I'm still jumping between my regular film watching -- TV, Satellite, DVDs, cinema as often as possible now -- and the amazing rarities I have found on YouTube. One problem with the latter is that movies which are still in copyright rather than in the public domain are often deleted by the powers that be, after complaints from interested commercial bodies. I truly believe that most of these uploads are posted in good faith (the people in question have nothing to gain by breaching copyright or perhaps do not even realise that the exchange of information is far from as free as we imagine or hope), but that does not help their longevity on YouTube.
In the last week I have watched two wonderful foreign language movies that I have long wished to see: "The Revolt of Job" (1983) and "The Crucified Lovers" (1954). The former has never been issued on DVD (and I saw an offer on Amazon to provide a new VHS copy for $999.00!) and the latter is only available on a French DVD at a pretty steep price. Both of them are currently available to view free of charge on YouTube with good quality English subtitles; however these titles are not hard-embedded, so it isn't possible to download them to watch intelligibly offline. Believe me I would if I could. Watching movies on one's computer or other electronic device is hardly the ideal way to see a film, but I would strongly advise making a beeline for these two titles while they are still there!
'Job' really warrants a place amongst the best 'Holocaust' movies ever made and given the number of fine films within this genre, it is amazing to me that it has not been more broadly available, especially since it was Oscar-nominated. Job is a relatively wealthy shepherd in rural Hungary, who like his namesake fights stoically against his destiny. He is an observant Jew and the rumblings of Hitler's armies and racist policies may not have reached his rural community in 1943, but he can see the writing on the wall. He and his aging wife have lost seven children to childhood diseases and he dearly wants an heir to whom he can leave not only his wealth but his wisdom. He goes to a nearby Christian orphanage to 'buy' a son (it was already against the law for Jews to adopt). He takes home the initially rebellious Lacko, a boy with a 'way' with animals, who eventually comes to love his new mamma and poppa. The child also gradually learns the Jewish traditions that Job cherishes and to naively find God in all small things. When the round-up finally arrives and he sees his 'parents' being carted off to the camps, they pointedly avoid acknowledging the 'son' whom they have housed with former servants. Their heartbreak becomes ours as well. All of the casting is superb, particularly Ferenc Zenthe as Job (later a stalwart of Hungarian television drama) and non-professional Gabor Feder as the winning and inquisitive Lacko. The tragedy of the Hungarian Jews is underlined without resorting to unnecessary violence or histrionics, and it is therefore all the more powerful.
The second film is from the prolific Japanese master director Kenji Mizoguchi, made two years before his death. A fixture of the cinema scene in Japan since the late 1920s, his list of classics is endless and includes "Ugetsu Monogatari", "The Life of Oharu", and "Sansho the Bailiff". Indeed he produced three more late masterpieces after "Crucified Lovers" ("Princess Yang Kwei-fei", "The Taira Clan Saga", and "Street of Shame"). Set in l7th Century Kyoto and based on a drama from the l7th Century playwright Chikamatu) -- hence its Japanese title Chikamatu Monogatari (A Tale from Chikamatu) -- it is a tragic saga of human fallibility and doomed love. Osan has been married off to the older and miserly Ishun, the emperor's master printer, by her mother to provide for her feckless son; Osan's brother continues to beg for funds to prevent the family falling into disgrace. Meanwhile serving maid Otama harbours deep feelings for Mohei, Ishun's creative genius craftsman, while Mohei in turn would do anything to win the heart of Osan. He agrees to help her find the funds to bail out her brother yet again which would involve some financial sleight of hand with Ishun's hoarded wealth. Things come to a head when the plan is uncovered by Mohei's immediate superior who has been lining his own pockets for years.
Despite Otama's claiming that she had asked Mohei for the money, everyone is so very honourable that they will not accept any one else's lies. Ishun is furious with everyone, threatens Mohei with jail, and will not accept Osan's pleas on his behalf. In fact he is now convinced that they are secret lovers (overlooking his own licentious approaches to Otama), despite the fact that they are both completely innocent. The fate of adulterous lovers who dare cross class boundaries is public crucifixion, as we have seen in an earlier scene, and the pair are forced to flee his wrath. Proud and greedy he wants his chattel of a wife back and deploys his minions to track them down; however he does not report the purported adultery to the police. When Osan feels that all is now hopeless and proposes to drown herself, Mohei admits his own long-repressed feelings and she finally falls into his arms. Cue a sorry end for all of the players, including Ishun whose wealth is stripped from him. This is about the only part of the tale that gives one any satisfaction, although it is lovely to see how truly happy the lost couple are together even as they face their own deaths.
I've gone into rather complicated and melodramatic plot detail perhaps unnecessarily, since the drama moves quickly and is surprisingly riveting. I seldom remember the names of many Japanese actors, but the faces remain recognizable over a range of fine films. The actress playing Osan was still active in 1993 in one of my favourite late Kurosawa films "Madadayo". Along with that director, Mizoguchi earns his place as one of Japan's truly great auteurs. Although this is a fairly formal story, fairly formally filmed, the director's eye is that of a true artist. As the lovers are shown fleeing over the water, the picture atmospherically becomes a mobile Japanese etching -- beautiful in its simplicity.
See them now!
Wednesday, 26 February 2014
Wednesday, 19 February 2014
Nebraska (2013)
I've now made my second excursion to the cinema this year to see the one movie of the awards season that has really piqued my interest. If you've watched any of the award shows so far, you may have noticed a grey and tousled-hair elderly chap seated amongst all the glitterati. That's good old Bruce Dern who has been Oscar-nominated for best actor in the above film. The flick has five other nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (Alexander Payne), Best Supporting Actress (June Squibb), Best Original Screenplay (Bob Nelson), and Best Cinematography (Phedon Papamichael). While it would not surprise me in the least if none of the above are honoured, passed over for more popular or worthy entertainments, all of the above are well worth discussing and the film is more than well worth viewing. In fact I recommend it highly.
Dern has been around since the early 60s, starting in television series, and moving on to some well-known features in the late 60s and 70s. Generally few recognised him as much of an actor and he was largely slotted into a variety of criminal, sociopathic, and psychopathic roles in which he excelled. He reached the epitome of creepy evil in the largely-forgotten but still memorable "Tattoo" (1981). Everyone assumed that he must be the archetypal 'baddie' since he is the only actor to have killed the All-American John Wayne on screen in "Cowboys" (1972). Although Oscar-nominated for Best Supporting Actor in "Coming Home" (1978) and a fine Tom Buchanan in the l974 "Great Gatsby", his career just toddled along. He worked constantly to date with plenty of small roles in recent movies and television movies, but very little that you might remember. That's until Payne cast him as the lead in "Nebraska".
He plays Woody Grant, a nobody, worn down by life, loss, booze, and the early stages of dementia. When he receives a marketing ploy letter advising him that he has won a million dollars (if his numbers match and he buys various magazine subscriptions), he is determined to travel from his home in Billings, Montana to claim his 'winnings' in Omaha, Nebraska. No longer able to drive he tries to set out on foot along the dusty highway, until the police return him home. His caustic wife (Squibb) thinks he's a nutter and keeps threatening to put him in a home, but his younger son (Will Forte), who has never connected with his Dad, volunteers to drive him to Omaha in a last ditch attempt to win his father's affection. En route they plan to spend the weekend with relatives in Woody's home town in Northern Nebraska and Squibb arrives by bus to join them. Over a few beers Woody casually mentions to the old-timers that he has 'won' a million and soon everyone in town is celebrating his good fortune -- and quite a few of them want a piece of the non-existent bucks.
Squibb whom I really did not know previously steals every scene in which she appears, even though it is still Dern's movie overall. She played the very small part of Jack Nicholson's recently deceased wife in another of Payne's road movies "About Schmidt", but here her forthright manner and no-nonsense approach to life shine brightly. There is a scene in the local cemetery where she has a few choice words for each of the departed that is among the more memorable movie moments of recent times. While not himself nominated special praise should also go to Forte, best known as a comic starting off with his success on Saturday Night Live. There is nothing remotely funny about his role here, except possibly when he and his brother (Bob Odenkirk) try to retrieve a 'stolen' compressor from the wrong farm. He plays it straight, doing his best to protect his deluded Dad, and the movie's denouement arrives as a heart-warming surprise. That comes after he 'decks' local Stacy Keach, Woody's former business partner and compressor-thief, who demanded most to profit from Woody's would-be wealth (audience cheers!).
Perhaps I should have mentioned sooner that the film is in black and white. Papamichael's camera work is nothing short of magnificent, capturing the bleak and desolate landscape of middle-America with its soulless and deadening roads and towns. It just wouldn't have worked in colour. Payne has made only a few movies but all of them interesting, the first of which ironically starred Dern's daughter Laura (Citizen Ruth in 1996). In this movie with its spot-on casting, he assembles a cross-section of monosyllabic and occasionally imbecilic characters who seem to personify the drab and largely uninteresting story of Woody's world. Some shots, like all of his male relatives gathered around the ballgame on the goggle box, would translate beautifully into remarkable stills of a world that modern technology has bypassed and time has forgotten. It's a grey, small-minded, and generally hopeless life.
I last saw Dern seated in the stalls at the recently televised BAFTAs and no, he and the film didn't win any awards. I expect the same scenario at next week's Oscars, but the movie truly deserves every one of its nominations and more.
Dern has been around since the early 60s, starting in television series, and moving on to some well-known features in the late 60s and 70s. Generally few recognised him as much of an actor and he was largely slotted into a variety of criminal, sociopathic, and psychopathic roles in which he excelled. He reached the epitome of creepy evil in the largely-forgotten but still memorable "Tattoo" (1981). Everyone assumed that he must be the archetypal 'baddie' since he is the only actor to have killed the All-American John Wayne on screen in "Cowboys" (1972). Although Oscar-nominated for Best Supporting Actor in "Coming Home" (1978) and a fine Tom Buchanan in the l974 "Great Gatsby", his career just toddled along. He worked constantly to date with plenty of small roles in recent movies and television movies, but very little that you might remember. That's until Payne cast him as the lead in "Nebraska".
He plays Woody Grant, a nobody, worn down by life, loss, booze, and the early stages of dementia. When he receives a marketing ploy letter advising him that he has won a million dollars (if his numbers match and he buys various magazine subscriptions), he is determined to travel from his home in Billings, Montana to claim his 'winnings' in Omaha, Nebraska. No longer able to drive he tries to set out on foot along the dusty highway, until the police return him home. His caustic wife (Squibb) thinks he's a nutter and keeps threatening to put him in a home, but his younger son (Will Forte), who has never connected with his Dad, volunteers to drive him to Omaha in a last ditch attempt to win his father's affection. En route they plan to spend the weekend with relatives in Woody's home town in Northern Nebraska and Squibb arrives by bus to join them. Over a few beers Woody casually mentions to the old-timers that he has 'won' a million and soon everyone in town is celebrating his good fortune -- and quite a few of them want a piece of the non-existent bucks.
Squibb whom I really did not know previously steals every scene in which she appears, even though it is still Dern's movie overall. She played the very small part of Jack Nicholson's recently deceased wife in another of Payne's road movies "About Schmidt", but here her forthright manner and no-nonsense approach to life shine brightly. There is a scene in the local cemetery where she has a few choice words for each of the departed that is among the more memorable movie moments of recent times. While not himself nominated special praise should also go to Forte, best known as a comic starting off with his success on Saturday Night Live. There is nothing remotely funny about his role here, except possibly when he and his brother (Bob Odenkirk) try to retrieve a 'stolen' compressor from the wrong farm. He plays it straight, doing his best to protect his deluded Dad, and the movie's denouement arrives as a heart-warming surprise. That comes after he 'decks' local Stacy Keach, Woody's former business partner and compressor-thief, who demanded most to profit from Woody's would-be wealth (audience cheers!).
Perhaps I should have mentioned sooner that the film is in black and white. Papamichael's camera work is nothing short of magnificent, capturing the bleak and desolate landscape of middle-America with its soulless and deadening roads and towns. It just wouldn't have worked in colour. Payne has made only a few movies but all of them interesting, the first of which ironically starred Dern's daughter Laura (Citizen Ruth in 1996). In this movie with its spot-on casting, he assembles a cross-section of monosyllabic and occasionally imbecilic characters who seem to personify the drab and largely uninteresting story of Woody's world. Some shots, like all of his male relatives gathered around the ballgame on the goggle box, would translate beautifully into remarkable stills of a world that modern technology has bypassed and time has forgotten. It's a grey, small-minded, and generally hopeless life.
I last saw Dern seated in the stalls at the recently televised BAFTAs and no, he and the film didn't win any awards. I expect the same scenario at next week's Oscars, but the movie truly deserves every one of its nominations and more.
Wednesday, 12 February 2014
My Dream Movie
There I was lying in bed trying to get back to sleep, when I started thinking about the film that I would write about today. I decided to start by saying that I was tempted to write 'they really don't make them like that any more'. I would then go on to rave about the inky blacks and dazzling whites of the cinematography and the sophisticated production design, costuming, and banter. I had to keep reminding myself what movie I was thinking about before drifting off, and could not quite keep the title in mind. Can you guess why? The answer is that I viewed no such film in the last week or so, although this daydream speaks volumes about my fondness for so many movies from the 30s and 40s.
So what have I been up to? Well I am still having a ball with the infinite treasures available on YouTube. There one can find nearly all the Mary Pickford films that have managed to elude me and a host of other rare silents from Lon Chaney, Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, and other long-departed geniuses. I have now saved so many movies to 'watch later' that my down-time is spoken-for for months to come, especially since I need to slot these in with my regular pattern of satellite and terrestrial showings, the DVD backlog, and now the occasional cinema outing. YouTube is also providing the opportunity for me to find other titles that have been loitering on my 'must see' list and in the last week I have been able to cross out "Street Scene" (1931) -- very dated from the award-winning Edgar Rice play but still fascinating, "Pitfall" (1948) and "99 River Street" (1953) -- moderately entertaining noirs, and "Baby Love" (1968) -- a fairly vile British exploitation movie wasting a good cast as foils to Linda Hayden's nymphet.
I have also been busy burning copies of those films which are either sufficiently rare or personal favourites to add to my collection, and I have a number which I have yet to view. Did I hear someone mention the word 'obsessive' again? Two of these that I have managed to watch are "Destiny" (1920) and "Lady Windermere's Fan" (1925). The former, also known as "Der Mude Tod", is a Fritz Lang film which I saw at the National Film Theatre some years ago and which I thought I would never be able to view a second time. It's a bitter-sweet tale of a young girl who loses her beloved fiancé to Death and begs Him to reunite them. They make a bargain that if she is able to prevent the deaths of three people whose 'candles are flickering low', her wish will be granted. We then move to three tales set in Arabia, Venice, and China, where a loved one can not be saved. Brilliant stuff! As for 'Windermere', one of those stories that continues to be re-made, from 1916 right up to the modern-day "A Good Woman (2004) with Helen Hunt and Scarlett Johansson, the 1925 version directed by Ernst Lubitsch (he of the famous 'touch') is notable for an early role for the ever-dashing Ronald Colman. As luck would have it, he also starred in another of this week's movies, the early talkie "Condemned" (1929) with the gorgeous, but soon to be forgotten star, Anne Harding. As a further coincidence, she also appeared in 1935's "Enchanted April" -- one of her last pictures as a leading actress, a hoary chestnut of a movie remade to better effect in 1991 with Joan Plowright and Miranda Richardson, and another of this week's entertainments. What a happy bunny I should be...and am!
In closing I must offer my R.I.P. to darling Shirley Temple who brought joy to so many, not just back in the Depression era, but who still charms viewers today.
So what have I been up to? Well I am still having a ball with the infinite treasures available on YouTube. There one can find nearly all the Mary Pickford films that have managed to elude me and a host of other rare silents from Lon Chaney, Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, and other long-departed geniuses. I have now saved so many movies to 'watch later' that my down-time is spoken-for for months to come, especially since I need to slot these in with my regular pattern of satellite and terrestrial showings, the DVD backlog, and now the occasional cinema outing. YouTube is also providing the opportunity for me to find other titles that have been loitering on my 'must see' list and in the last week I have been able to cross out "Street Scene" (1931) -- very dated from the award-winning Edgar Rice play but still fascinating, "Pitfall" (1948) and "99 River Street" (1953) -- moderately entertaining noirs, and "Baby Love" (1968) -- a fairly vile British exploitation movie wasting a good cast as foils to Linda Hayden's nymphet.
I have also been busy burning copies of those films which are either sufficiently rare or personal favourites to add to my collection, and I have a number which I have yet to view. Did I hear someone mention the word 'obsessive' again? Two of these that I have managed to watch are "Destiny" (1920) and "Lady Windermere's Fan" (1925). The former, also known as "Der Mude Tod", is a Fritz Lang film which I saw at the National Film Theatre some years ago and which I thought I would never be able to view a second time. It's a bitter-sweet tale of a young girl who loses her beloved fiancé to Death and begs Him to reunite them. They make a bargain that if she is able to prevent the deaths of three people whose 'candles are flickering low', her wish will be granted. We then move to three tales set in Arabia, Venice, and China, where a loved one can not be saved. Brilliant stuff! As for 'Windermere', one of those stories that continues to be re-made, from 1916 right up to the modern-day "A Good Woman (2004) with Helen Hunt and Scarlett Johansson, the 1925 version directed by Ernst Lubitsch (he of the famous 'touch') is notable for an early role for the ever-dashing Ronald Colman. As luck would have it, he also starred in another of this week's movies, the early talkie "Condemned" (1929) with the gorgeous, but soon to be forgotten star, Anne Harding. As a further coincidence, she also appeared in 1935's "Enchanted April" -- one of her last pictures as a leading actress, a hoary chestnut of a movie remade to better effect in 1991 with Joan Plowright and Miranda Richardson, and another of this week's entertainments. What a happy bunny I should be...and am!
In closing I must offer my R.I.P. to darling Shirley Temple who brought joy to so many, not just back in the Depression era, but who still charms viewers today.
Wednesday, 5 February 2014
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
I discontinued updates on my mobility after my fracture, when I decided that these were really only of interest to me (like a lot of the stuff I write about I suspect). However, going to see the above film was actually something of a landmark. It's the first time I've been able to get to a cinema under my own steam since FrightFest at the end of August. So that was something of a red-letter day for me -- and I shall now cease and desist with all things medical.
This Coen Brothers' film premiered at Cannes to great critical acclaim and I was eagerly looking forward to viewing it. By and large I have really loved most -- but not all, let it be said -- of their movies and their quirky takes on various genres. Only their re-make of the "Ladykillers" really disappointed me and I'm not too fond of their Clooney/Zeta Jones farce either, but they can normally be counted upon for providing something rather special. I therefore wish that I had warmed more to this latest flick which is being promoted in the ads with adjectives like 'charming', 'delightful', and 'amusing'. It is nothing of the kind, but rather a somewhat bitter look at the latest in their catalogue of losers.
Oscar Isaac plays the eponymous hero, although 'hero' is too strong a word for the sorry fellow. Llewyn is a minor folk-singer, hoping to forge a solo career after the suicide of his former partner. Isaac possesses a more than pleasant voice and makes a good fist of recreating the folk scene in Greenwich village in the late 50s/early 60s. In fact the whole period and shades of the legendary Dave van Ronk are beautifully re-created by the Coens, with indeed some affection for its passing. We see how popular groups like the Clancy Brothers clones on display need make way for new (and more profitable) talents like Bob Dylan. It is clear from the start that Llewyn, as embodied by Isaac, is never going to quite make it. He lives a hand-to-mouth existence, bumming a night here and there on acquaintances' couches. As his sometime-friend Carey Mulligan (who he may or may not have impregnated, despite her being the partner of another friend, Justin Timberlake) comments, "You're like King Midas' idiot brother" -- meaning that everything he touches turns to something far more base than gold. Llewyn is an anti-hero firmly set in the Coens' galaxy of life's failures. It's a folk tale about a folk singer, a minor talent doomed to be left by the wayside, bound to fail in a world full of nobodies. The moral being that talent and hard work need not breed success. To make matters worse, Llewyn does not even come across as a likeable chap!
Yet there is something about this movie that is captivating and I suspect that it may well be worth watching a second or third time. The real star of the movie and the best thing in it is a ginger cat that Llewyn finds himself lumbered with after it escapes from a professors' apartment where he has spent the night. He loses it, searches for it, eventually returns it for the best line in the film (it was the wrong sex puss), and finds himself looking after another unwanted moggy. You might say that the movie is something of a shaggy cat story, as the cat becomes a companion on Llewyn's fruitless odyssey. Incidentally the first cat manages to find his way home and it turns out to be called Ulysses. (Yes, the Coens do have something of a 'thing' about The Odyssey). The film does have shades of a mythic, never-ending circular structure, as it starts and finishes with the same scene of Llewyn being beaten up in an alley by an unknown assailant. It seems that he is doomed to plod on the perpetual treadmill of despair.
While nicely cast, there are few familiar names among the players; but some mention should be made of Coens' regular John Goodman. In a few brief but amusing scenes he plays a drug-addled bluesman, half asleep on the back seat of a shared-expense road trip to Chicago, where Llewyn hopes to impress impresario F. Murray Abraham (no soap!). Goodman manages to throw out a number of caustic remarks, belittling Llewyn even further, about folk-singing, Welsh people, and even the best bridge for committing suicide. There's just no hope for our hopeless protagonist.
Some people think that this film was 'robbed' by not receiving Oscar nominations in various categories. I'm not too sure that any would have been deserved given the competition this year. Even the only original song in the movie (the others were all lesser-known traditional ones cleverly culled by T-Bone Burnett), the vaguely amusing "Please Mr Kennedy" did not come across as a suitable contender.
Before closing I must mention a timely oddity that I viewed yesterday courtesy of German satellite TV, "Das Weisse Stadion". Made in 1928 as a homage to the winter Olympics that year in San Moritz, the film was believed lost until 201l, when it was reconstructed from various sources. Lovingly and poetically filmed, it recreated a long-gone world. Did you know that the winter games used to include such competitions as horse-racing on ice or horse-drawn ski- racing? There were also some charming exhibitions of skating prowess, including one from Sonja Henie who went on to Hollywood fame. Great stuff!
This Coen Brothers' film premiered at Cannes to great critical acclaim and I was eagerly looking forward to viewing it. By and large I have really loved most -- but not all, let it be said -- of their movies and their quirky takes on various genres. Only their re-make of the "Ladykillers" really disappointed me and I'm not too fond of their Clooney/Zeta Jones farce either, but they can normally be counted upon for providing something rather special. I therefore wish that I had warmed more to this latest flick which is being promoted in the ads with adjectives like 'charming', 'delightful', and 'amusing'. It is nothing of the kind, but rather a somewhat bitter look at the latest in their catalogue of losers.
Oscar Isaac plays the eponymous hero, although 'hero' is too strong a word for the sorry fellow. Llewyn is a minor folk-singer, hoping to forge a solo career after the suicide of his former partner. Isaac possesses a more than pleasant voice and makes a good fist of recreating the folk scene in Greenwich village in the late 50s/early 60s. In fact the whole period and shades of the legendary Dave van Ronk are beautifully re-created by the Coens, with indeed some affection for its passing. We see how popular groups like the Clancy Brothers clones on display need make way for new (and more profitable) talents like Bob Dylan. It is clear from the start that Llewyn, as embodied by Isaac, is never going to quite make it. He lives a hand-to-mouth existence, bumming a night here and there on acquaintances' couches. As his sometime-friend Carey Mulligan (who he may or may not have impregnated, despite her being the partner of another friend, Justin Timberlake) comments, "You're like King Midas' idiot brother" -- meaning that everything he touches turns to something far more base than gold. Llewyn is an anti-hero firmly set in the Coens' galaxy of life's failures. It's a folk tale about a folk singer, a minor talent doomed to be left by the wayside, bound to fail in a world full of nobodies. The moral being that talent and hard work need not breed success. To make matters worse, Llewyn does not even come across as a likeable chap!
Yet there is something about this movie that is captivating and I suspect that it may well be worth watching a second or third time. The real star of the movie and the best thing in it is a ginger cat that Llewyn finds himself lumbered with after it escapes from a professors' apartment where he has spent the night. He loses it, searches for it, eventually returns it for the best line in the film (it was the wrong sex puss), and finds himself looking after another unwanted moggy. You might say that the movie is something of a shaggy cat story, as the cat becomes a companion on Llewyn's fruitless odyssey. Incidentally the first cat manages to find his way home and it turns out to be called Ulysses. (Yes, the Coens do have something of a 'thing' about The Odyssey). The film does have shades of a mythic, never-ending circular structure, as it starts and finishes with the same scene of Llewyn being beaten up in an alley by an unknown assailant. It seems that he is doomed to plod on the perpetual treadmill of despair.
While nicely cast, there are few familiar names among the players; but some mention should be made of Coens' regular John Goodman. In a few brief but amusing scenes he plays a drug-addled bluesman, half asleep on the back seat of a shared-expense road trip to Chicago, where Llewyn hopes to impress impresario F. Murray Abraham (no soap!). Goodman manages to throw out a number of caustic remarks, belittling Llewyn even further, about folk-singing, Welsh people, and even the best bridge for committing suicide. There's just no hope for our hopeless protagonist.
Some people think that this film was 'robbed' by not receiving Oscar nominations in various categories. I'm not too sure that any would have been deserved given the competition this year. Even the only original song in the movie (the others were all lesser-known traditional ones cleverly culled by T-Bone Burnett), the vaguely amusing "Please Mr Kennedy" did not come across as a suitable contender.
Before closing I must mention a timely oddity that I viewed yesterday courtesy of German satellite TV, "Das Weisse Stadion". Made in 1928 as a homage to the winter Olympics that year in San Moritz, the film was believed lost until 201l, when it was reconstructed from various sources. Lovingly and poetically filmed, it recreated a long-gone world. Did you know that the winter games used to include such competitions as horse-racing on ice or horse-drawn ski- racing? There were also some charming exhibitions of skating prowess, including one from Sonja Henie who went on to Hollywood fame. Great stuff!
Wednesday, 29 January 2014
Mirror Mirror (2012)
Like an increasing number of movies featured on Sky Box Office (i.e. pay-per-view), this film never made its way to Sky's Premier Channel and I was beginning to think that it was yet another movie that had fallen through the cracks. I was therefore pleased to see it turning up on Channel Four in an early evening 'kiddie' slot. I was particularly interested in watching this film, not because I am a great lover of updated fairy tales, but because I think its director, Tarsem Singh (occasionally billed as just Tarsem) possesses incredible visual style and flair. His little-seen 2006 movie "The Fall" was one of the most imaginative and beautiful films of the last goodness-knows-how-many years.
As its title implies, this movie is another version of the Snow White story but it had the misfortune to be released the same year as the infinitely more successful "Snow White and the Huntsman", which Sky did deign to show. Perhaps that flick with its trendier casting, including Kristen Stewart, had more box office clout, but it is certainly to my mind the lesser film. "Mirror Mirror" stars Julia Roberts as the wicked stepmother, an improvement I think on the other film's gorgeous but icy Charlize Theron. Roberts seems to be having a ball playing the baddie, hamming it up beautifully, and is not particularly vain about her aging looks. When her younger version in the magic mirror comments on her wrinkles, she retorts that they are not wrinkles, but 'crinkles'. The Snow role is filled by Lily Collins, daughter of Phil, who looks every inch the virginal innocent despite her caterpillar eyebrows, and is certainly more appealing than the downbeat, pouty Stewart. Her Prince Charming takes the hunky form of Armie Hammer, just before he began to loom large in popularity, and he displays an unsuspected ability for mocking self-disparaging humour. Rounding out the cast are comic stalwarts Nathan Lane and Michael Lerner and seven 'proper' dwarfs with three-dimensional personalities -- unlike the other movie's use of actors such as Ray Winstone's and Bob Hopkins' heads on little bodies.
The respected film critic Leonard Maltin whose opinions I normally trust, especially when it comes to movies for youngsters, writes that this film is a poor excuse for a fairy tale, lacking whimsy, magic, and heart. I must disagree. I found the movie a charmer, enhanced by Tarsem's taste for flamboyant sets and costuming. For a start, having the dwarfs fighting on stylized stilts so that they appear as fearsome giants, is an awesome idea -- this alone is Maltin's whimsy and magic run riot. As for 'heart', Tarsem may adopt a certain tongue-in-cheek approach to his love story, but the players manage it with complete aplomb. The bit where Hammer is possessed by one of Roberts' love potions -- a 'puppy-love' spell as it happens -- and reacts to the world as an overgrown puppy is beautifully realised. The dwarfs do their best to release him from her clutches by various bits of bodily violence, but only Snow's first kiss can do the trick. Roberts withers into the old hag she always was, Snow's 'dead' father is freed from her curse, and everyone can live happily ever after. How much more do you want Mr. Maltin?
The end credits are fun too with updates on the dwarfs' future lives and with the whole cast doing a Bollywood style song and dance a la "Slumdog Millionaire". Don't knock it, Tarsem Singh is Indian-born after all. This may not be the most brilliant fairy tale rendering of all time, but it certainly is both a lot of fun and beautiful to behold.
As its title implies, this movie is another version of the Snow White story but it had the misfortune to be released the same year as the infinitely more successful "Snow White and the Huntsman", which Sky did deign to show. Perhaps that flick with its trendier casting, including Kristen Stewart, had more box office clout, but it is certainly to my mind the lesser film. "Mirror Mirror" stars Julia Roberts as the wicked stepmother, an improvement I think on the other film's gorgeous but icy Charlize Theron. Roberts seems to be having a ball playing the baddie, hamming it up beautifully, and is not particularly vain about her aging looks. When her younger version in the magic mirror comments on her wrinkles, she retorts that they are not wrinkles, but 'crinkles'. The Snow role is filled by Lily Collins, daughter of Phil, who looks every inch the virginal innocent despite her caterpillar eyebrows, and is certainly more appealing than the downbeat, pouty Stewart. Her Prince Charming takes the hunky form of Armie Hammer, just before he began to loom large in popularity, and he displays an unsuspected ability for mocking self-disparaging humour. Rounding out the cast are comic stalwarts Nathan Lane and Michael Lerner and seven 'proper' dwarfs with three-dimensional personalities -- unlike the other movie's use of actors such as Ray Winstone's and Bob Hopkins' heads on little bodies.
The respected film critic Leonard Maltin whose opinions I normally trust, especially when it comes to movies for youngsters, writes that this film is a poor excuse for a fairy tale, lacking whimsy, magic, and heart. I must disagree. I found the movie a charmer, enhanced by Tarsem's taste for flamboyant sets and costuming. For a start, having the dwarfs fighting on stylized stilts so that they appear as fearsome giants, is an awesome idea -- this alone is Maltin's whimsy and magic run riot. As for 'heart', Tarsem may adopt a certain tongue-in-cheek approach to his love story, but the players manage it with complete aplomb. The bit where Hammer is possessed by one of Roberts' love potions -- a 'puppy-love' spell as it happens -- and reacts to the world as an overgrown puppy is beautifully realised. The dwarfs do their best to release him from her clutches by various bits of bodily violence, but only Snow's first kiss can do the trick. Roberts withers into the old hag she always was, Snow's 'dead' father is freed from her curse, and everyone can live happily ever after. How much more do you want Mr. Maltin?
The end credits are fun too with updates on the dwarfs' future lives and with the whole cast doing a Bollywood style song and dance a la "Slumdog Millionaire". Don't knock it, Tarsem Singh is Indian-born after all. This may not be the most brilliant fairy tale rendering of all time, but it certainly is both a lot of fun and beautiful to behold.
Thursday, 23 January 2014
Splendor (1989)
I probably saw this movie about ten years ago at the National Film Theatre and loved, loved, loved it as a homage to the beauty of cinema. I have been trying to see it again ever since, but it just wasn't available through the usual channels and seemed to be little-known, even amongst the most ardent cinema buffs. Now, courtesy of friend Richard (he of the mini-cinema), I have my own copy and was delighted to have the opportunity of a second view. It was written and directed by the prolific and still active Ettore Scola whose filmography includes a number of remarkable Italian movies, although perhaps one rung down from the so-called 'greats'.
Marcello Mastroianni, one of the most consistently entertaining cinema stars, plays Jordan, who as a youth toured the Italian countryside with his father's mobile movie van, setting up sheets for a screening in rustic town piazzas, which filled with wide-eyed and star-struck locals, sucked in by the fascination of the movies' dream-world. Now an adult he has inherited the small town cinema established by his dad -- The Splendor. When new, it formed the centrepiece of the town's social life, with crowds rushing in to fill every seat to view each new attraction. However over the years the locals have morphed from finding it the biggest event in town to a who-gives-a-damn attitude as television and other activities replaced its appeal. One has only to consider the number of local 'movie palaces' from one's own childhood which have closed down over the years in favour of multiplexes and home entertainment to understand Jordan's concern. Where once he sought to present world cinema as an art form -- a way of broadening the town-folks' experience to a world view -- now his crumbling cinema is being consumed by rising debt and will soon join the dinosaur's graveyard.
Along the way Jordan has acquired a love interest in the curvaceous shape of French actress Marina Vlady (it is not clear to me that they ever actually married) whose shapely form as the Splendor's usherette and ticket-seller was a magnet to the menfolk of the town. Foremost among her admirers is Massimo Troisi's Luigi, who learns the projectionist's art to remain close to her and the movie-house. ( Troisi was the heart of the great film "Il Postino" and he died shortly after it was completed at the terribly early age of 41). In this movie, lured by his obsession with Vlady's Chantal, he also learns to love the magic of the movies along with Jordan and can empathise with the latter's heartbreak in the theatre's closing days.
Throughout the movie Jordan reminisces about times long gone by; the past shot in black and white seems far more colourful than the present-day action's Technicolor drabness. At one point we see him watching the closing scenes of "It's a Wonderful Life" in his nearly deserted theatre, and the tears form in his eyes, not just for the moving film itself but for a way of life fast disappearing. On the day before the Splendor is due to be re-developed into some sort of modern furniture store, the theatre is filled one last time by an audience singing "Auld Lang Syne" just like in the Jimmy Stewart flick, and indeed they and we can feel the tears welling.
This film was released the same year as "Cinema Paradiso" which stole all the kudos. They are both great Italian movies, but are really different kinds of homages to the movies. 'Paradiso' is more of a love-letter to Toto's youth and his love of father-figure projectionist Philippe Noiret, while this movie's melancholy focus is the fleeting loss of the dreams that movies can provide. I'm sure you are all familiar with the charms of 'Paradiso', but this film is well worth seeking out as an appropriate and equally moving companion piece.
Marcello Mastroianni, one of the most consistently entertaining cinema stars, plays Jordan, who as a youth toured the Italian countryside with his father's mobile movie van, setting up sheets for a screening in rustic town piazzas, which filled with wide-eyed and star-struck locals, sucked in by the fascination of the movies' dream-world. Now an adult he has inherited the small town cinema established by his dad -- The Splendor. When new, it formed the centrepiece of the town's social life, with crowds rushing in to fill every seat to view each new attraction. However over the years the locals have morphed from finding it the biggest event in town to a who-gives-a-damn attitude as television and other activities replaced its appeal. One has only to consider the number of local 'movie palaces' from one's own childhood which have closed down over the years in favour of multiplexes and home entertainment to understand Jordan's concern. Where once he sought to present world cinema as an art form -- a way of broadening the town-folks' experience to a world view -- now his crumbling cinema is being consumed by rising debt and will soon join the dinosaur's graveyard.
Along the way Jordan has acquired a love interest in the curvaceous shape of French actress Marina Vlady (it is not clear to me that they ever actually married) whose shapely form as the Splendor's usherette and ticket-seller was a magnet to the menfolk of the town. Foremost among her admirers is Massimo Troisi's Luigi, who learns the projectionist's art to remain close to her and the movie-house. ( Troisi was the heart of the great film "Il Postino" and he died shortly after it was completed at the terribly early age of 41). In this movie, lured by his obsession with Vlady's Chantal, he also learns to love the magic of the movies along with Jordan and can empathise with the latter's heartbreak in the theatre's closing days.
Throughout the movie Jordan reminisces about times long gone by; the past shot in black and white seems far more colourful than the present-day action's Technicolor drabness. At one point we see him watching the closing scenes of "It's a Wonderful Life" in his nearly deserted theatre, and the tears form in his eyes, not just for the moving film itself but for a way of life fast disappearing. On the day before the Splendor is due to be re-developed into some sort of modern furniture store, the theatre is filled one last time by an audience singing "Auld Lang Syne" just like in the Jimmy Stewart flick, and indeed they and we can feel the tears welling.
This film was released the same year as "Cinema Paradiso" which stole all the kudos. They are both great Italian movies, but are really different kinds of homages to the movies. 'Paradiso' is more of a love-letter to Toto's youth and his love of father-figure projectionist Philippe Noiret, while this movie's melancholy focus is the fleeting loss of the dreams that movies can provide. I'm sure you are all familiar with the charms of 'Paradiso', but this film is well worth seeking out as an appropriate and equally moving companion piece.
Wednesday, 15 January 2014
They Shoot Horses, Don't They (1969)
I'm sure I've said it before, but that won't stop my saying it again. There are many films that I 'know', i.e. that I can recall having seen and can just about remember the 'important' bits, as opposed to the many, many movies I watch which are increasingly nearly instantly forgettable. The film above is a good case in point, as I have certainly seen it at least twice previously, but would not have suspected that a third viewing would alter my perspective and evaluation.
It is in fact a very good and in its way a very bitter film from director Sydney Pollack, based on the 1935 novel by Hector McCoy. He extracts the madness of that era's dance marathon phenomena and shapes into not just a haunting portrait of the Depression years, but also an allegory on the America of his own period. In his worldview, the great American Dream is rotten at its core. To readers not familiar with the craze, desperately poor couples would enter the dancehall for the initially important seven meals a day and the ultimate jackpot, here l500 silver dollars -- a fortune in their eyes -- payable to the last couple left standing after a gruelling sixty or so odd days on their increasingly shuffling sore feet, with only ten minute rest breaks every two hours. They are cheered on by a paying audience, each with their own favourites, who have come to enjoy the 'show'.
Among the participants are a hard-faced and disillusioned Jane Fonda, who when asked why she has come to California, replies that at least you don't freeze while you starve. When her obviously ill proposed partner is disqualified from entering on health grounds, she pairs up with drifter Michael Sarrazin (a handsome but slightly vacant actor whose career became less and less interesting). Then there is glamourpuss Susannah York with her Jean Harlow platinum bob and slinky dress, who hopes some passing talent scout will see her and her equally dead-keen-to-succeed seedy at the edges partner and whisk them away to stardom. A young Bruce Dern has entered with his heavily pregnant wife, Bonnie Bedelia, two stockcar drifters yearning for some security for the expected 'bundle of joy'. Red Buttons is an aging ex-sailor and a marathon veteran who is hoping for a last success with his similarly mature partner. The rest of the crowd is comprised of less well-known actors who appear more and more familiar as the days march on and the numbers dwindle.
Overseeing these pairs is the ex-fairground barker Gig Young (who won an Oscar for his role) as the goading MC with his cries of "Yowser, yowser, yowser". He is assisted by a ghoul-faced Al Lewis (formerly Grandpa of the Munsters), a roller-skating steward Michael Conrad (later familiar from Hill Street), and a gaggle of 'doctors' and 'nurses'. To Young and his team the gruelling procedure is far from being a contest, but more a series of gimmicks to keep the punters entertained. Every so often the slow drag of weary couples, usually with one of the pair asleep on the other's shoulder, is interrupted by a frantic 'horserace' around a painted circle with the last three couples across the line to be eliminated. The sick determination on the participants' increasingly strained faces is painful to behold. When any of the contestants fall by the wayside with exhaustion, psychosis, or indeed death, they are carried off by the 'caring' crew and the audience assured that the 'kid' will soon be fine.
Fonda and Sarrazin fall out when she suspects him of canoodling with York and they switch partners. But when the York's would-be superstar boyfriend leaves Fonda for a 10-day offer of work on a Western oater, she has 24 hours to find a new partner or to be disqualified. First she latches on to Button's sailor when his partner falls aside, but is left on her own again when he in turn collapses after one of the gruelling races. Later when York too needs to be carted off after her breakdown under a streaming shower, Young shows a surprisingly understanding and tender streak (despite his having previously 'stolen' her spare dress and make-up to make her seem more pathetic to the audience). So Fonda and Sarrazin are forced back into each others' arms; "Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl", crows Young. They decline his suggestion that they get hitched on the floor (to score lots of congratulatory loot from the crowd) and in fact drop out of the 'contest' when they discover that the hard-fought for grand prize will be proportionately reduced to cover Young's many expenses supposedly on the winning couple's behalf. We never do discover which couple 'wins' as they are all losers and the charade goes on and on and on.
The film is slightly flawed in my mind with its flash-forward and flash-back structure. We are aware that Sarrazin has been arrested and tried for some crime, but we don't yet know the whys and the wherefores. Apart from an introductory reminiscence from his childhood, which is important to the narrative, the other short sequences only detract from the picture's continuity. Still Pollack's puppet-master shows great skill in manipulating his large cast, making us feel that we know each of them better than we might wish. Also his use of music -- obviously important in a dance competition -- is wonderfully fluid and timely; it's amazing how many songs of this sad period have become classics in their own right, and how moving they remain. This is a major exercise in motion picture-making and perhaps deserves its own classic status.
It is in fact a very good and in its way a very bitter film from director Sydney Pollack, based on the 1935 novel by Hector McCoy. He extracts the madness of that era's dance marathon phenomena and shapes into not just a haunting portrait of the Depression years, but also an allegory on the America of his own period. In his worldview, the great American Dream is rotten at its core. To readers not familiar with the craze, desperately poor couples would enter the dancehall for the initially important seven meals a day and the ultimate jackpot, here l500 silver dollars -- a fortune in their eyes -- payable to the last couple left standing after a gruelling sixty or so odd days on their increasingly shuffling sore feet, with only ten minute rest breaks every two hours. They are cheered on by a paying audience, each with their own favourites, who have come to enjoy the 'show'.
Among the participants are a hard-faced and disillusioned Jane Fonda, who when asked why she has come to California, replies that at least you don't freeze while you starve. When her obviously ill proposed partner is disqualified from entering on health grounds, she pairs up with drifter Michael Sarrazin (a handsome but slightly vacant actor whose career became less and less interesting). Then there is glamourpuss Susannah York with her Jean Harlow platinum bob and slinky dress, who hopes some passing talent scout will see her and her equally dead-keen-to-succeed seedy at the edges partner and whisk them away to stardom. A young Bruce Dern has entered with his heavily pregnant wife, Bonnie Bedelia, two stockcar drifters yearning for some security for the expected 'bundle of joy'. Red Buttons is an aging ex-sailor and a marathon veteran who is hoping for a last success with his similarly mature partner. The rest of the crowd is comprised of less well-known actors who appear more and more familiar as the days march on and the numbers dwindle.
Overseeing these pairs is the ex-fairground barker Gig Young (who won an Oscar for his role) as the goading MC with his cries of "Yowser, yowser, yowser". He is assisted by a ghoul-faced Al Lewis (formerly Grandpa of the Munsters), a roller-skating steward Michael Conrad (later familiar from Hill Street), and a gaggle of 'doctors' and 'nurses'. To Young and his team the gruelling procedure is far from being a contest, but more a series of gimmicks to keep the punters entertained. Every so often the slow drag of weary couples, usually with one of the pair asleep on the other's shoulder, is interrupted by a frantic 'horserace' around a painted circle with the last three couples across the line to be eliminated. The sick determination on the participants' increasingly strained faces is painful to behold. When any of the contestants fall by the wayside with exhaustion, psychosis, or indeed death, they are carried off by the 'caring' crew and the audience assured that the 'kid' will soon be fine.
Fonda and Sarrazin fall out when she suspects him of canoodling with York and they switch partners. But when the York's would-be superstar boyfriend leaves Fonda for a 10-day offer of work on a Western oater, she has 24 hours to find a new partner or to be disqualified. First she latches on to Button's sailor when his partner falls aside, but is left on her own again when he in turn collapses after one of the gruelling races. Later when York too needs to be carted off after her breakdown under a streaming shower, Young shows a surprisingly understanding and tender streak (despite his having previously 'stolen' her spare dress and make-up to make her seem more pathetic to the audience). So Fonda and Sarrazin are forced back into each others' arms; "Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl", crows Young. They decline his suggestion that they get hitched on the floor (to score lots of congratulatory loot from the crowd) and in fact drop out of the 'contest' when they discover that the hard-fought for grand prize will be proportionately reduced to cover Young's many expenses supposedly on the winning couple's behalf. We never do discover which couple 'wins' as they are all losers and the charade goes on and on and on.
The film is slightly flawed in my mind with its flash-forward and flash-back structure. We are aware that Sarrazin has been arrested and tried for some crime, but we don't yet know the whys and the wherefores. Apart from an introductory reminiscence from his childhood, which is important to the narrative, the other short sequences only detract from the picture's continuity. Still Pollack's puppet-master shows great skill in manipulating his large cast, making us feel that we know each of them better than we might wish. Also his use of music -- obviously important in a dance competition -- is wonderfully fluid and timely; it's amazing how many songs of this sad period have become classics in their own right, and how moving they remain. This is a major exercise in motion picture-making and perhaps deserves its own classic status.
Monday, 6 January 2014
Silent Souls (2010)
After a longer than desirable holiday break in posting some new insights into the weird and wonderful viewing that dominates my life, as predicted in the previous entry below, none of the proposed Christmas-scheduled gems really turned me on. Of the proffered titles, I only found "Wreck-it Ralph" of vague entertainment value, largely for its psychedelic images and rather strange story-line, and "The Wonderful Burt Wonderstone" a definite oddity without being overly diverting. I haven't gotten around to "Drive" yet, which is currently languishing on the hard-drive of my Sky Box. However to temper my earlier comments, I must congratulate the usually derided as low-market Channel Five for their selection of classic golden oldies over the period. I didn't watch any of them mind you, since I have my own copies of virtually all, but at least they showed some thought and intelligence in their selection. (And their programme on the 'best' Christmas movies wasn't as bad as I feared either).
So what is the above-titled film? Good question! It has been sitting on a VHS tape (remember those?) for some four months now, having been taped on an upstairs recorder on a night when I had too many overlaps on the Sky Box and it resolutely refused to play on a downstairs machine. (OK, I admit we still have two VHS machines in addition to our various DVD players and recorders -- which we continue to find useful). Anyhow when I was generally living downstairs with my pesky ankle, I put the tape aside to watch upstairs in due course and only remembered it a few days ago. And what a strange and fascinating movie it turned out to be.
It's a Russian film (original title "Ovsyanki) which made the festival circuit a few years back but which probably never had much of a release anywhere. I know nothing about its director Aleksey Fedorchenko, but he and a very talented cinematographer have fashioned a gripping insight into a previously unknown culture. The two leading characters are factory-owner Miron and his employee and good friend, the bachelor Aist; they are descendants of an ancient Finno-Ugric tribe that lost its own language and national identity many centuries ago, but which retains -- almost as a folk memory -- the ancient myths, traditions, and rituals of their Meryan heritage.
Miron's much-loved and much-younger wife Tanya has died, but he refuses to commit her body to the morgue. He enlists Aist to accompany him on a road trip to a distant sacred lake where he spent his honeymoon, for them to cremate the body (on a pyre of axe-handles!) and to then scatter the ashes in the lake. The Meryan tradition is that drowning is the best possible death enabling one to merge with the water, but scattering the ashes therein is the next-best thing. Aist, whose late father was a naïve native folk-poet considered somewhat gaga by the local population, also wants to find his narrative voice but has so far been unsuccessful. He also nourished some serious lust for the late Tanya, although a rather promiscuous approach to sexual matters is another feature of their inherited culture. Knowing that he will be away from his home for several days, he takes with him a pair of caged buntings (some drab birdies) which he has just bought. They and the blanket-wrapped body of Tanya on the back seat are the other passengers on their journey. Dialogue is sparing as they pass through the endless barren landscape, apart from 'smoking'; "do you mind if I smoke", asks Miron, which in this context means revealing all of the sexual perversities that he and Tanya have enjoyed.
After the pair have completed the funeral finalities, they seek out the company of two young whores to help them feel more alive, but Miron can really only look forward to the day when he will be reunited with his wife in the holy waters. Without getting into any serious spoilers, I will only tell you that the buntings become the conduit by which the pair are enabled to find their respective ideal destinies. The ending comes as both a shock and a satisfying poetic conclusion to the story of two unusual lives.
Now, that to me was far better viewing than most of the disposable movies on offer over recent weeks.... The movie is available on DVD and is probably worth seeking out.
So what is the above-titled film? Good question! It has been sitting on a VHS tape (remember those?) for some four months now, having been taped on an upstairs recorder on a night when I had too many overlaps on the Sky Box and it resolutely refused to play on a downstairs machine. (OK, I admit we still have two VHS machines in addition to our various DVD players and recorders -- which we continue to find useful). Anyhow when I was generally living downstairs with my pesky ankle, I put the tape aside to watch upstairs in due course and only remembered it a few days ago. And what a strange and fascinating movie it turned out to be.
It's a Russian film (original title "Ovsyanki) which made the festival circuit a few years back but which probably never had much of a release anywhere. I know nothing about its director Aleksey Fedorchenko, but he and a very talented cinematographer have fashioned a gripping insight into a previously unknown culture. The two leading characters are factory-owner Miron and his employee and good friend, the bachelor Aist; they are descendants of an ancient Finno-Ugric tribe that lost its own language and national identity many centuries ago, but which retains -- almost as a folk memory -- the ancient myths, traditions, and rituals of their Meryan heritage.
Miron's much-loved and much-younger wife Tanya has died, but he refuses to commit her body to the morgue. He enlists Aist to accompany him on a road trip to a distant sacred lake where he spent his honeymoon, for them to cremate the body (on a pyre of axe-handles!) and to then scatter the ashes in the lake. The Meryan tradition is that drowning is the best possible death enabling one to merge with the water, but scattering the ashes therein is the next-best thing. Aist, whose late father was a naïve native folk-poet considered somewhat gaga by the local population, also wants to find his narrative voice but has so far been unsuccessful. He also nourished some serious lust for the late Tanya, although a rather promiscuous approach to sexual matters is another feature of their inherited culture. Knowing that he will be away from his home for several days, he takes with him a pair of caged buntings (some drab birdies) which he has just bought. They and the blanket-wrapped body of Tanya on the back seat are the other passengers on their journey. Dialogue is sparing as they pass through the endless barren landscape, apart from 'smoking'; "do you mind if I smoke", asks Miron, which in this context means revealing all of the sexual perversities that he and Tanya have enjoyed.
After the pair have completed the funeral finalities, they seek out the company of two young whores to help them feel more alive, but Miron can really only look forward to the day when he will be reunited with his wife in the holy waters. Without getting into any serious spoilers, I will only tell you that the buntings become the conduit by which the pair are enabled to find their respective ideal destinies. The ending comes as both a shock and a satisfying poetic conclusion to the story of two unusual lives.
Now, that to me was far better viewing than most of the disposable movies on offer over recent weeks.... The movie is available on DVD and is probably worth seeking out.
Thursday, 19 December 2013
Christmas on the Box 2013
Only because it is something I have done every year, I suppose I should comment on the movies available on British television over the Christmas period, although I find it harder and harder each year to work up much enthusiasm over the schedules. The Christmas box this year bears little resemblance to an exciting box that you might find under the tree, crammed full of goodies or unexpected pleasures.
As usual there are a plethora of terrestrial premieres, but not a great deal to get excited about. There are actually several films I myself have not seen -- out of goodness knows how many films overall, but only two of which have me experiencing any sort of anticipatory pleasure -- more on those below. To suggest viewing from the remainder is not an easy task, since most of the movies left me underwhelmed when I viewed them. Among the most promising (if you've not already seen them) are "Never Let Me Go" (Channel 4 on the 22nd), both parts of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" (ITV on the 26th and New Year's Day), just maybe "Pirates of the Caribbean, on Stranger Tides" -- aka Pirates 4 (BBC1 on the 29th, and three animations: the brilliant "Toy Story 3" (BBC1 on Christmas Day, "Megamind" (BBC1 on the 27th) and "Kung Fu Panda 2" (BBC1 on New Year's Day). There is also the terrestrial premiere -- believe it or not -- of Disney's classic "Fantasia" (BBC2 on Christmas Eve) -- but is there anyone out there that hasn't seen it or purchased the DVD?
Among the other terrestrial premieres, I suppose some people will want to view "Michael Jackson's This is It" (Channel 5 on Christmas Day), but it's really for die-hard fans only. Others like "Cars 2", "I am Number Four", "The Resident", and "Vampires Suck" are hardly worth your time.The balance of the schedules are loaded with old favourites like "It's a Wonderful Life", "An American in Paris", "The Red Shoes", "Singin' in the Rain", and "The Wizard of Oz" which are all worthy of a second or third or fiftieth view. Mind you, I read a columnist recently who wrote that one should not bemoan the lack of new offerings on TV, when all one really wants after the intensive feasting and boozing of the period, is to lay back and have a snooze while any of the above air.
What distresses me the most is the lack of imaginative planning. There are virtually no 'seasons' of themed films, although BBC4 is showing a selection of Ealing comedies, ITV have planned a run of Harry Potter flicks, and BBC are showing the first two "Toy Story" flicks as a prelude to number three. There is also nothing much in the way of more obscure 'Golden Oldies' (for golden oldies like me), and virtually a complete absence of foreign language movies. Seriously, the thought that goes into the schedules seems more and more unimaginative every year. Even the listing programmes with which Channel 4 used to cram their schedules have degenerated to "Greatest Ever Christmas Movies" (Channel 5 on Christmas Eve) and "50 Greatest Harry Potter Moments" (!!!) (ITV on New Year's Day).
As usual of course I shall watch most of the movies I've not seen previously, but I draw the line at Sammy the animated turtle. Of these I hold out little hope for "Abduction" starring the muscle-bound Taylor Lautner, or Australian killer-croc movie "Rogue", or the animated "Gnomeo and Juliet", or the Black hair-products documentary "Good Hair". I am however curious to see "Drive" on BBC2 to discover why there is all the fuss nowadays about good- actor-morphed-into-hunk Ryan Gosling. I am also keen to see "Sightseers" on Film Four on the 26th, although that channel's premieres are largely uninteresting (I can just about recommend "Troll Hunter" onXmas Day for unfestive viewing!). One's better off sticking with their re-runs of Japanese animations.
As for good old Sky, their holiday premieres include "A Good Day to Die Hard" (something of a disappointment I've heard), "Oz the Great and Powerful" (overblown I suspect), "Wreck-It Ralph" (who knows?), "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone" (mildly intriguing), and the money-spinning "Iron Man 3" (which of course I have previously seen and reviewed). Never mind between visiting with family and the aforesaid eating and drinking, there will be more than enough to keep your faithful viewer entertained. And should there be any down time, there are a couple of good Christmas ghost dramas on BBC2 and my ever-growing backlog of unviewed DVDs.
I'm not sure when I shall next put pen to paper (or in this instance fingers to keyboard), so let me take the opportunity to wish you all holiday joy and a super 2014.
As usual there are a plethora of terrestrial premieres, but not a great deal to get excited about. There are actually several films I myself have not seen -- out of goodness knows how many films overall, but only two of which have me experiencing any sort of anticipatory pleasure -- more on those below. To suggest viewing from the remainder is not an easy task, since most of the movies left me underwhelmed when I viewed them. Among the most promising (if you've not already seen them) are "Never Let Me Go" (Channel 4 on the 22nd), both parts of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" (ITV on the 26th and New Year's Day), just maybe "Pirates of the Caribbean, on Stranger Tides" -- aka Pirates 4 (BBC1 on the 29th, and three animations: the brilliant "Toy Story 3" (BBC1 on Christmas Day, "Megamind" (BBC1 on the 27th) and "Kung Fu Panda 2" (BBC1 on New Year's Day). There is also the terrestrial premiere -- believe it or not -- of Disney's classic "Fantasia" (BBC2 on Christmas Eve) -- but is there anyone out there that hasn't seen it or purchased the DVD?
Among the other terrestrial premieres, I suppose some people will want to view "Michael Jackson's This is It" (Channel 5 on Christmas Day), but it's really for die-hard fans only. Others like "Cars 2", "I am Number Four", "The Resident", and "Vampires Suck" are hardly worth your time.The balance of the schedules are loaded with old favourites like "It's a Wonderful Life", "An American in Paris", "The Red Shoes", "Singin' in the Rain", and "The Wizard of Oz" which are all worthy of a second or third or fiftieth view. Mind you, I read a columnist recently who wrote that one should not bemoan the lack of new offerings on TV, when all one really wants after the intensive feasting and boozing of the period, is to lay back and have a snooze while any of the above air.
What distresses me the most is the lack of imaginative planning. There are virtually no 'seasons' of themed films, although BBC4 is showing a selection of Ealing comedies, ITV have planned a run of Harry Potter flicks, and BBC are showing the first two "Toy Story" flicks as a prelude to number three. There is also nothing much in the way of more obscure 'Golden Oldies' (for golden oldies like me), and virtually a complete absence of foreign language movies. Seriously, the thought that goes into the schedules seems more and more unimaginative every year. Even the listing programmes with which Channel 4 used to cram their schedules have degenerated to "Greatest Ever Christmas Movies" (Channel 5 on Christmas Eve) and "50 Greatest Harry Potter Moments" (!!!) (ITV on New Year's Day).
As usual of course I shall watch most of the movies I've not seen previously, but I draw the line at Sammy the animated turtle. Of these I hold out little hope for "Abduction" starring the muscle-bound Taylor Lautner, or Australian killer-croc movie "Rogue", or the animated "Gnomeo and Juliet", or the Black hair-products documentary "Good Hair". I am however curious to see "Drive" on BBC2 to discover why there is all the fuss nowadays about good- actor-morphed-into-hunk Ryan Gosling. I am also keen to see "Sightseers" on Film Four on the 26th, although that channel's premieres are largely uninteresting (I can just about recommend "Troll Hunter" onXmas Day for unfestive viewing!). One's better off sticking with their re-runs of Japanese animations.
As for good old Sky, their holiday premieres include "A Good Day to Die Hard" (something of a disappointment I've heard), "Oz the Great and Powerful" (overblown I suspect), "Wreck-It Ralph" (who knows?), "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone" (mildly intriguing), and the money-spinning "Iron Man 3" (which of course I have previously seen and reviewed). Never mind between visiting with family and the aforesaid eating and drinking, there will be more than enough to keep your faithful viewer entertained. And should there be any down time, there are a couple of good Christmas ghost dramas on BBC2 and my ever-growing backlog of unviewed DVDs.
I'm not sure when I shall next put pen to paper (or in this instance fingers to keyboard), so let me take the opportunity to wish you all holiday joy and a super 2014.
Wednesday, 11 December 2013
Parents (1989)
I have a very soft spot for this sick little film, which while not terribly well-known does have a devoted cult following. In simple terms it is a 'horror' film but not one of 'slice and dice' or 'jump in your seat'; it decants in a scant 80 minutes the horrors of childhood and the fears that mom and dad can instil. Since my copy was barely watchable, I welcomed the recent (and very rare) TV showing courtesy of FilmFour to take a fresh copy. And I thoroughly enjoyed every minute!
Surprisingly it is the first feature film as a director from Bob Balaban, best known as a screen actor with some 90-odd credits and a Christopher Guest regular. Balaban has continued directing and writing over the years, but largely for television series and TVMs. So where this gem appeared out of left field is anyone's guess. Set in the American suburbia of the l950s, perfect Mom and caring Dad (adept turns from Mary Beth Hurt and Randy Quaid) have just moved to their new home with only son Michael (a bug-eyed and small-for-his age nervous bundle of fears embodied by Bryan Madorsky in his only screen role). Young Michael is not only plagued by nightmares -- rivers of blood engulfing him, bloody arms disappearing down the waste disposal, and the like, but also dreads family meals (even breakfast) where oozing liver or overly 'blue' roasts are plonked down before him. Even when hiding in the pantry, he believes he is being attacked by strings of fat sausages holding him in a deadly grasp. (Shades of the manic and active cuts of meat cascading in Jan Svankmajer's "Lunacy").
When he asks his mother why all of their meals are described as 'leftovers' and from what are they left over, she replies "From leftovers-to-be, Silly". It soon becomes clear that Quaid who works for the aptly named Toxico Corporation, designing defoliants, has an inbuilt appetite for human flesh, cutting choice cuts from his laboratory's constant fresh supply of cadavers. He brings these home in clean white sacks, telling Michael to keep his hands off the 'laundry'. Enlisting Hurt's help to bring the goodies into the house, she beams "isn't it nice that Daddy picked up the laundry?" When Michael spurns yet another blood-soaked entrée, Quaid becomes the indignant Dad and tells him that he will learn to love their meals -- "your mother did!"
At his new school as each student is asked to describe what they learned over the summer vacation, he horrifies the class with his story of how to skin a cat and suck its bones to become invisible. His only ally is a gal, several heads taller, who has just finished telling their classmates how to mix a Gibson. When asked to draw a picture of his family, his drawing drowned in streaks of red crayon, lands him in the office of the school social worker, a klutzy and chubby Sandy Dennis. "You can't be an adult" Michael tells her -- "you're too nervous". Eventually he confides his beliefs that his parents do unspeakable things down in their basement, that is when he does not observe them making barbaric and juicy love in their bedroom. To put his fears at rest, Dennis accompanies Michael to the fearful basement and sees the blood-soaked chopping board and the chunks of meat hanging to age. Next thing we know, after hiding from Quaid in the same creepy pantry, the family are 'enjoying' a huge barbecue roast and Mom tells Michael that she has cut away all the fat! The film continues in this vein with Quaid telling Michael stories about a little boy who didn't obey his parents. "You're scaring him" says Hurt; "He scares me" replies Quaid -- "He doesn't look like me; he doesn't act like me"... When Michael finally rebels and attacks his parents and their supposedly perfect home, he ends up an orphan in the care of his kindly-looking and wholesome-seeming grandparents. Everything now seems to be looking up for the spooky youngster -- until Grandma brings him a bedside snack!
What I particularly like about this movie, apart from its brilliantly handled theme, is its faithful recreation of 50s' dress, hairstyles, interior decoration, cars, mores, and particularly music. With a score by the very talented Angelo Badalamenti, the composer incorporates pop classics from the period, including "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White", "Memories are Made of This, "Chantilly Lace", "Moments to Remember", and over the end-credits "Purple People Eater" -- all very evocative to me. Balaban has given us a sunny, cheerful and very wholesome period movie about cannibalism! I for one do thank him...
Surprisingly it is the first feature film as a director from Bob Balaban, best known as a screen actor with some 90-odd credits and a Christopher Guest regular. Balaban has continued directing and writing over the years, but largely for television series and TVMs. So where this gem appeared out of left field is anyone's guess. Set in the American suburbia of the l950s, perfect Mom and caring Dad (adept turns from Mary Beth Hurt and Randy Quaid) have just moved to their new home with only son Michael (a bug-eyed and small-for-his age nervous bundle of fears embodied by Bryan Madorsky in his only screen role). Young Michael is not only plagued by nightmares -- rivers of blood engulfing him, bloody arms disappearing down the waste disposal, and the like, but also dreads family meals (even breakfast) where oozing liver or overly 'blue' roasts are plonked down before him. Even when hiding in the pantry, he believes he is being attacked by strings of fat sausages holding him in a deadly grasp. (Shades of the manic and active cuts of meat cascading in Jan Svankmajer's "Lunacy").
When he asks his mother why all of their meals are described as 'leftovers' and from what are they left over, she replies "From leftovers-to-be, Silly". It soon becomes clear that Quaid who works for the aptly named Toxico Corporation, designing defoliants, has an inbuilt appetite for human flesh, cutting choice cuts from his laboratory's constant fresh supply of cadavers. He brings these home in clean white sacks, telling Michael to keep his hands off the 'laundry'. Enlisting Hurt's help to bring the goodies into the house, she beams "isn't it nice that Daddy picked up the laundry?" When Michael spurns yet another blood-soaked entrée, Quaid becomes the indignant Dad and tells him that he will learn to love their meals -- "your mother did!"
At his new school as each student is asked to describe what they learned over the summer vacation, he horrifies the class with his story of how to skin a cat and suck its bones to become invisible. His only ally is a gal, several heads taller, who has just finished telling their classmates how to mix a Gibson. When asked to draw a picture of his family, his drawing drowned in streaks of red crayon, lands him in the office of the school social worker, a klutzy and chubby Sandy Dennis. "You can't be an adult" Michael tells her -- "you're too nervous". Eventually he confides his beliefs that his parents do unspeakable things down in their basement, that is when he does not observe them making barbaric and juicy love in their bedroom. To put his fears at rest, Dennis accompanies Michael to the fearful basement and sees the blood-soaked chopping board and the chunks of meat hanging to age. Next thing we know, after hiding from Quaid in the same creepy pantry, the family are 'enjoying' a huge barbecue roast and Mom tells Michael that she has cut away all the fat! The film continues in this vein with Quaid telling Michael stories about a little boy who didn't obey his parents. "You're scaring him" says Hurt; "He scares me" replies Quaid -- "He doesn't look like me; he doesn't act like me"... When Michael finally rebels and attacks his parents and their supposedly perfect home, he ends up an orphan in the care of his kindly-looking and wholesome-seeming grandparents. Everything now seems to be looking up for the spooky youngster -- until Grandma brings him a bedside snack!
What I particularly like about this movie, apart from its brilliantly handled theme, is its faithful recreation of 50s' dress, hairstyles, interior decoration, cars, mores, and particularly music. With a score by the very talented Angelo Badalamenti, the composer incorporates pop classics from the period, including "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White", "Memories are Made of This, "Chantilly Lace", "Moments to Remember", and over the end-credits "Purple People Eater" -- all very evocative to me. Balaban has given us a sunny, cheerful and very wholesome period movie about cannibalism! I for one do thank him...
Sunday, 1 December 2013
Down Argentine Way (1940)
When you're having trouble sleeping (which unfortunately does happen from time to time), better than turning on lamps to read and disturbing the rest of the world, sneak off to another room and watch a creaky old flic on DVD, which should be guaranteed to put you back to sleep. Or not, as was the case, with this hokey yet thoroughly enjoyable Technicolor extravaganza from 20th Century Fox.
It's been a while since I last saw this bit of fluff, hoicked together like Frankenstein's monster to showcase a number of the day's talents. The very slim and empty-headed story has Don Ameche sent to Tuxedo Park, New York from their spread in Argentina by grizzled aristocratic dad Henry Stephenson to sell some of their champion horseflesh to eager Yankee buyers. There he meets socialite Betty Grable (talk about unbelievable casting) who is eager to buy his show horse; it's a quickly done deal, especially when he falls for the 'vivacious beauty' (Trademark) at first sight; however, it turns out that she is the daughter of his dad's sworn enemy, and he must renege on the bargain. Miffed as she is, she can't quite forget him and is off to Buenos Aires with her aunt in tow (Charlotte Greenwood, the leggy Aunt Eller from "Oklahoma"). She quickly re-connects with Ameche (who is also hopelessly hooked) and is introduced under a fictitious surname to his father. Soon the pair are conspiring to train Dad's best jumper as a flat race champion, assuming that the horse's success will inspire Dad to overlook all of the lies and welcome Betty into the family. If that was all, I doubt that the film would be fondly remembered today -- but there is so much more to commend it.
Despite being considered the breakthrough role for Grable -- she was brought in as a replacement for Fox musical diva Alice Faye, it is hard to see just how she became the forces' pin-up during World War II. She is no looker by today's standards and is neither a particularly good vocalist nor great dancer. In fact most of her numbers seem to showcase a clunky-footed hoofer and in her final dance before an admiring crowd of South American peasants, she comes across as the worst sort of cooch-dancer. Even her famously insured legs are rather unshapely and very undancer-like. Ameche is as ever the smooth charmer and if his singing was dubbed as is rumoured, it did not detract from his screen presence; even his 'Latin lover' accent seems possible. His father Stephenson didn't bother with a make-believe accent, but was fine nonetheless. (I would have sworn early on that it was the great C. Aubrey Smith in the role -- but no). Another weird bit of casting was Russian-born Leonid Kinskey in the role of a local tour guide cum gigolo; apparently Cesar Romero was originally considered for the part which would have been rather more believable, if not as goofy fun.
What makes the movie special however are the specialty numbers. It was the first film role for Brazilian Bombshell Carmen Miranda who has three songs. The Technicolor was chosen to spotlight her colourful costumes in all their glory -- pity therefore that she has no costume changes at all! The second bit of stupendous entertainment is courtesy of the dancing Nicholas Brothers, who brought so much amazing energy and entertainment to any number of 40s' musicals, with their amazing gymnastic splits and general flexibility. Other acts, less well-known today, include the cutely named singing group of Six Hits and a Miss, the dancing Dowlings, the Flores Brothers, and Pepe Guizar. With all of that talent on display, including J. Carrol Naish, as Stephenson's horse-trainer (one of his never-ending stream of ethnic roles), the dubious charms of Miss Grable are quickly wallpapered over.
The film was made at a time that the United States was pursuing its 'Good Neighbour' policy and wooing their South American neighbours as potential allies against the Axis powers and the looming world war. The film manages to present Argentina as a gorgeous and colourful picture-postcard destination. Ironically, the movie was ultimately banned in that country, as the powers that be objected to the fact that few locals were employed, that phony accents prevailed, that intimations about the country's class structure were stereotyped, and mostly that spotlighting the 'foreign' Miranda (who of course spoke Portuguese and not Spanish) was the ultimate insult.
Despite this, all of the cast and of course the studio found that they had a popular hit on their hands, giving them all a career boost, and none of them looked back for some years to come.
It's been a while since I last saw this bit of fluff, hoicked together like Frankenstein's monster to showcase a number of the day's talents. The very slim and empty-headed story has Don Ameche sent to Tuxedo Park, New York from their spread in Argentina by grizzled aristocratic dad Henry Stephenson to sell some of their champion horseflesh to eager Yankee buyers. There he meets socialite Betty Grable (talk about unbelievable casting) who is eager to buy his show horse; it's a quickly done deal, especially when he falls for the 'vivacious beauty' (Trademark) at first sight; however, it turns out that she is the daughter of his dad's sworn enemy, and he must renege on the bargain. Miffed as she is, she can't quite forget him and is off to Buenos Aires with her aunt in tow (Charlotte Greenwood, the leggy Aunt Eller from "Oklahoma"). She quickly re-connects with Ameche (who is also hopelessly hooked) and is introduced under a fictitious surname to his father. Soon the pair are conspiring to train Dad's best jumper as a flat race champion, assuming that the horse's success will inspire Dad to overlook all of the lies and welcome Betty into the family. If that was all, I doubt that the film would be fondly remembered today -- but there is so much more to commend it.
Despite being considered the breakthrough role for Grable -- she was brought in as a replacement for Fox musical diva Alice Faye, it is hard to see just how she became the forces' pin-up during World War II. She is no looker by today's standards and is neither a particularly good vocalist nor great dancer. In fact most of her numbers seem to showcase a clunky-footed hoofer and in her final dance before an admiring crowd of South American peasants, she comes across as the worst sort of cooch-dancer. Even her famously insured legs are rather unshapely and very undancer-like. Ameche is as ever the smooth charmer and if his singing was dubbed as is rumoured, it did not detract from his screen presence; even his 'Latin lover' accent seems possible. His father Stephenson didn't bother with a make-believe accent, but was fine nonetheless. (I would have sworn early on that it was the great C. Aubrey Smith in the role -- but no). Another weird bit of casting was Russian-born Leonid Kinskey in the role of a local tour guide cum gigolo; apparently Cesar Romero was originally considered for the part which would have been rather more believable, if not as goofy fun.
What makes the movie special however are the specialty numbers. It was the first film role for Brazilian Bombshell Carmen Miranda who has three songs. The Technicolor was chosen to spotlight her colourful costumes in all their glory -- pity therefore that she has no costume changes at all! The second bit of stupendous entertainment is courtesy of the dancing Nicholas Brothers, who brought so much amazing energy and entertainment to any number of 40s' musicals, with their amazing gymnastic splits and general flexibility. Other acts, less well-known today, include the cutely named singing group of Six Hits and a Miss, the dancing Dowlings, the Flores Brothers, and Pepe Guizar. With all of that talent on display, including J. Carrol Naish, as Stephenson's horse-trainer (one of his never-ending stream of ethnic roles), the dubious charms of Miss Grable are quickly wallpapered over.
The film was made at a time that the United States was pursuing its 'Good Neighbour' policy and wooing their South American neighbours as potential allies against the Axis powers and the looming world war. The film manages to present Argentina as a gorgeous and colourful picture-postcard destination. Ironically, the movie was ultimately banned in that country, as the powers that be objected to the fact that few locals were employed, that phony accents prevailed, that intimations about the country's class structure were stereotyped, and mostly that spotlighting the 'foreign' Miranda (who of course spoke Portuguese and not Spanish) was the ultimate insult.
Despite this, all of the cast and of course the studio found that they had a popular hit on their hands, giving them all a career boost, and none of them looked back for some years to come.
Friday, 22 November 2013
The Deep Blue Sea (2011)
While I'm not yet back to regular blogging, at least the gap is decreasing. I am still far from peak fitness, but at least I can get up and down the stairs (upright!) and have even ventured outdoors for some short walks. Will wonders never cease? I don't mean to keep going on about my recovery, since I'm meant to be writing about movies, but forgive the odd moan...
When I noticed the above film premiering on a terrestrial channel, I was sure that I had previously seen it somewhere, since it sounded like the same old familiar, depressing British drama of thwarted love that one has seen time and again. But I was wrong -- it really hadn't been on previously and I felt obliged to have a go, since I could recall some positive press reviews. Based on a play by Terence Rattigan and directed by British national treasure Terence Davis, it boasts an A-list lead in the shape of Rachel Weisz. Set in about 1950, it is indeed another variation on the theme of, yes, thwarted love. Weisz's character Hester is married to the much older Simon Russell Beale, a highly respected Judge, when she falls into lust with ex-World War II flying ace Tom Hiddleston. Note the not too subtle reference to her namesake from "The Scarlet Letter". She leaves her hubby acrimoniously (he swears he'll never grant a divorce) to move into a downmarket boarding house with her feckless lover. The initial non-stop sex soon develops into hopeless devotion on her part and 'he'll never love me as much as I love him' on the other part. When he forgets her birthday while off on a golfing weekend with one of his drinking buddies, she attempts suicide. She survives but the affair doesn't, despite her nagging and pleading which only push him further away from her neediness. When the Judge hears about developments, he forgivingly offers her a lifeline, but she is too obsessed to reconcile with him. In the end Hiddleston leaves for a new life in Brazil, and in an ambiguous ending Hester will either embrace a scary future on her own or contemplate suicide yet again.
There is no denying that Weisz is a fine actress -- she suffers beautifully. However I do wish she would lighten up in the roles she accepts. Perhaps now that she is married to James Bond/Daniel Craig, she will find her sunny side. Russell Beale is also a superb actor, although little seen in films. As for Hiddleston who has become something of a flavour of the month with his villainous Loki in "Avengers Assemble" and the "Thor" franchise, I don't quite see what all of the fuss is about from his role here; he's not even that good-looking for goodness sake to inspire 'the hots'. The film seems to underline the British mantra of keeping a stiff upper lip and is largely devoid of believable heat and passion.
I have never been a particular fan of Davies' normally low-budget movies, from his "Trilogy" in 1983, through "Distant Voices, Still Lives" (1988) and its companion piece "The Long Day Closes" (1992). He went rather more mainstream with "House of Mirth" (2000) -- an extremely mirthless movie. That was followed by a well-received documentary paean to his native Liverpool "Of Time and the City" (2008), which I have no particular desire to see. While the above movie may boast his biggest budget yet, I remain unconverted. One thing that I will give him however is his brilliant use of popular music to underline the feeling of the periods he recreates in his films, a la Dennis Potter without the lip-synching. Oddly enough Hester describes her plight as being between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, but that is not one of the pop songs chosen for the nostaligic sound tract.
When I noticed the above film premiering on a terrestrial channel, I was sure that I had previously seen it somewhere, since it sounded like the same old familiar, depressing British drama of thwarted love that one has seen time and again. But I was wrong -- it really hadn't been on previously and I felt obliged to have a go, since I could recall some positive press reviews. Based on a play by Terence Rattigan and directed by British national treasure Terence Davis, it boasts an A-list lead in the shape of Rachel Weisz. Set in about 1950, it is indeed another variation on the theme of, yes, thwarted love. Weisz's character Hester is married to the much older Simon Russell Beale, a highly respected Judge, when she falls into lust with ex-World War II flying ace Tom Hiddleston. Note the not too subtle reference to her namesake from "The Scarlet Letter". She leaves her hubby acrimoniously (he swears he'll never grant a divorce) to move into a downmarket boarding house with her feckless lover. The initial non-stop sex soon develops into hopeless devotion on her part and 'he'll never love me as much as I love him' on the other part. When he forgets her birthday while off on a golfing weekend with one of his drinking buddies, she attempts suicide. She survives but the affair doesn't, despite her nagging and pleading which only push him further away from her neediness. When the Judge hears about developments, he forgivingly offers her a lifeline, but she is too obsessed to reconcile with him. In the end Hiddleston leaves for a new life in Brazil, and in an ambiguous ending Hester will either embrace a scary future on her own or contemplate suicide yet again.
There is no denying that Weisz is a fine actress -- she suffers beautifully. However I do wish she would lighten up in the roles she accepts. Perhaps now that she is married to James Bond/Daniel Craig, she will find her sunny side. Russell Beale is also a superb actor, although little seen in films. As for Hiddleston who has become something of a flavour of the month with his villainous Loki in "Avengers Assemble" and the "Thor" franchise, I don't quite see what all of the fuss is about from his role here; he's not even that good-looking for goodness sake to inspire 'the hots'. The film seems to underline the British mantra of keeping a stiff upper lip and is largely devoid of believable heat and passion.
I have never been a particular fan of Davies' normally low-budget movies, from his "Trilogy" in 1983, through "Distant Voices, Still Lives" (1988) and its companion piece "The Long Day Closes" (1992). He went rather more mainstream with "House of Mirth" (2000) -- an extremely mirthless movie. That was followed by a well-received documentary paean to his native Liverpool "Of Time and the City" (2008), which I have no particular desire to see. While the above movie may boast his biggest budget yet, I remain unconverted. One thing that I will give him however is his brilliant use of popular music to underline the feeling of the periods he recreates in his films, a la Dennis Potter without the lip-synching. Oddly enough Hester describes her plight as being between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, but that is not one of the pop songs chosen for the nostaligic sound tract.
Wednesday, 13 November 2013
Movie Update -- and not before time!
This must be about the longest gap in my blogging for quite some time, but there is no one to blame but myself and the lethargy that has overtaken me. To update on my precarious fitness, I am now rid of the god-awful moonboot and begin physio today. Even before that, I am now able to sort of walk about indoors without support and can get up the stairs, if not down them (still bouncing on my backside going down) -- horrible thought! Anyhow I need to rebuild the strength in my somewhat withered-looking leg (another vile thought), so that I can both drive again and get about outdoors on my own. Soon, soon I hope.
What I miss most of all, of course, is not being able to get out to the cinema -- and we will draw a veil over my missing the London Film Festival this year. Since I keep a list of my actual film-viewing, I find -- much to my amazement -- that I have seen 29 movies since I last wrote on 26 October. That is not counting the part-films where I just gave up trying to work up any interest in the proceedings (I sometimes wonder just why certain films are released or who was dumb enough to finance them). Then again 29 in 18 days is well below my peak viewing pattern and that number still includes more than a few dubious titles.
For example, only because they were included in the week's premieres on Sky, I have seen such gems as "Beverly Hills Chihuahua 3 - Viva la Fiesta", "Treasure Buddies", and "Santa Paws 2 - The Santa Pups". I am now well and truly fed-up with talking dogs, monkeys, and cats (all powered by CGI) and wonder aloud, yet again, why Sky Movies think that such films are a treat or suitable for prime-time viewing by any sentient adult. I have also seen probably half a dozen or more television movies, largely with Christmas themes (some channels seem to start celebrating the festive season earlier each year) -- mainly interchangeable and forgettable.
On a somewhat more intellectual level, I have seen three documentaries of varying absorbing worth. First up was "Smash and Grab", an in depth look at highly organised gangs of jewel thieves originating out of the former Yugoslavia. OK, but so what? Next up was the highly praised "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" from auteur Werner Herzog. In all fairness it was probably spectacular in its 3-D glory in cinemas, but it was I thought somewhat underwhelming on the small, flat screen. Finally there was (to me) a fascinating doc called "Celluloid Man" which outlined the achievements of one P.K. Nair (no, not previously known to me either), who single-handedly set up the Indian film archive and saved any number of now classic movies from disintegrating or being stripped of their silver nitrate by greedy chancers. The importance of movies as part of out national and international heritage was forcefully underlined and one must honour such dedicated enthusiasts.
Also in the mix were a couple of oldies: "Carnival Boat" (1932) getting its first television airing with an early Ginger Rogers role, but hardly one of RKO's period treasures, and "Penguin Pool Murder" (also 1932) which I have seen before and which remains great fun with the incomparable Edna May Oliver and James Gleason sparring over the detective tale. There was only one foreign-language movie in the period (although Australian movies usually sound to me like a foreign language), but it was a true gem. "Sant Tukaram" (1936) has been on my 'must see' list for several many years, and I was under the impression that only incomplete copies were extant. This showing was, I believe, of the complete film -- no doubt thanks to the efforts of the afore-mentioned Mr. Nair. It was a naïve yet moving portrait of a simple soul and poor family man, whose devotion and poetry to his God inspired previously unfelt religious feelings in his many followers. In contrast to his holy goodness, we are presented with his would-be nemesis, the local 'cartoon-villain' Brahmin, who continually tries to bring down the poet-saint, ultimately to no avail. With a number of primitive but clever special effects (no CGI back then) the story unfolds beautifully, captivating the viewer with the same child-like wonder. Definitely a 'must-see'.
I also watched some previously-viewed movies which I couldn't quite remember, like my fave Tyrone Power in "Abandon Ship" (1957) -- not a patch on Hitchcock's "Lifeboat" and Paul Newman as the white-boy-raised-by-Indians in "Hombre" (1967) -- quite a decent outing with Frederick March unusually in the villain role. I was also looking forward to a very rare showing of the two-part "Little Dorrit" (1987) which has not been on the air for more than twenty years. I recalled that I 'hated' it the first time around, but wanted to give it a second chance, especially since Alec Guinness is always, always, always worth watching and the supporting cast is also spectacular. So what happened? Part One was absorbing and really reversed my earlier opinion and I was looking forward to Part Two -- the same events but from a different character's perspective. Anyhow, due to some kind of transmission fault, the second part was totally unwatchable with frozen pictures and disrupted dialogue. I have now purchased the DVD of the complete movie, which is some kind of recommendation I think.
Finally there was the usual smattering of A-list movies foremost of which was "Zero Dark 30" regarding the hunt for Bin Laden. It may be well-thought of but it hardly qualifies as any sort of entertainment in my book. I know why it was made -- and Katherine Bigelow is a super film-maker, but I can't imagine that it left a good taste in many viewers' mouths or memories.
I'll leave it there for now, with many of the 29 unmentioned, but with enough of a sample of what your faithful viewer has been up to on these long, healing days.
What I miss most of all, of course, is not being able to get out to the cinema -- and we will draw a veil over my missing the London Film Festival this year. Since I keep a list of my actual film-viewing, I find -- much to my amazement -- that I have seen 29 movies since I last wrote on 26 October. That is not counting the part-films where I just gave up trying to work up any interest in the proceedings (I sometimes wonder just why certain films are released or who was dumb enough to finance them). Then again 29 in 18 days is well below my peak viewing pattern and that number still includes more than a few dubious titles.
For example, only because they were included in the week's premieres on Sky, I have seen such gems as "Beverly Hills Chihuahua 3 - Viva la Fiesta", "Treasure Buddies", and "Santa Paws 2 - The Santa Pups". I am now well and truly fed-up with talking dogs, monkeys, and cats (all powered by CGI) and wonder aloud, yet again, why Sky Movies think that such films are a treat or suitable for prime-time viewing by any sentient adult. I have also seen probably half a dozen or more television movies, largely with Christmas themes (some channels seem to start celebrating the festive season earlier each year) -- mainly interchangeable and forgettable.
On a somewhat more intellectual level, I have seen three documentaries of varying absorbing worth. First up was "Smash and Grab", an in depth look at highly organised gangs of jewel thieves originating out of the former Yugoslavia. OK, but so what? Next up was the highly praised "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" from auteur Werner Herzog. In all fairness it was probably spectacular in its 3-D glory in cinemas, but it was I thought somewhat underwhelming on the small, flat screen. Finally there was (to me) a fascinating doc called "Celluloid Man" which outlined the achievements of one P.K. Nair (no, not previously known to me either), who single-handedly set up the Indian film archive and saved any number of now classic movies from disintegrating or being stripped of their silver nitrate by greedy chancers. The importance of movies as part of out national and international heritage was forcefully underlined and one must honour such dedicated enthusiasts.
Also in the mix were a couple of oldies: "Carnival Boat" (1932) getting its first television airing with an early Ginger Rogers role, but hardly one of RKO's period treasures, and "Penguin Pool Murder" (also 1932) which I have seen before and which remains great fun with the incomparable Edna May Oliver and James Gleason sparring over the detective tale. There was only one foreign-language movie in the period (although Australian movies usually sound to me like a foreign language), but it was a true gem. "Sant Tukaram" (1936) has been on my 'must see' list for several many years, and I was under the impression that only incomplete copies were extant. This showing was, I believe, of the complete film -- no doubt thanks to the efforts of the afore-mentioned Mr. Nair. It was a naïve yet moving portrait of a simple soul and poor family man, whose devotion and poetry to his God inspired previously unfelt religious feelings in his many followers. In contrast to his holy goodness, we are presented with his would-be nemesis, the local 'cartoon-villain' Brahmin, who continually tries to bring down the poet-saint, ultimately to no avail. With a number of primitive but clever special effects (no CGI back then) the story unfolds beautifully, captivating the viewer with the same child-like wonder. Definitely a 'must-see'.
I also watched some previously-viewed movies which I couldn't quite remember, like my fave Tyrone Power in "Abandon Ship" (1957) -- not a patch on Hitchcock's "Lifeboat" and Paul Newman as the white-boy-raised-by-Indians in "Hombre" (1967) -- quite a decent outing with Frederick March unusually in the villain role. I was also looking forward to a very rare showing of the two-part "Little Dorrit" (1987) which has not been on the air for more than twenty years. I recalled that I 'hated' it the first time around, but wanted to give it a second chance, especially since Alec Guinness is always, always, always worth watching and the supporting cast is also spectacular. So what happened? Part One was absorbing and really reversed my earlier opinion and I was looking forward to Part Two -- the same events but from a different character's perspective. Anyhow, due to some kind of transmission fault, the second part was totally unwatchable with frozen pictures and disrupted dialogue. I have now purchased the DVD of the complete movie, which is some kind of recommendation I think.
Finally there was the usual smattering of A-list movies foremost of which was "Zero Dark 30" regarding the hunt for Bin Laden. It may be well-thought of but it hardly qualifies as any sort of entertainment in my book. I know why it was made -- and Katherine Bigelow is a super film-maker, but I can't imagine that it left a good taste in many viewers' mouths or memories.
I'll leave it there for now, with many of the 29 unmentioned, but with enough of a sample of what your faithful viewer has been up to on these long, healing days.
Saturday, 26 October 2013
Floating Clouds (1955)
Patty gets the boot! To start with an update on my fitness, the cast has finally been removed after nearly seven weeks, but the ankle is not quite oven-ready. So I have been given a surgical boot, a knee-high non-fashion item, which looks like it is more suitable for walking on the moon. I go back to the hospital in a few weeks for the next lot of prognoses. Meanwhile I am able to shuffle about (only with support let it be said) which is not quite the same as walking on the earth or the moon.
Mikio Naruse is one of the least-known in the West major Japanese directors, unlike his equally talented peers Mizoguchi, Ozu, and Kurosawa. From humble beginnings, he joined a film studio in 1920 as a prop man and worked his way up to directing ten years later. His career spanned 37 years and 91 films, but I must admit to having seen only one of his movies ("When a Woman Ascends the Stairs" - 1960) before this week, although several others were languishing on my famous 'must see' list. Like buses, you wait for one for a long time, and then two arrive together -- the above-captioned film and l954's "Late Chrysanthemums", both of which received television airings within the last week. So now I have seen three and wonder why he is so little known, as his films are both beautifully constructed and socially relevant.
Not for him the Japan of pomp and samurai; during Naruse's peak years (post World War II) he focuses on the depression, disappointments, and hand-to-mouth struggle of a defeated country and the wide-spread ill-treatment of its women. The radiant actress Hideko Takamine who starred in 17 Naruse films plays the young woman who, after being raped by her uncle, takes a wartime secretarial job on a sunny island in Indo-China. There she begins an affair with a married government forestry expert, Masayuki Mori, who promises that he will divorce his wife on their return to Japan and marry her. After Japan surrenders and they are separately repatriated, she seeks him out to discover that he has little intention of leaving his long-suffering wife. Destitute, cold, and hungry, unable to find work, Takamine becomes the mistress of an American G.I., but Mori doesn't baulk at finding her to borrow money and to perhaps spend the night.
It is soon apparent that she is hopelessly in love with him, whereas he is unable to resist both drink and any young, available flesh. The years march on, and even after his wife dies and she falls pregnant, he does not seek to regularise their relationship. She endures indignity after indignity, including having to live with the ex-rapist uncle, who now has a lucrative side-line in phony faith-healing. She steals some 300,000 yen from his 'church' and offers both the cash and herself to the faithless Mori, discovering that he has accepted a two-year forestry contract on a remote and rainy island. She begs to go with him, if only for a few months, promising to finally give him up. 'You'll be happy when I leave', she says; 'There are women everywhere' is his half-joking reply. He adds that romance died when the war ended and that they are now too old to live on dreams. However when she falls ill and finally does leave him, he begins to comprehend what indeed he has spurned and lost. As the end title has it:
"The life of a flower is so brief, yet it must suffer much grief".
With his unobtrusive camera and minimal sets, the film is still far from static, and one becomes deeply concerned about these flawed, yet interesting characters. The lovely music by Ichiro Saito helps to rouse our emotions, from his incorporation of 'The Internationale' to an oriental rendering of "Auld Lang Syne" as the boat departs for their final rainy world.
"Late Chrysanthemums", a reworking of a 1937 film by Mizoguchi, traces the fates and largely miserable lives of four aging ex-geishas in the years following the war. One is a lonely and hard-faced money-lender, one an incorrigible drunkard, and the other two lead typically hardscrabble lives, watching the ungrateful children they have sacrificed to raise marching off to more comfortable futures. It's far from a feel-good film, but beautifully rendered and another fine example of Naruse's concerns.
Mikio Naruse is one of the least-known in the West major Japanese directors, unlike his equally talented peers Mizoguchi, Ozu, and Kurosawa. From humble beginnings, he joined a film studio in 1920 as a prop man and worked his way up to directing ten years later. His career spanned 37 years and 91 films, but I must admit to having seen only one of his movies ("When a Woman Ascends the Stairs" - 1960) before this week, although several others were languishing on my famous 'must see' list. Like buses, you wait for one for a long time, and then two arrive together -- the above-captioned film and l954's "Late Chrysanthemums", both of which received television airings within the last week. So now I have seen three and wonder why he is so little known, as his films are both beautifully constructed and socially relevant.
Not for him the Japan of pomp and samurai; during Naruse's peak years (post World War II) he focuses on the depression, disappointments, and hand-to-mouth struggle of a defeated country and the wide-spread ill-treatment of its women. The radiant actress Hideko Takamine who starred in 17 Naruse films plays the young woman who, after being raped by her uncle, takes a wartime secretarial job on a sunny island in Indo-China. There she begins an affair with a married government forestry expert, Masayuki Mori, who promises that he will divorce his wife on their return to Japan and marry her. After Japan surrenders and they are separately repatriated, she seeks him out to discover that he has little intention of leaving his long-suffering wife. Destitute, cold, and hungry, unable to find work, Takamine becomes the mistress of an American G.I., but Mori doesn't baulk at finding her to borrow money and to perhaps spend the night.
It is soon apparent that she is hopelessly in love with him, whereas he is unable to resist both drink and any young, available flesh. The years march on, and even after his wife dies and she falls pregnant, he does not seek to regularise their relationship. She endures indignity after indignity, including having to live with the ex-rapist uncle, who now has a lucrative side-line in phony faith-healing. She steals some 300,000 yen from his 'church' and offers both the cash and herself to the faithless Mori, discovering that he has accepted a two-year forestry contract on a remote and rainy island. She begs to go with him, if only for a few months, promising to finally give him up. 'You'll be happy when I leave', she says; 'There are women everywhere' is his half-joking reply. He adds that romance died when the war ended and that they are now too old to live on dreams. However when she falls ill and finally does leave him, he begins to comprehend what indeed he has spurned and lost. As the end title has it:
"The life of a flower is so brief, yet it must suffer much grief".
With his unobtrusive camera and minimal sets, the film is still far from static, and one becomes deeply concerned about these flawed, yet interesting characters. The lovely music by Ichiro Saito helps to rouse our emotions, from his incorporation of 'The Internationale' to an oriental rendering of "Auld Lang Syne" as the boat departs for their final rainy world.
"Late Chrysanthemums", a reworking of a 1937 film by Mizoguchi, traces the fates and largely miserable lives of four aging ex-geishas in the years following the war. One is a lonely and hard-faced money-lender, one an incorrigible drunkard, and the other two lead typically hardscrabble lives, watching the ungrateful children they have sacrificed to raise marching off to more comfortable futures. It's far from a feel-good film, but beautifully rendered and another fine example of Naruse's concerns.
Sunday, 13 October 2013
The Joys (Not) of Being an Invalid
So who's a lazy lady? Pretty Pink Patty, that*s who. I can not believe how all this sitting/lying about has sapped my energy and enthusiasm. I understand when the cast comes off (hopefully in eight days' time), I will not be skipping about like a two-year old but rather flapping about weakly like a new-born kitten. However I am determined not to make a permanent invalid of myself and hope with some serious physio to be back to my fighting weight a.s.a.p.
Despite everything I manage to remain cheerful most of the time and to take in the requisite few films a day. So what, if anything, has impressed me of late? Herewith some movies at random from the last few days which have helped to eke out the hours:
Monsieur Lazhar (2011): This French-Canadian film was nominated as best foreign language film of its year, and while it did not win any American awards, it is really a nicely tuned, small gem of a movie. It's yet another tale of an inspiring teacher getting the best from a class, but with a number of twists on the usual formula. Played by the sad-eyed Mohamed Fellag, his character Bachir Lazhar (translates as 'lucky' and 'tell the good news' he informs his new sixth grade class), has been reluctantly hired after their beloved former teacher chose to hang herself in their classroom during school hours. He pretends that he is a legal Canadian resident with teaching experience back in Algeria, when in fact his request for asylum has not yet been granted and he was previously a restaurant manager. Slowly, however, we learn the details of his flight to Canada and the horrific story of the death of his wife and children.
While he may seem an unlikely substitute teacher for a group of youngsters, still largely traumatised by grief, he manages to reach out to them from the most awkward of beginnings to reconcile both his loss and theirs. The children making up the class are without exception a remarkable bunch of young actors, led by stand-out performances from Sophie Nelisse as the precocious and bossy Alice and Emillien Neron as the troubled Simon, who may or may not have been the cause of their teacher's suicide. This is a modern-day tale in which teachers must refrain from any physical contact with their students, even much-needed hugs. When the truth of Lazhar's resident status and lack of experience emerges, he is promptly sacked, but insists upon one last day with his class to tell them 'good-bye' in his own way through a thinly veiled fable that he has composed. It's an abrupt ending to the film, but thoroughly devastating in its own small way.
Alex Cross (2012): I had no hopes for this film whatsoever since the title character is played by Tyler Perry, a multi-hyphenate actor/writer/director and cult figure amongst black viewers, none of whose films I have ever seen. He usually plays his alter ego Madea, a pistol-packing grandma, in what I believe are largely comic movies. So this was a real change of pace for him, playing a hard-bitten Detroit detective en route to becoming an FBI criminal profiler, in a prequel to 1997's "Kiss the Girls" and 2001's "Along Came a Spider", where the role was taken up by the much older Morgan Freeman with requisite gravitas. This movie was not well-received and in fact was nominated for several Razzies, but it's really not that bad. Cross and his partner, (Ed Burns) get up to some preposterous action after their wife and girlfriend respectively are murdered by a tricky assassin, played with malicious glee by Matthew Fox. Fox is nearly unrecognizable with his shaved head and anorexic frame, but his slimy character is what keeps one watching this nonsense. And then there's Jean Reno thrown in for good measure as a would-be saviour of the decaying city and veteran Cecily Tyson as Cross' Nana Mama. I've seen far worse.
"Merrily we Live (1938): Knowing my penchant for screwball comedies of the 1930s, I caught up with this one on You Tube, but despite the occasional felicity, it is really one of the lesser-spotted variety. Constance Bennett plays the oldest child of a wealthy family (Bonita Granville is her truly annoying younger sister), whose flighty mother (Billy Burke) is always taking in strays and hobos. Her latest project has just absconded with the family silver, but still she promptly employs Brian Aherne (who knocked on the door in tatters after a car wreck to use the phone) as the new chauffeur. Obviously he is not really a 'down-and-out' as everyone assumes and sparks soon fly between him and Bennett. Alan Mowbray is the butler who keeps threatening to quit and Patsy Kelly is the cook, but despite a lot of frantic business with the characters flailing themselves into pratfalls, this film is just trying a little too hard to be a comic masterpiece. It isn't, but it's watchable despite that, and I'm glad to have finally seen it.
More next time, whenever that will be...
Despite everything I manage to remain cheerful most of the time and to take in the requisite few films a day. So what, if anything, has impressed me of late? Herewith some movies at random from the last few days which have helped to eke out the hours:
Monsieur Lazhar (2011): This French-Canadian film was nominated as best foreign language film of its year, and while it did not win any American awards, it is really a nicely tuned, small gem of a movie. It's yet another tale of an inspiring teacher getting the best from a class, but with a number of twists on the usual formula. Played by the sad-eyed Mohamed Fellag, his character Bachir Lazhar (translates as 'lucky' and 'tell the good news' he informs his new sixth grade class), has been reluctantly hired after their beloved former teacher chose to hang herself in their classroom during school hours. He pretends that he is a legal Canadian resident with teaching experience back in Algeria, when in fact his request for asylum has not yet been granted and he was previously a restaurant manager. Slowly, however, we learn the details of his flight to Canada and the horrific story of the death of his wife and children.
While he may seem an unlikely substitute teacher for a group of youngsters, still largely traumatised by grief, he manages to reach out to them from the most awkward of beginnings to reconcile both his loss and theirs. The children making up the class are without exception a remarkable bunch of young actors, led by stand-out performances from Sophie Nelisse as the precocious and bossy Alice and Emillien Neron as the troubled Simon, who may or may not have been the cause of their teacher's suicide. This is a modern-day tale in which teachers must refrain from any physical contact with their students, even much-needed hugs. When the truth of Lazhar's resident status and lack of experience emerges, he is promptly sacked, but insists upon one last day with his class to tell them 'good-bye' in his own way through a thinly veiled fable that he has composed. It's an abrupt ending to the film, but thoroughly devastating in its own small way.
Alex Cross (2012): I had no hopes for this film whatsoever since the title character is played by Tyler Perry, a multi-hyphenate actor/writer/director and cult figure amongst black viewers, none of whose films I have ever seen. He usually plays his alter ego Madea, a pistol-packing grandma, in what I believe are largely comic movies. So this was a real change of pace for him, playing a hard-bitten Detroit detective en route to becoming an FBI criminal profiler, in a prequel to 1997's "Kiss the Girls" and 2001's "Along Came a Spider", where the role was taken up by the much older Morgan Freeman with requisite gravitas. This movie was not well-received and in fact was nominated for several Razzies, but it's really not that bad. Cross and his partner, (Ed Burns) get up to some preposterous action after their wife and girlfriend respectively are murdered by a tricky assassin, played with malicious glee by Matthew Fox. Fox is nearly unrecognizable with his shaved head and anorexic frame, but his slimy character is what keeps one watching this nonsense. And then there's Jean Reno thrown in for good measure as a would-be saviour of the decaying city and veteran Cecily Tyson as Cross' Nana Mama. I've seen far worse.
"Merrily we Live (1938): Knowing my penchant for screwball comedies of the 1930s, I caught up with this one on You Tube, but despite the occasional felicity, it is really one of the lesser-spotted variety. Constance Bennett plays the oldest child of a wealthy family (Bonita Granville is her truly annoying younger sister), whose flighty mother (Billy Burke) is always taking in strays and hobos. Her latest project has just absconded with the family silver, but still she promptly employs Brian Aherne (who knocked on the door in tatters after a car wreck to use the phone) as the new chauffeur. Obviously he is not really a 'down-and-out' as everyone assumes and sparks soon fly between him and Bennett. Alan Mowbray is the butler who keeps threatening to quit and Patsy Kelly is the cook, but despite a lot of frantic business with the characters flailing themselves into pratfalls, this film is just trying a little too hard to be a comic masterpiece. It isn't, but it's watchable despite that, and I'm glad to have finally seen it.
More next time, whenever that will be...
Sunday, 29 September 2013
The Awakening (2011) + this and that
All this lying about waiting for my ankle to heel (another three weeks until the cast comes off) has left me strangely lethargic. I had planned to get back into my groove last week with my regular Wednesday posting, but you know what they say about good intentions. Had I written then it probably still would have been about the above movie, which was one of the few with any serious possibilities amongst the dross I've been watching. You can tell that I'm not up to scratch, as I've been averaging a mere two films a day, most of them making little impact. Lackaday!
I had reasonably high hopes for this British flick starring Rebecca Hall, a fine actress but not one usually expected to carry a film. Set in 1921, she plays Florence Cathcart, a woman with a mission, out to debunk phony psychics and to expose so-called ghostly phenomena as the work of con men -- all the while nursing a broken heart for the sweetheart she lost in the War. She has published a popular book on the subject and has made quite a name for herself. When she is approached by Dominic West's schoolmaster to come to investigate a supposedly haunted boarding school in Cumbria, she pooh-poohs his concerns as probably the outcome of schoolboy pranks, despite the fact that a pupil has recently died, but off she goes with him anyhow. Just as well, or we wouldn't have the schizophrenic movie that we have.
What I mean by this is that this is definitely a film of two halves that really don't quite hang together. Initially she is welcomed at the school by its headmaster, matron (Imelda Staunton), and a gaggle of supposedly spooked young boys. But soon she is able to lay the blame for each bump in the night to one or other of the lads -- despite the brief frissons of fear that are meant to make us 'jump'. However, events take a somewhat different path during the half-term break when the only folk left at the school are Hall, West, Staunton, and young Tom (a very fine Isaac Hempstead-Wright) whose parents are in India. Suddenly there can be no logical or rational explanations for the noises and visions that Miss Cathcart begins to experience. Can Tom be the culprit? Not likely says West -- there are NO children at all at the school -- only the three of them!!! This leads to the awakening of the title. It seems that she was lured there, not to explain any strange current hauntings, but to confront the repressed memories of her own past -- frankly a highly unlikely and somewhat contrived scenario. There follows a convoluted exploration of the previous relationships between her, Tom (who had died many years earlier), and the more-than-a-little involved Staunton, combined with a new sexual relationship with West and a would-be rape by a horny gamekeeper.
The film finishes with a big question mark as well and can be read in one of two ways -- a perfectly straightforward happy ending or yet another instance of ghostly spectres taking centre stage.. Take your pick.... The film is competently put together by director Nick Murphy with a high standard of acting and good production values, but in the end I did not find it a terribly satisfying viewing experience.
Mind you, it was a whole lot better than much of what I've seen this past month. For example I just finished watching a film called "Borderline" (1950) which was receiving its first television showing in 63 years. Starring Claire Trevor and Fred MacMurray, it was not the finest hour for either, since both could claim more prestigious productions in their respective filmographies. They play narcotic cops sent South of the Border to expose drug honchos; each is unaware that they are on the same side of the law and each suspects the worst of the other. She's gone to get the goods on literally 'heavy' Raymond Burr and thinking she is Burr's moll, Fred forces her to play his 'wife' as he pretends to take contraband back to the States. Trevor was a good 40 when the film was made and it is a little disconcerting for her to constantly be referred to as "the girl", to say nothing about her clunky chorus-girl dancing as one Gladys LaRue in the attempt to attract Burr's lecherous interest. Of course she and MacMurray fall in love despite thinking that each of them will end of shopping the other. Wow, what a yawn, but it goes to show that there are still plenty of films out there that I've neither seen nor heard of.
I had reasonably high hopes for this British flick starring Rebecca Hall, a fine actress but not one usually expected to carry a film. Set in 1921, she plays Florence Cathcart, a woman with a mission, out to debunk phony psychics and to expose so-called ghostly phenomena as the work of con men -- all the while nursing a broken heart for the sweetheart she lost in the War. She has published a popular book on the subject and has made quite a name for herself. When she is approached by Dominic West's schoolmaster to come to investigate a supposedly haunted boarding school in Cumbria, she pooh-poohs his concerns as probably the outcome of schoolboy pranks, despite the fact that a pupil has recently died, but off she goes with him anyhow. Just as well, or we wouldn't have the schizophrenic movie that we have.
What I mean by this is that this is definitely a film of two halves that really don't quite hang together. Initially she is welcomed at the school by its headmaster, matron (Imelda Staunton), and a gaggle of supposedly spooked young boys. But soon she is able to lay the blame for each bump in the night to one or other of the lads -- despite the brief frissons of fear that are meant to make us 'jump'. However, events take a somewhat different path during the half-term break when the only folk left at the school are Hall, West, Staunton, and young Tom (a very fine Isaac Hempstead-Wright) whose parents are in India. Suddenly there can be no logical or rational explanations for the noises and visions that Miss Cathcart begins to experience. Can Tom be the culprit? Not likely says West -- there are NO children at all at the school -- only the three of them!!! This leads to the awakening of the title. It seems that she was lured there, not to explain any strange current hauntings, but to confront the repressed memories of her own past -- frankly a highly unlikely and somewhat contrived scenario. There follows a convoluted exploration of the previous relationships between her, Tom (who had died many years earlier), and the more-than-a-little involved Staunton, combined with a new sexual relationship with West and a would-be rape by a horny gamekeeper.
The film finishes with a big question mark as well and can be read in one of two ways -- a perfectly straightforward happy ending or yet another instance of ghostly spectres taking centre stage.. Take your pick.... The film is competently put together by director Nick Murphy with a high standard of acting and good production values, but in the end I did not find it a terribly satisfying viewing experience.
Mind you, it was a whole lot better than much of what I've seen this past month. For example I just finished watching a film called "Borderline" (1950) which was receiving its first television showing in 63 years. Starring Claire Trevor and Fred MacMurray, it was not the finest hour for either, since both could claim more prestigious productions in their respective filmographies. They play narcotic cops sent South of the Border to expose drug honchos; each is unaware that they are on the same side of the law and each suspects the worst of the other. She's gone to get the goods on literally 'heavy' Raymond Burr and thinking she is Burr's moll, Fred forces her to play his 'wife' as he pretends to take contraband back to the States. Trevor was a good 40 when the film was made and it is a little disconcerting for her to constantly be referred to as "the girl", to say nothing about her clunky chorus-girl dancing as one Gladys LaRue in the attempt to attract Burr's lecherous interest. Of course she and MacMurray fall in love despite thinking that each of them will end of shopping the other. Wow, what a yawn, but it goes to show that there are still plenty of films out there that I've neither seen nor heard of.
Friday, 13 September 2013
FrightFest the Last Part 2
So much for my saying I would continue my review shortly -- we never know what the powers that be have in store for us! Since writing last I have been in hospital flat on my back with a badly fractured ankle. What fun! I'm home now and will work up some enthusiasm for continuing this entry within the next few days. Maybe... Believe me when I say, take care.
* * * * * * *
Wednesday, 18 September: Pretty good going PPP - three weeks to the day since I started this summary and I now find myself without the necessary energy to persevere, but persevere I shall, however scantily. So back to FrightFest Sunday and it is telling indeed how little has stuck in my mind about some of the programme:
Missionary: First up was this US would-be shocker about one of those nice Mormon boys who occasionally turn up on one's doorstep who tips over the edge into obsession after being seduced by a sexy housewife. She soon regrets the lapse but he now covets his own all-American family with murderous results. Shades of the infamous case some years back of the young lady who waylaid another missionary to keep as her sex slave.
Hansel and Gretel Get Baked: Despite a terribly low rating on IMDb this sounded something of a hoot and probably preferable to another new British director outing which was the alternative. I probably made the wrong call since this was hardly memorable despite a turn from the now little-seen Lara Flynn Boyle in full hag make-up as the resident witch at the suburban Gingerbread House where Hansel (Cary Elwes) goes to score some drugs. Girlfriend Gretel to the rescue!
Dark Tourist aka Grief Tourist: Another American entry which has faded into the murky depths of memory. Michael Cudlitz plays the loner who chooses to vacation each year visiting places associated with a serial killer's crime spree -- an interesting concept, but one more than a little muddled in execution. Along the way he encounters Melanie Griffith's waitress and the tranny prostitute in the next door motel room. Pretty forgettable tosh devoid of much in the way of shocks.
The Desert: We chose this Argentinian movie over yet another found-footage outing and it was an acceptable, extremely low-budget fantasy. Three survivors -- a lass and two fellas -- of some unnamed holocaust have set up a household together in the barren landscape, only emerging occasionally to scavenge for supplies. Unfortunately one day the guys bring home a pet zombie as well... Things do not bode well for this fragile ménage a trois!
The Last Days: This Spanish entry from the directing Pastor brothers was, I thought, one of the best films of the fest. We're back in the realm of some inexplicable epidemic called 'The Panic', but rather than facing zombies, folk just keel over and die if they leave the safety of the indoors -- agoraphobia with a vengeance. Survivors are trapped in their homes or offices, and can only venture afield via underground sewers, subway lines, basements, and tunnels. Our hero must find a way to get to his heavily pregnant girlfriend half-way across Barcelona together with his hated ex-boss and a failing GPS device, avoiding feral gangs, falling mortar, and a ginormous bear in an abandoned church. Very exciting, well-paced and blessed with a brilliantly conceived denouement.
This brings us up to the final Monday and I will now whizz through the day, which is a little easier since we decided to have a lie-in and skip the first movie of the morning. We arrived in time for:
Banshee Chapter - 3D: We might as well not have bothered. For a start the overall concept of the film was one big yawn -- the CIA has been secretly testing strange drugs on a sampling of unsuspecting Americans. So what else is new??? Secret underground chambers hold all sorts of unspeakable horrors, that is, if any viewer could see much in the gloomy desert research centre. And don't movie directors/producers know by now that 3D filming is a complete waste of time and money in dark, dismal environments?
Odd Thomas: I confess I have read all four so-far published novels in this series from prolific writer Dean Koontz and I was curious whether I would enjoy the first film to emerge from the works. Frankly if I were not already familiar with the character of the strangely-named young man, here played by Anton Yelchin, I probably would not have gone on to read the books. He has certain clairvoyant gifts to predict looming disasters, a talent already utilised by his friend the local chief of police, but all his 'psychic magnetism' can't save his truly beloved from the dark forces he can see impending. No franchise here I suspect.
We Are What We Are: This is the American re-make of a Mexican movie that premiered at FrightFest in 2010. I was not taken with the original movie where a family of urban cannibals had to find a modus vivendi after the sudden death of their father and provider. The concept has been somewhat expanded here to provide historical grounds for the family's proclivities (and the death of a mother here), but despite the higher budget and polished production, I was no more involved in what would become of the dysfunctional family than I was of their Mexican forbears.
Big Bad Wolves: Whew! I'm finally down to the last review. This Israeli film from the directors of 2011's very watchable "Rabies" is something of a master-class on the incipient sadism that we all conceal. A grieving father kidnaps the schoolteacher-cum-paedophile that he suspects abducted his brutalised daughter. In a remote hideaway basement he tortures the man aiming to get at the truth regarding the latest missing child, aided and abetted at times by a rogue cop who also suspects the teacher and the man's own father who stumbles upon the trio. I wonder what the Israeli authorities would make of the father's statement that the army of his day trained its soldiers in ways to get their prey to reveal all. Nothing ends well and the final image reveals another totally unexpected horror. Pretty strong and good stuff.
So that's FrightFest in its current form for very probably the last time...but only real time will tell. Meanwhile my recovery period from my current ailment together my extremely limited mobility means that I will have to forgo the annual London Film Festival for the first time in many a year. Quel dommage! Never mind, I have been studying the programme and I know which films I will need to seek out over the months/years to come -- and I will do my damned best to see them all. That you can count on...
* * * * * * *
Wednesday, 18 September: Pretty good going PPP - three weeks to the day since I started this summary and I now find myself without the necessary energy to persevere, but persevere I shall, however scantily. So back to FrightFest Sunday and it is telling indeed how little has stuck in my mind about some of the programme:
Missionary: First up was this US would-be shocker about one of those nice Mormon boys who occasionally turn up on one's doorstep who tips over the edge into obsession after being seduced by a sexy housewife. She soon regrets the lapse but he now covets his own all-American family with murderous results. Shades of the infamous case some years back of the young lady who waylaid another missionary to keep as her sex slave.
Hansel and Gretel Get Baked: Despite a terribly low rating on IMDb this sounded something of a hoot and probably preferable to another new British director outing which was the alternative. I probably made the wrong call since this was hardly memorable despite a turn from the now little-seen Lara Flynn Boyle in full hag make-up as the resident witch at the suburban Gingerbread House where Hansel (Cary Elwes) goes to score some drugs. Girlfriend Gretel to the rescue!
Dark Tourist aka Grief Tourist: Another American entry which has faded into the murky depths of memory. Michael Cudlitz plays the loner who chooses to vacation each year visiting places associated with a serial killer's crime spree -- an interesting concept, but one more than a little muddled in execution. Along the way he encounters Melanie Griffith's waitress and the tranny prostitute in the next door motel room. Pretty forgettable tosh devoid of much in the way of shocks.
The Desert: We chose this Argentinian movie over yet another found-footage outing and it was an acceptable, extremely low-budget fantasy. Three survivors -- a lass and two fellas -- of some unnamed holocaust have set up a household together in the barren landscape, only emerging occasionally to scavenge for supplies. Unfortunately one day the guys bring home a pet zombie as well... Things do not bode well for this fragile ménage a trois!
The Last Days: This Spanish entry from the directing Pastor brothers was, I thought, one of the best films of the fest. We're back in the realm of some inexplicable epidemic called 'The Panic', but rather than facing zombies, folk just keel over and die if they leave the safety of the indoors -- agoraphobia with a vengeance. Survivors are trapped in their homes or offices, and can only venture afield via underground sewers, subway lines, basements, and tunnels. Our hero must find a way to get to his heavily pregnant girlfriend half-way across Barcelona together with his hated ex-boss and a failing GPS device, avoiding feral gangs, falling mortar, and a ginormous bear in an abandoned church. Very exciting, well-paced and blessed with a brilliantly conceived denouement.
This brings us up to the final Monday and I will now whizz through the day, which is a little easier since we decided to have a lie-in and skip the first movie of the morning. We arrived in time for:
Banshee Chapter - 3D: We might as well not have bothered. For a start the overall concept of the film was one big yawn -- the CIA has been secretly testing strange drugs on a sampling of unsuspecting Americans. So what else is new??? Secret underground chambers hold all sorts of unspeakable horrors, that is, if any viewer could see much in the gloomy desert research centre. And don't movie directors/producers know by now that 3D filming is a complete waste of time and money in dark, dismal environments?
Odd Thomas: I confess I have read all four so-far published novels in this series from prolific writer Dean Koontz and I was curious whether I would enjoy the first film to emerge from the works. Frankly if I were not already familiar with the character of the strangely-named young man, here played by Anton Yelchin, I probably would not have gone on to read the books. He has certain clairvoyant gifts to predict looming disasters, a talent already utilised by his friend the local chief of police, but all his 'psychic magnetism' can't save his truly beloved from the dark forces he can see impending. No franchise here I suspect.
We Are What We Are: This is the American re-make of a Mexican movie that premiered at FrightFest in 2010. I was not taken with the original movie where a family of urban cannibals had to find a modus vivendi after the sudden death of their father and provider. The concept has been somewhat expanded here to provide historical grounds for the family's proclivities (and the death of a mother here), but despite the higher budget and polished production, I was no more involved in what would become of the dysfunctional family than I was of their Mexican forbears.
Big Bad Wolves: Whew! I'm finally down to the last review. This Israeli film from the directors of 2011's very watchable "Rabies" is something of a master-class on the incipient sadism that we all conceal. A grieving father kidnaps the schoolteacher-cum-paedophile that he suspects abducted his brutalised daughter. In a remote hideaway basement he tortures the man aiming to get at the truth regarding the latest missing child, aided and abetted at times by a rogue cop who also suspects the teacher and the man's own father who stumbles upon the trio. I wonder what the Israeli authorities would make of the father's statement that the army of his day trained its soldiers in ways to get their prey to reveal all. Nothing ends well and the final image reveals another totally unexpected horror. Pretty strong and good stuff.
So that's FrightFest in its current form for very probably the last time...but only real time will tell. Meanwhile my recovery period from my current ailment together my extremely limited mobility means that I will have to forgo the annual London Film Festival for the first time in many a year. Quel dommage! Never mind, I have been studying the programme and I know which films I will need to seek out over the months/years to come -- and I will do my damned best to see them all. That you can count on...
Wednesday, 28 August 2013
FrightFest 14 aka FrightFest the Last
I know I wrote last year that I was having serious doubts about continuing the long weekend marathon that FrightFest has become, but we decided to put ourselves through the wringer once again this year. I'm not sure it was the right decision and again, I have real reservations about buying the weekend pass next year. Perhaps the time has come to evaluate the proposed programme and to opt for tickets for selected movies only. That would provide less wear and tear on our weary old bones and might also result in less fighting to stay awake during some of the less involving offerings. Apart from anything else, the big screen at the Empire Cinema is being split in two later this year, and the organisers will then be forced to rethink the whole layout of the fest weekend. Mind you an increased selection at smaller screens might avoid something of the current mob scene which is one of the weekend's lesser appeals.
With all of the above bitching, you would be right to conclude that I was somewhat less than enchanted with the whole shooting match. We did manage to take in twenty films over the four and a half days, which is only six less than we could have scheduled, but it was still something of an effort and, dare I say, a disappointment. Having decided in advance to skip the five late night showings (in terms of getting home each evening while transport was still running), to try to limit the usually amateurish first-film offerings from British directors, and to studiously avoid any movie reeking of 'found footage' (we had our fill of it last year), there were still technically enough options left to make for an entertaining weekend. Why then were there so few films that really left me enthused? I will try to capsule each film that we saw, but there were only a few which I have any desire to discuss at length:
Opening night: "The Dead 2: India" - Never having seen the first offering from the British Ford Brothers, I gather that this movie is more of the same, but on a larger scale. A British engineer with a cute tyke in tow has to ward off hordes of white-eyed zombies (over and over and over) to get back to his rather hideous and pregnant girlfriend. Super!
"Curse of Chucky" - The fifth entry in the malevolent doll series still features the voice of Brad Dourif and its somewhat strained scenario references the previous films. Chucky remains a reliably scary entity and at least Jennifer Tilly appears in a cameo at the film's end, but I think Chucky has now had his movie day. Until someone decides to "re-imagine" the whole deal of course!
Day One: "The American Scream" - A mildly entertaining documentary on how some obsessed families in one small New England town plan all year to turn their homes into houses of horror to celebrate Halloween. Certainly no reason to give it an 18-certificate however.
"Dementamania" - Billed as 'The Fly meets The Office' this film chronicles the meltdown of an uptight City worker when he steps on a wasp after his morning shower. Both the day and his mental state deteriorate rapidly, until he (and we) no longer know what is really real. Reasonably well-done but somewhat forgettable.
"Sadik 2" (I gather there was never a "Sadik 1) - We usually try to include as many foreign language movies as possible on the grounds that they are less likely to ever receive a British release. This French one follows a group of six friends who are off to a rented cottage for their annual New Years Eve reunion, little realising that they are scheduled to be picked off one by one by the crew shooting a snuff movie in another part of the building. A surprising twist after a somewhat leisurely start, but ultimately not much cop.
"Haunter" - A professional turn from young Abigail Breslin, far removed from her "Little Miss Sunshine" days, where she plays the rising 16-year old daughter of a dead family doomed to repeat each day a la "Groundhog Day" until their spirits can be freed. An interesting spin on the boundaries between the dead and the living from the interesting director Vincenzo Natali.
"Wither" - We chose this Swedish film over the popular choice of "V-H-S 2" since nothing could encourage me to watch the parent movie a second time. This was yet another variation of the "Sadik" scenario where a group of friends on a holiday jaunt meet bloody deaths. It was engagingly made with plenty of gore, but just went on too long to avoid being overly repetitive.
Day Two: Arriving too late in the morning to secure any of the alternate selections, we were 'stuck' with the main screen programme:
"The Hypnotist" - I must confess that I had high hopes for this Swedish film after "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" premiered here some years back. This one is not in the same involving category and is more akin to the Scandinavian made-for-television series that have been gracing BBC4's television screens most Saturday nights for the past years. Although the film was Sweden's entry in the Oscar race -- the story of a disgraced doctor using his hypnotic abilities to unlock the memories of the teenaged survivor of a family massacre -- it's an adaptation of a popular novel that might have been more at home on the small screen.
"Frankenstein's Army" - Russian soldiers in the last days of World War II stumble upon a secret Nazi laboratory where a mad scientist is creating unstoppable new soldiers from the body parts of the dead. While the monster creations are very visually imaginative, the film is something of a hard watch since all of the cast are speaking in 'funny' accents. It's a movie that may well find a cult audience in due course. Anything is possible!
"No One Lives" - We skipped the middle film of the afternoon ("Hammer of the Gods"), since I had no desire to involve myself in gratuitous Saxon violence; I had my fill of that with "Game of Thrones". This next film on the programme from the now US-based director Ryuhei Kitamura was a somewhat muddled affair. Some time after the massacre of fourteen students, a gang of toughs hijack the car driven by the slaughter's perp and his comely hostage, whose father has posted a substantial reward. The resulting bloody mayhem as psycho faces off against psycho left me a little baffled, as the two lead actors looked remarkably interchangeable.
"R.I.P.D -3D" - I had read several pretty negative reviews of this film, but hoped that the combination of an engaging premise and the presence of the ever-watchable Jeff Bridges would be sufficient compensation. The title stands for 'Rest-in-Peace Department', a posse of deceased cops from various eras, who police the after-world against marauding mutants, all very derivative from the Men in Black series, but less imaginatively envisioned. Bridges plays a gentlemanly Western type (very definitely hamming OTT) who is teamed up with a new recruit, the slightly boss-eyed Ryan Reynolds who has been dispatched by baddie Kevin Bacon. They must battle to save the world from a deadly scheme that will erase the boundaries between heaven and hell. When they return to earth they are seen by earthlings in different forms -- Bridges as a voluptuous blonde and Reynolds as a dweeby elderly Chinaman. That's the level of the so-called humour. The 3-D effects added virtually nothing and seemed to be out of proportion much of the time. The film could have been a whole lot better I reckon and it is apparently one of the many flops of the Stateside tent-pole summer.
I had intended to cover the entire week-end in one blog entry, but this has rapidly fallen into the 'too-long-to-read' category. I will therefore return to the subject, hopefully well before my regular Wednesday entries, to deal with the last two days. I should be able to drum up some enthusiasm for the task since the two movies I liked best (and really liked) were shown on days three and four respectively. That's it for now...
With all of the above bitching, you would be right to conclude that I was somewhat less than enchanted with the whole shooting match. We did manage to take in twenty films over the four and a half days, which is only six less than we could have scheduled, but it was still something of an effort and, dare I say, a disappointment. Having decided in advance to skip the five late night showings (in terms of getting home each evening while transport was still running), to try to limit the usually amateurish first-film offerings from British directors, and to studiously avoid any movie reeking of 'found footage' (we had our fill of it last year), there were still technically enough options left to make for an entertaining weekend. Why then were there so few films that really left me enthused? I will try to capsule each film that we saw, but there were only a few which I have any desire to discuss at length:
Opening night: "The Dead 2: India" - Never having seen the first offering from the British Ford Brothers, I gather that this movie is more of the same, but on a larger scale. A British engineer with a cute tyke in tow has to ward off hordes of white-eyed zombies (over and over and over) to get back to his rather hideous and pregnant girlfriend. Super!
"Curse of Chucky" - The fifth entry in the malevolent doll series still features the voice of Brad Dourif and its somewhat strained scenario references the previous films. Chucky remains a reliably scary entity and at least Jennifer Tilly appears in a cameo at the film's end, but I think Chucky has now had his movie day. Until someone decides to "re-imagine" the whole deal of course!
Day One: "The American Scream" - A mildly entertaining documentary on how some obsessed families in one small New England town plan all year to turn their homes into houses of horror to celebrate Halloween. Certainly no reason to give it an 18-certificate however.
"Dementamania" - Billed as 'The Fly meets The Office' this film chronicles the meltdown of an uptight City worker when he steps on a wasp after his morning shower. Both the day and his mental state deteriorate rapidly, until he (and we) no longer know what is really real. Reasonably well-done but somewhat forgettable.
"Sadik 2" (I gather there was never a "Sadik 1) - We usually try to include as many foreign language movies as possible on the grounds that they are less likely to ever receive a British release. This French one follows a group of six friends who are off to a rented cottage for their annual New Years Eve reunion, little realising that they are scheduled to be picked off one by one by the crew shooting a snuff movie in another part of the building. A surprising twist after a somewhat leisurely start, but ultimately not much cop.
"Haunter" - A professional turn from young Abigail Breslin, far removed from her "Little Miss Sunshine" days, where she plays the rising 16-year old daughter of a dead family doomed to repeat each day a la "Groundhog Day" until their spirits can be freed. An interesting spin on the boundaries between the dead and the living from the interesting director Vincenzo Natali.
"Wither" - We chose this Swedish film over the popular choice of "V-H-S 2" since nothing could encourage me to watch the parent movie a second time. This was yet another variation of the "Sadik" scenario where a group of friends on a holiday jaunt meet bloody deaths. It was engagingly made with plenty of gore, but just went on too long to avoid being overly repetitive.
Day Two: Arriving too late in the morning to secure any of the alternate selections, we were 'stuck' with the main screen programme:
"The Hypnotist" - I must confess that I had high hopes for this Swedish film after "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" premiered here some years back. This one is not in the same involving category and is more akin to the Scandinavian made-for-television series that have been gracing BBC4's television screens most Saturday nights for the past years. Although the film was Sweden's entry in the Oscar race -- the story of a disgraced doctor using his hypnotic abilities to unlock the memories of the teenaged survivor of a family massacre -- it's an adaptation of a popular novel that might have been more at home on the small screen.
"Frankenstein's Army" - Russian soldiers in the last days of World War II stumble upon a secret Nazi laboratory where a mad scientist is creating unstoppable new soldiers from the body parts of the dead. While the monster creations are very visually imaginative, the film is something of a hard watch since all of the cast are speaking in 'funny' accents. It's a movie that may well find a cult audience in due course. Anything is possible!
"No One Lives" - We skipped the middle film of the afternoon ("Hammer of the Gods"), since I had no desire to involve myself in gratuitous Saxon violence; I had my fill of that with "Game of Thrones". This next film on the programme from the now US-based director Ryuhei Kitamura was a somewhat muddled affair. Some time after the massacre of fourteen students, a gang of toughs hijack the car driven by the slaughter's perp and his comely hostage, whose father has posted a substantial reward. The resulting bloody mayhem as psycho faces off against psycho left me a little baffled, as the two lead actors looked remarkably interchangeable.
"R.I.P.D -3D" - I had read several pretty negative reviews of this film, but hoped that the combination of an engaging premise and the presence of the ever-watchable Jeff Bridges would be sufficient compensation. The title stands for 'Rest-in-Peace Department', a posse of deceased cops from various eras, who police the after-world against marauding mutants, all very derivative from the Men in Black series, but less imaginatively envisioned. Bridges plays a gentlemanly Western type (very definitely hamming OTT) who is teamed up with a new recruit, the slightly boss-eyed Ryan Reynolds who has been dispatched by baddie Kevin Bacon. They must battle to save the world from a deadly scheme that will erase the boundaries between heaven and hell. When they return to earth they are seen by earthlings in different forms -- Bridges as a voluptuous blonde and Reynolds as a dweeby elderly Chinaman. That's the level of the so-called humour. The 3-D effects added virtually nothing and seemed to be out of proportion much of the time. The film could have been a whole lot better I reckon and it is apparently one of the many flops of the Stateside tent-pole summer.
I had intended to cover the entire week-end in one blog entry, but this has rapidly fallen into the 'too-long-to-read' category. I will therefore return to the subject, hopefully well before my regular Wednesday entries, to deal with the last two days. I should be able to drum up some enthusiasm for the task since the two movies I liked best (and really liked) were shown on days three and four respectively. That's it for now...
Wednesday, 21 August 2013
The Woman in Black (2012)
Forget about "The Conjuring" (see below). If you want to see a really scary movie, try this one:
Frankly, I was in no rush whatsoever to see this film, despite a young lady of my acquaintance (stand up Mara!) repeatedly asking me if I had a copy. Probably because I knew that the stage play has been running here for the best part of twenty-five years and because I had seen the 1989 television movie which left me distinctly underwhelmed, I decided in advance that the movie starring a grown-up Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) would be nothing special. I was so wrong.
The play, the TVM, and this film are all based on Susan Hill's 1983 novel which I've not read. However where all previous versions have been effectively a two-hander, with the aged Arthur Kipps relating the strange experiences of his past to a young actor, crafty screenwriter Jane Goldman has opened the story out to encompass a large cast and some very spooky scenery. Set in late Victorian times, Radcliffe plays a young solicitor, not in his firm's best books, who is sent to a remote village to sort out the affairs of the late Mrs. Drablow. Her sprawling and isolated mansion, Eel Marsh House, is set on salt marshes at the end of Nine Lives Causeway and is totally inaccessible at high tide. While it is a little hard not to associate the Potter persona with Radcliffe, he makes a convincing young widower and devoted father to his four-year old son, anxious to secure his job. What he is not prepared for is the hostility of the local villagers, all of whom encourage him to turn tail and return to London on the next train. The exception is a local gent played by Ciaran Hinds who befriends the young man, although he too has suffered the loss of a young child, in common with too many others in the community. They have all heard of the infamous woman in black, whom Kipps reports as having seen at the supposedly empty house, and they believe that her vengeful spirit has carried away the village youngsters. Kipps' own beloved son is due to arrive with his nanny later that week to spend a 'jolly' weekend in the country with his dad.
As he valiantly wades through the tons of paperwork he finds at Eel Marsh, he learns that Mrs. Drablow had been raising a boy as her own son, who was actually the offspring of her mentally unbalanced sister; the lad drowned in the surrounding marshes and his body was never recovered. His real mother hanged herself in sorrow, and it is apparently her restless spirit that has been seeking revenge, appearing as the black-garbed ghost. Kipps witnesses the horrifying deaths of some more local kiddies and develops a theory that if he can find the missing body and place it in the mother's grave, reuniting her with her lost son, the curse will be lifted. This gives rise to some harrowing scenes where, with Hinds' help, Radcliffe dives in and out of the muddy swamp to find the boy's amazingly preserved corpse. However, in a denouement which is radically different from previous versions, the fearsome lady is still not at rest. Without spoiling the movie, let me just say that the finale is a strange mixture of a startling and depressing event, which could in its way be read as an acceptable happy ending.
Director James Watkins, in his sophomore outing (he previously wrote and directed the beware-the-children shocker "Eden Lake"), makes sparing use of the regular horror clichés, unlike "The Conjuring" which tries to include them all. What the film creates is a lurking apprehension -- nothing seems quite right. So when the jolts appear -- strange noises, the brief apparitions, the self-rocking chair, the scary old toys acquiring a life of their own -- the viewer readily jumps. There are no guts or gore, and unusually no attempt is made to stop our seeing the all-too-solid spectral wraith. As one of the first productions from the newly-revived Hammer Studios, home of classic British horrors of the 50s and 60s, this is a superb example of how to modernize horror effectively for our times.
Talking about horror, FrightFest has rolled around again and will be filling my days from tomorrow through Monday evening. I know I've said previously that I should really give up these marathon days, but we've purchased the week-end pass yet again. Maybe next year??? Anyhow you can expect to read the first reports sometime next week.
Frankly, I was in no rush whatsoever to see this film, despite a young lady of my acquaintance (stand up Mara!) repeatedly asking me if I had a copy. Probably because I knew that the stage play has been running here for the best part of twenty-five years and because I had seen the 1989 television movie which left me distinctly underwhelmed, I decided in advance that the movie starring a grown-up Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) would be nothing special. I was so wrong.
The play, the TVM, and this film are all based on Susan Hill's 1983 novel which I've not read. However where all previous versions have been effectively a two-hander, with the aged Arthur Kipps relating the strange experiences of his past to a young actor, crafty screenwriter Jane Goldman has opened the story out to encompass a large cast and some very spooky scenery. Set in late Victorian times, Radcliffe plays a young solicitor, not in his firm's best books, who is sent to a remote village to sort out the affairs of the late Mrs. Drablow. Her sprawling and isolated mansion, Eel Marsh House, is set on salt marshes at the end of Nine Lives Causeway and is totally inaccessible at high tide. While it is a little hard not to associate the Potter persona with Radcliffe, he makes a convincing young widower and devoted father to his four-year old son, anxious to secure his job. What he is not prepared for is the hostility of the local villagers, all of whom encourage him to turn tail and return to London on the next train. The exception is a local gent played by Ciaran Hinds who befriends the young man, although he too has suffered the loss of a young child, in common with too many others in the community. They have all heard of the infamous woman in black, whom Kipps reports as having seen at the supposedly empty house, and they believe that her vengeful spirit has carried away the village youngsters. Kipps' own beloved son is due to arrive with his nanny later that week to spend a 'jolly' weekend in the country with his dad.
As he valiantly wades through the tons of paperwork he finds at Eel Marsh, he learns that Mrs. Drablow had been raising a boy as her own son, who was actually the offspring of her mentally unbalanced sister; the lad drowned in the surrounding marshes and his body was never recovered. His real mother hanged herself in sorrow, and it is apparently her restless spirit that has been seeking revenge, appearing as the black-garbed ghost. Kipps witnesses the horrifying deaths of some more local kiddies and develops a theory that if he can find the missing body and place it in the mother's grave, reuniting her with her lost son, the curse will be lifted. This gives rise to some harrowing scenes where, with Hinds' help, Radcliffe dives in and out of the muddy swamp to find the boy's amazingly preserved corpse. However, in a denouement which is radically different from previous versions, the fearsome lady is still not at rest. Without spoiling the movie, let me just say that the finale is a strange mixture of a startling and depressing event, which could in its way be read as an acceptable happy ending.
Director James Watkins, in his sophomore outing (he previously wrote and directed the beware-the-children shocker "Eden Lake"), makes sparing use of the regular horror clichés, unlike "The Conjuring" which tries to include them all. What the film creates is a lurking apprehension -- nothing seems quite right. So when the jolts appear -- strange noises, the brief apparitions, the self-rocking chair, the scary old toys acquiring a life of their own -- the viewer readily jumps. There are no guts or gore, and unusually no attempt is made to stop our seeing the all-too-solid spectral wraith. As one of the first productions from the newly-revived Hammer Studios, home of classic British horrors of the 50s and 60s, this is a superb example of how to modernize horror effectively for our times.
Talking about horror, FrightFest has rolled around again and will be filling my days from tomorrow through Monday evening. I know I've said previously that I should really give up these marathon days, but we've purchased the week-end pass yet again. Maybe next year??? Anyhow you can expect to read the first reports sometime next week.
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