substantially different from Shirley's other 30s films.  Again this is not an all-singing, all-dancing role for the youngster, and while she starts off the film as a little sweetie, charming all in sight, full of fairy tales and magic, she soon becomes a tough-talking little cookie under the influence of the Runyonesque supporting cast.  In an attempt to recapture her innocence, Dell and Menjou get all of the gang to dress up as characters from King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and bring in her faithful 'charger' (the horse in question).  I must say I don't recall anything like this in the later versions!  Anyhow, Bickford returns to the scene, causing Shirley to fall from the horse gravely injured.  Move to the hospital where a renowned surgeon is press-ganged from his wedding to operate on the tyke, but none of the mob have the right type blood for the necessary transfusion.  That is until Bickford is tested and complimented on his 'strong blood', saving the day.


Point of interest: like me you have probably never heard of Dorothy Dell.  It's not surprising since she made only a few films before dying in a car crash at the age of nineteen.  Her character 'Bangles' Carson comes across as a lot older with her trampy dress, torch singing, and the fancy apartment of a kept-woman complete with the requisite black maid.  She's excellent here and probably would have continued with great success, but we'll never know.  Talking about token roles for black actors in early Hollywood, amongst the support in this film is friendly, jivey janitor Willie Best, keeping a watchful eye on little Shirley.


Finally it is probably worth noting that both of these Temple vehicles just about fall into the pre-code period and are therefore somewhat blacker than the movies that would later rake in the big bucks for 20th Century Fox.

Bellissima (1951)

As no doubt I've written previously and as no doubt I shall write again, there is always the danger of some disappointment when catching up with a film that has previously eluded me.  I have wanted to see this third feature from the rather baroque Italian director Luchino Visconti for yonks and while I am more than happy to have finally cornered it, it wasn't at all quite what I was expecting. Yes, it was very good in many ways, but something of an anomaly in the director's oeuvre. His earliest films "Ossessione" (1943) -- the first movie version of "The Postman Always Rings Twice" -- and "Terra Trema" (1948) are rooted in the Italian neo-realistic renaissance, but his later films like "Senso", "The Leopard" and "Death in Venice" display the dramatic flair that this aristocratic scion brought to his famous operatic productions. "Bellissima" on the other hand is something of a transition, a story that is rooted in reality and poverty, but which also makes room for both satire and humour -- not notable qualities of his later sensuous outings.


The Italian superstar and 'earth-mother' Anna Magnani plays a would-be stage-mother, a slave to the empty dreams of movie unreality, desperate, nay obsessed, to push her young daughter into the world of comfort and riches that a screen career would provide. Set in the post-war poverty of Rome, Magnani becomes a force of nature when she goes to Cinecitta, along with hundreds of other pushy mothers, answering an open casting call for a six- to eight-year old girl to star in director Alessandro Blasetti's next film.  In this mob scene, she loses sight of her daughter Maria, a remarkable Tina Apicella in her only film appearance, who has wandered off to play by a pool.  Dishevelled and dirty, she drags the wee mite into the tail end of the auditions, where she recites the 19th Century poem 'Addio a Venezia' in her little-girl voice, contrasting rather notably with the over-trained singing, dancing, and Betty Grable-impersonating of the competition.  The director notices that she is rather small for a six to eight-year old (in fact the actress was only five at the time), but Magnani counters this observation by insisting that her dress makes her look smaller than she is and manages to win a call-back for the lass.


Despite her husband's objections that they can hardly find money for their rent, Magnani squanders her savings on dramatic lessons, photography, special dresses, and bribes to ensure Maria's success. The bribes -- flowers for the director's wife and other nonsenses -- are suggested to her by con-man Walter Chiari who pretends to take a genuine interest in the mother and child, but who in fact wants the money to buy a motor-scooter.  Magnani is not stupid enough to be unaware of his self-interest, but is convinced that she must do whatever is necessary for young Maria's future.  When she sneaks into the screening of the test footage for Blasetti and his minions, the cruelty of the industry is rammed home; the child is unable to blow out the candles on a prop birthday cake, can't quite remember her poem or speak out, and finally bursts into heart-breaking tears.  This reduces the executives into uncontrollable fits of giggles and Magnani's dreams are shattered.  Even when the studio subsequently offers a contract and an unreal salary, Magnani's only concern  is to protect her innocent daughter from the scorn and heartbreak that can follow.


Magnani played an earthy dynamo in nearly all of her films, from "Rome Open City" (1945) through "Mamma Roma" (1962), but is at her best when acting in her own language.  Although she did win an Oscar for her English-speaking role in "The Rose Tattoo" (1955) and has made her mark in other American films, the full force of her personality is slightly stifled when she tries to overcome her language handicap.  In this movie, she is passionate, unbridled and riveting.  Although 43 at the time and looking every year of it and while never one of the screen's great beauties, she looks magnificent here, roping the viewer initially into her determination and ultimately into her realisation and defeat.  Both on stage and on film, Visconti was famed for supporting his actors in every possible way, for always highlighting their talent; the respect in which he holds his star here is manifest and manifold.


With a screenplay from the celebrated female writer Suso Cecchi D'Amico, a frequent Visconti collaborator, who also worked extensively with Zeffirelli and Antonioni, this film has the legs to linger long in the memory.  It was fascinating to watch, yet managed to leave a slightly sour after-taste which I must admit I was not expecting.  Somehow I thought it would all be jollier than in fact it was, as mothers screamed 'bellissima' to get a director's attention, in the vain attempt to point out how very beautiful their generally ungainly daughters were.
     

Revisiting the 'Classics'

It's just under a year ago that I saw and reviewed "Bridesmaids" (see June 23 '11) which has just made it appearance on Sky Premiere. Since I keep seeing references to the film as 'a modern comedy classic', I thought I should have another look and did not read my blog in preparation.  I really didn't enjoy the re-visit, finding the overall tone bitter, managing only the occasional chuckle, subsequently reading that  I accused myself of having a "humour bypass" the first time 'round. In other words it seems to take very little to land the 'classic' mantle nowadays.  Yes, it was possibly the first time that a largely female cast proved that they could be as raunchy as the lads, and yes both Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy give memorable turns, and yes there is the odd smart line or situation, but on balance it remains an over-long, episodic, hit-or-miss production.  Sorry, fans!


On the other hand I have just watched "Anatomy of a Murder" (1959) for probably the fifth or sixth time and enjoyed all two and a half hours of this courtroom classic -- and I use the word 'classic' advisedly.  It is long because it remains possibly overly faithful to the original novel by John D. Volker, aka Robert Travers, based on an actual case and court records in his part of Northern Michigan where he was County Prosecutor, and little of the Court procedure is omitted in the telling.  The trial is that of a soldier (Ben Gazzara) who is accused of killing the man who purportedly raped his wife (Lee Remick).  For the defence is country lawyer James Stewart's Paul Biegler and for the prosecution is another local lawyer assisted by a hotshot mouthpiece from the State capitol (George C. Scott). Sitting on the bench is real-life lawyer Joseph N. Welch whose moment of glory occurred when he defended the Army in the McCarthy hearings.  Rounding out Stewart's team are his faithful, sardonic secretary Eve Arden, whose salary is well in arrears, and his somewhat drunken legal pal -- a brilliant Arthur O'Connell, one of several Academy nominees for this film and the second or third best thing in it (in a movie where even the minor cast members were excellent: John Qualen, Murray Hamilton, and Kathryn Grant -- later Mrs. Bing Crosby -- among others).  Finally add a fine jazz score for the jazz-loving Biegler from the great Duke Ellington, who appears in a brief cameo as 'Pie Eye', and all of the ingredients are in place for a viewing treat.


The film is probably director Otto Preminger's masterpiece (some people think it was Stewart's as well, although I maintain that he is nearly always marvellous in all of his roles.)  The film was infamous in its day for its frank discussion of rape, provocative behaviour, and whether it is right to wear 'panties' rather than a girdle. (The very young and extremely nubile Remick knows how to wiggle her wares here).  However controversy was nothing new for Preminger whose 1953 movie "The Moon is Blue" (not a film that has held up well) shocked the Censors' Office with its use of language like 'virgin' and 'mistress'.  It may take a lot less to shock the modern viewer, but this film remains something special because of its wonderful cast and extremely adept script. While a contemporary of two other courtroom dramas "12 Angry Men" and "Witness for the Prosecution", both masterly films and personal favourites, "Anatomy of a Murder" has the master mix of courtroom cleverness married to well-rounded and cleverly played characters.  In his traditionally laid-back style, Biegler is well aware that information and questions subsequently over-ruled by the Judge, can not really be forgotten by a jury who know what they have just heard.


Spoilers are probably less relevant when writing about older films (but look away now if you've never seen this beauty).  Having tutored his client in claiming his innocence by pleading temporary insanity -- a fleeting irresistible impulse -- Biegler is hoist with his own petard at the film's end when the cleared Gazzara and his sexy wife use the same excuse to decamp without paying their legal bills.  "Never mind" thinks the easy-going Stewart and his now more sober sidekick O'Connell, there's the dead man's estate to manage.  Now that's classic film-making however you slice it!

Red (2010)

Let's face it tastes do change.  One can go right off film stars once treasured -- Meg Ryan comes to mind with her latter day trout-pout and gratuitous nudity.  On the other hand, bete noires can morph into favourites -- like good old baldy Bruce Willis.  When he first came to the fore in the television series "Moonlighting", I couldn't stand the bumptious twit.  I also saw him again recently with a full head of hair in 1987's "Blind Date" with an out-of-control Kim Basinger, and didn't much reckon him there either.  But he has certainly mellowed with age -- as I suppose I have.


I can't say better about the above film other than it is great fun -- not particularly wonderful film-making, logically constructed, or even believable, but one doesn't worry about little things like that when one is enjoying a great cast who seem to be enjoying themselves as well.  Willis plays a retired CIA agent whose file is listed as "RED" (Retired, Extremely Dangerous) and his even older ex-cohorts and adversaries include Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, and Brian Glover (as an ex-Russian spy still besotted with Mirren.) Willis and the first three find themselves on the current Vice-President's 'hit list', as he needs to cover up some naughtiness from their joint past before announcing his presidential ambitions.  So they find themselves on the run from young CIA operatives Karl Urban and Rebecca Pidgeon and their armed hordes.  Add to the equation Willis' new love interest, Mary-Louise Parker, with whom he has, in his loneliness, struck up a telephone flirtation, unwittingly including her in the would-be purge.  Introduce to the ensemble a treacherous Richard Dreyfuss, a cameo from the now 95-year old Ernest Borgnine, and a blink-and-you-might-miss-it appearance by James Remar (Dexter's ghost-dad!) and the veteran casting is a delight.

Where to start?  Firstly it was great to see Parker again; I know she has been doing well in the TV series "Weeds" which isn't shown here, but it's been a while since I've seen her on the big screen.  I always think of her as one of the many 'double-barrelled' starlets that graced the 1990s: Mary-Stuart Masterton, Catherine-Mary Stewart, Penelope-Ann Miller, and even Sarah-Jessica Parker, whom I used to muddle one with the other, but she holds her own with the superb cast in this movie.  The film is full of shoot-outs and double-dealing, and it is enormous fun to see 'The Queen'  Mirren handling a sub-machine gun.  However greatest praise must be reserved for Malkovich who plays a goofy brain-fried die-hard and who is far more relaxed here than he was in his more serious, early 'actorly' roles.  Finally, Willis remains good value as he marshals his cohorts and bristles when Urban refers to him as 'Grandpa'; there's plenty of spunk in the old guy yet.  It's a geriatric romp to savour.


The film is far from an award-seeking candidate, but it certainly makes for a grand evening out! 

Culture Vulture

Oh how we suffer for our art! One hears about suffering artists, but one can also 'suffer' for one's enthusiasms. Every so often I am tempted to book tickets for a film about which I know absolutely nothing but which sounds like something very special.  So was the case with:

The Tale of Genji (1951):  The hook for this Japanese film is that it is based on "the world's first true novel", written over l000 years ago by Murasaki Shikibu ('Lady Murasaki'), a court lady of the Heian Era. Both the original work and the film derived from it consist of episodes from the life of a bastard son of the Mikado who has been raised as a nobleman, the Genji of the title.  These episodes are largely an account of his erotic adventures at court and beyond -- a sort of Japanese Casanova if you will.  It starts with his pregnant courtesan mother being driven away by the hostility of the Mikado's jealous older official wife, and continues with his country childhood until his mother's early death (presumably from grief), his recall to court, and his seduction of a number of comely wenches, despite having officially married his own jealous wife.  His behaviour continues to anger the original old shrew, and he is temporarily and tactfully exiled to the back of beyond after he manages to impregnate both his wife and his favourite mistress.  There he faces assassins sent by political rivals and falls in love with a local noble monk's daughter, who in fact is in love with another -- not that this stops her licking the blood from his wounds in a notable scene.


Directed by Kozabura Yoshimura of whom I know nothing, Genji is played by Kazuo Hasegura, purportedly a matinee idol of the day. He was meant to be beautiful, graceful, and generally irresistible, but rising 43 years at the time and tending to run to fat, I found the actor decidedly ill-cast.  Nevertheless, this movie was apparently the top-grossing Japanese film to date, as schoolteachers brought students by the busload to view this classic, historical drama.  At well over two hours, all this hothouse romance became a little tedious, especially since all of the women (to my Western eye) looked virtually identical with their formal dress, pale make-up, and incredibly long hair tumbling nearly to the ground.  However as each episode faded to black, the framing scenery emerged beautifully, with each new image resembling a fine artistic print.  Had the film been made in colour, it probably would have been even more remarkable, but the formal artistry of the photography did help to compensate for the melodrama of the story.


Moving literally to the other side of the world, Film Four recently held a mini-African season and I still have several left to watch among my backlog.  However, two of these films are worth mentioning, if only in the briefest detail:


Xala (1975):  The title translates as "The Curse" and is one of the first African films to receive international attention.  Written and directed by Sengalese auteur Ousmane Sembene, it is a sharp satire on the country of the day.  Newly independent from France, the new rulers are shown to be every bit as greedy and corrupt as their predecessors, leaving their first official meeting with an attache case full of crisp, new notes.  We follow the story of one of them who is about to take on his third wife -- completely acceptable in his 'religion' -- who is financing the lavish wedding festivities by selling government-aid wheat to a shady dealer -- not unlike the equal corruption of his cohorts.  However, on his wedding night, he is unable to 'perform' and word soon spreads that he has been lumbered with the Xala of the title.  After insisting that the street near his office be cleared of all of its heart-breaking and crippled beggars, his life goes from bad to worse, especially after the cheque he has given a local shaman to restore his manhood bounces.  By the end of the movie he has lost nearly everything -- he is dismissed from the ruling Council and both his second and third wives decamp -- and he is standing naked enduring the disdain and spit of the beggars who have now camped in his house. The cleverness of this film rests in demonstrating how the new bigwigs are as pretentious as the old, both in their formal garb and by their insistence of carrying on their meetings in French, rather than in their native Wolof language.


"Johnny Mad Dog" (2008): I nearly gave up on this one as the subject matter was so distasteful, especially as told in its documentary-style format.  In an unnamed African country, young boys are  forced into the rebel army, given the choice to kill their fathers or themselves be killed, and taught the ways of looting, murder, rape, mayhem, and intimidation.  Their leader's mantra is "You don't want to die, don't be born" and the youngsters, with their new nicknames, have lost their original identities and follow blindly.  Although played by actors, some of the cast were once such 'soldiers' themselves and it is hard to watch the cruelty that they were taught.  The Johnny of the title eventually sees his own world and promise of riches collapse, as his 'General' is happy to revert to being a supporting lower officer in the new regime, and he is reduced to acting as a guard at a local refugee camp.  There he is brought down even lower by a spunky girl of his own age who has spent the film trying to save her young brother and legless wounded father.  Very strong stuff and far from an easy watch.      

La Traversee de Paris (1956)

I shall never forget the first time I saw this film, also known as "Pig Across Paris" or "Four Bags Full" as it was titled at the repertory cinema called The Juliet just off campus from my rather select girls' college.  However it wasn't this remarkable (and now classic) movie that stayed in my memory, but the second feature (those were the days) shown with it -- Sacha Guitry's "Pearls of the Crown" (1937). That weird confection haunted me for years and you can read about it in my archives: http://prettypinkpattyspictures.blogspot.co.uk/2006/01/pearls-of-crown-1937.html


While I have managed to watch "Pearls" several many times over the years and at long last have my own copy complete with subtitles courtesy of the Criterion Guitry box set, a visit to the BFI last week provided only my third viewing of the above film and I must confess I had forgotten how grand a flick it is. It draws in its black and white cinematography, especially effective in portraying Paris by Night, a warts-and-all portrait of life in the city during the German occupation of World War II.  On its release it was reviled by many Frenchmen since it neglected to show a population made up of heroic and patriotic resistance fighters, but rather a subdued people trying to make the best of rationing and the bleak conditions of life.  The tale concerns an out-of-work taxi driver, cunningly played by the French comic actor Bourvil.  (Parenthetically here, I have always been fascinated by the vast number of French cinema actors and actresses who forged a career using a single name;  originally a music hall entertainer, Bourvil chose his stage name from the region of Normandy where he was raised).  Struggling to make ends meet and to look after his jealously-guarded wife, his character, Martin, contracts with a black market grocer to transport four suitcases containing a freshly-slaughtered pig to a restaurateur across the city. With his usual accomplice nicked by the gendarmes, he hones in on a scruffy chap in the local bistro to take his place. This chap Grandgil, played by the magnificent Jean Gabin, describes himself as a painter -- and Martin assumes him to be a down-and-out house-painter.  Grandgil agrees to the expedition and proceeds to bully the miserly pig-provider -- a small but telling role for another classic French comic actor Louis de Funes -- into paying over the odds as he casually begins to destroy his hoarded stock of groceries.


And so their six-mile trek begins as they are harassed by nosy policeman, a growing number of sniffing mongrels, and the German patrols, a journey initially told jocularly but eventually becoming more serious as their actual liberty becomes threatened.  Towards the end of the evening they call by Grandgil's rather luxurious flat, where Martin discovers that his companion is actually a very successful artist -- although I personally thought that most of the paintings cluttering his studio resembled a selection of forgeries, done in a variety of recognizable styles.  It becomes clear that while the weasly Martin is smuggling the pig meat for much-needed money, Grandgil is doing it for kicks and has no qualms at savagely attacking wherever he senses hypocrisy.  This role is something of a revelation for Gabin, who throughout his career played larger than life characters and who always brings a daunting presence; however he could never be described as a comic actor.  His treatment of the finally fraught situation here, after the pair are picked up by the Germans, makes one feel sorry for the half-cringing, half-cocky Martin, and less sympathetic to Gabin's unsympathetic toughness. Before its final coda, the film appears to end with Martin's being rounded up for a concentration camp together with other locals after an officer is murdered, while Grandgil's fame saves him from the same fate courtesy of a fawning German commandant.  A final scene is tacked on to show that Martin luckily did survive the war, but the class distinction between him and Grandgil is more obvious than ever.


Nicely directed by the prolific Claude Autant-Lara from an original novel by Marcel Ayme, I have only recently discovered that the director and his screenwriters drastically changed the tale's ending. In the original, Martin apparently kills Grandgil in his studio, fed up with Gabin's arrogance and swagger, and is subsequently arrested for his murder.  I do prefer the version on display here, with its not-so-faint air of vinegar, anger, and desperation.

Dark Shadows (2012)

Being a fan of both Johnny Depp and his frequent director Tim Burton, I had high hopes that, despite the lukewarm notices their new collaboration has received, I would be charmed by the above film. Well, 'charmed' is far too strong a word, and while this movie certainly had its moments, it is unfortunately deeply flawed and poorly constructed.  Based on the cult 'soap' of the same name, which ran in the States between 1966 and 1970, one would have thought that this tale of a family-oriented vampire who has lain buried for two hundred years before returning to a new and different world might have been right up Burton's Gothic alley and would elicit yet another highly-stylized performance from Depp.  Instead, we have something of a dog's dinner.


Although I have never viewed the TV series, I have seen one or both of the television movie spin-offs ("House of Dark Shadows", "Night of Dark Shadows") and had an idea what to expect. The film starts off OK with the background story leading to Depp's 200-year burial (some folderol about losing his one true love after spurning the advances of a local witch who placed a spell upon him) and morphs neatly into his coffin being disinterred by local workmen.  He returns to the ancestral pile to the strains of a 70s pop track and meets the current remnants of his family (their fortune faltering). He is also taken aback by the technological changes during his absence. Unfortunately none of this is as camp or as broadly played as the story demands and Burton's disastrous attempt to include virtually all of the series' plot-strands into a single story falls well-short of producing a coherent film.  The fault lies squarely with the script which is lazily put together and muddled by pointless twists.


The movie is neither funny enough nor gory enough with Depp's unchained blood-lust rearing its ugly head gratuitously at the least appropriate moments.  He not only tears out the throats of the workmen who find his coffin, but also feels obliged to eat some hippy campers that befriend him.  Most of the best gags have been over-exposed in the trailers, and the only line that really made me laugh was when Depp describes Alice Cooper as the ugliest woman he has ever seen.  (Mind you why the singer was even featured in the film at all is something of a mystery).   As for the rest of the cast, it is all again a mixed bag.  Michelle Pfeiffer (apparently a fan of the original series) registers strongly as the matriarch of the modern-day family and Eva Green is appropriately sexy and malicious as the 1970's personification of the original witch.  However the obligatory part for Helena Bonham Carter -- looking horrendous with bright red hair -- is a non-starter as the family's resident psychiatrist who craves Depp's immortality.  Jackie Earle Haley as a drunken retainer under Depp's spell, Johnny Lee Miller as a thieving relation, and especially Chloe Grace Moretz as a teen-aged werewolf (don't ask) are all pretty wasted as events unfold.  There is even a completely pointless cameo from genre hero Christopher Lee. Finally Bella Heathcote, an obscure Australian ingenue, as the current reincarnation of his lost love is appropriately fey-looking but given rather little to do, despite the ghost from the past that hovers by her.


Some of the special effects are mildly amusing as Depp re-explores the creepy mansion and as he has literally off-the-walls sex with Green, but these do not serve to pull together what is basically a poorly directed and often incomprehensible story.  Depp strives to give us yet another of his rather weird character creations, but often looks as bemused by the mechanics of the plot as we the viewer.  I just wish that both he and Burton could have had rather more fun with this movie; they obviously both set out to capture the spirit of the original, but seem to have lost their way in the process. Incidentally, the original lead Jonathan Frid, who died a few days ago, can be glimpsed briefly among the guests at the Collins family 'ball'.  The movie ends with a hook for a possible sequel, but on the strength of this showing, that is hopefully unlikely.


In closing let me tell you about another film I saw immediately after the above with the unlikely title of "Nude Nuns with Big Guns" (2010), a stupid piece of Mexican (I think) crapdoodle.  It would be tempting to write that I enjoyed it rather more than the Depp/Burton farrago, but that would be a big, fat, unbelievable lie!