An Unfinished Life (2005)

I've written before about movies that seem to fall between the cracks and which are studiously not aired. This "all-star" film from director Lasse Hallstrom was apparently never deemed worthy of being scheduled on satellite TV and has only rather belatedly surfaced on terrestrial TV where it was awarded a paltry one out of five stars in the blurb. Since it has a 7+ rating on IMDb, I was intrigued to find out who was correct and having now watched it, I will add my positive vote to those discerning viewers.



Not that I am a particularly big fan of Robert Redford whose later roles have vainly attempted to recapture his previously pretty looks by careful camerawork. Nor have I ever been much enamoured of the preening Jennifer Lopez. However, I am happy to say that they are both excellent here and this might well be her best-acted role ever. Abused by her current boyfriend, -- we've seen her as such a victim before --, she grabs her 11-year old daughter and seeks refuge in Wyoming with her rancher father-in-law Redford, whom she has not seen since her late husband's funeral and who was not previously aware that he even had a grand-daughter. She is initially not made welcome since he continues to blame her for his son's death in a road accident when she was at the wheel. His wife has also left him and his only companion is hired hand Morgan Freeman whom he must nurse after the latter was badly mauled by a bear. For once Redford is playing his age and not only are his looks those of a grizzled older man, but he is a curmudgeon to boot. However the depth of the relationship between him and Freeman, who gives as good as he gets in the short-temepered stakes is moving, as is his growth as he comes to love his little grand-daughter and even to forgive Lopez.



There are also fine roles for Damian Lewis as her violent -ex, Camryn Mannheim as the local cafe owner, Josh Lucas as the country sheriff, and expecially young Becca Gardner as the strong-willed daughter. It's a pity that this film did not make more of a mark, since Gardner might then have had the subsequent career that her playing here warrants. There is also a wonderful turn by a great grizzly bear, the same one that attacked Freeman, who looks ever so cuddly but who in the end was simply following his animal instincts. And even he deserves forgiveness!

Back to the Oldies

Some people indulge in "comfort food" to alleviate whatever; my vice is "comfort movies". Whenever I feel I am getting a surfeit of tasteless modern fare or I'm satiated with foreign arthouse flicks (and there have been a profusion of these lately), I go back in time to preferably beautiful black and white minor films. Since I last wrote, there has been time for two of these which were dandy, plus a relatively more recent colour movie which didn't quite do the trick. The gems, such as they are, first:



Quality Street (1937): I am a big Katharine Hepburn fan even from this period in her career when she was considered 'box-office poison'. Based on a J. M. Barrie play, she plays a spinster living with her sister Fay Bainter, whose one true love -- Franchot Tone -- has gone off to fight in the Napoleonic Wars. When he returns ten years later, he seems not to recognize the plain schoolma'am she has become, so she pretends to be her own young and flirtatious niece to win him back. The joke is that he really has been in love with her all along and he must find a way of disposing of the mythical niece to satisfy all of the nosy neighbours; foremost of these is the wonderful Estelle Winwood who was still appearing in films when she was pushing 100. This movie directed by George Stevens, is impossibly twee like so much Barrie whimsy, but the wonderful Hepburn brings a warmth and glow to her role which makes it all worthwhile.



Angels over Broadway (1940): Written and directed by Ben Hecht, this film nominally stars Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. as a penniless hustler, the ever-so-gorgeous Rita Hayworth as a showgirl down on her luck, and Thomas Mitchell as an alcoholic playwright (it's fascinating how often he was chosen to play a drunk!) They get together one evening to help poor snook John Qualen -- a fixture in John Ford films -- raise 3000 bucks to satisfy his boss who is about to turn him over to the police for embezzlement. And it is Qualen who really makes this movie the happy experience it is, as Mitchell concocts a scenario where Fairbanks will get Qualen into a crooked poker game, contriving for him to leave early on with his "come-on" winnings. It's a very small little movie, but it manages to convey a big heart.



Hot Enough for June (1964): Some titles remain more in the memory than the movie attached to them, and so it was with this one which I hadn't seen for yonks. In truth, the film has not aged well, although it still had its moments. For some reason, the title was changed in the U.S. to "Agent 8 & 3/4", suggesting some sort of spoof, since Dirk Bogarde is the unsuspecting spy sent to Prague, but is hardly meant to embody the derring-do of a James Bond. In fact he acquits himself admirably while managing to romance communista Sylva Koschina. Bogarde was THE British heartthrob of the 60s, but in fact was not one for the ladies, which makes his romantic leads somewhat hilarious in retrospect. The very best thing about this movie was the casting of Robert Morley and John LeMesurier as the couldn't-give-a-damn British spymasters and Leo McKern as their Czech counterpart. All very good-natured, but not as memorable the original title (which was the code-phrase for identifying overseas moles). I doubt that I will be tempted to revisit here again.

Ikinai (1998)

There are so many specialist channels on satellite television -- more than I am ever likely to sample even out of curiosity (and one does wonder to whom some of them might appeal). However I do keep my beady eye on the various film channels of which there are a surprising number, although they have a tendency to abruptly disappear, since their finance remains a mystery. Most of those which are not subscription channels do carry an assortment of advertisements, which cuts up the viewing process into less pleasurable chunks. I therefore tend to ignore the various made-for-TV film channels, the so-called 'Movies for Men', and even the Horror Channel unless they are showing something which sounds irresistible (not often). An exception is made for Film Four, now that they have gone to Freeview with adverts, on those very rare occasions when they schedule something which has not already been available elsewhere ; it was a wonderful channel in its subscription days, but apparently insufficiently profitable.



I was surprised to come across a channel -- new to me and I have no idea how long it has been going -- called World Movies which not only shows mainly subtitled foreign films (there is the occasional Australian or US Indie in English), but also seems to have access to movies which are not available on DVD. The downside is that they have an intrusive logo and even worse allow for frequent ad breaks, although they do not appear to have any advertisers yet, without a clear title card to signify the end of one section and the start of the next. However, I am putting up with this in the short term and have been rewarded with some pretty obscure, but generally quite good, films in Japanese, Chinese, French, et. al.



The above Japanese movie which I watched yesterday is a typical case in point. Billed as "Can't Live", I was unable to trace it on IMDb without knowing any cast or filmmaker names, but the blurb sounded interesting. I now learn that the correct title is as above which apparently translates literally as 'cannot live' and that the Festival circuit title was "Suicide Bus". Produced by Takeshi Kitano's company, it was the first film for director Hiroshi Shimizu, who was an assistant director on earlier and later Takeshi projects and who has only directed one subsequent movie. The story concerns a diverse group of 10 men plus a perky female tour guide who gather to take a bus tour to Okinawa. Each of them wishes to die, for various reasons which emerge during the telling. They are heavily insured and know that the accident they have scheduled for New Year's Day on a treacherous stretch of road will receive a big payout to their heirs and/or creditors. However one of their original number, who has now been confined to a mental institution, gives his ticket to his young niece, rather than waste it, and the group reluctantly allow her to come along, fully accepting that she will need to die amongst them. One wonders here just how mentally ill her uncle must have been to offer his beloved niece a one-way journey!



For the next few days they behave as any tour group, visiting the expected sites, watching folksy troupes, taking group photographs, entertaining each other with their spectacular non-talents at a group dinner, and generally bonding. And only gradually does the cheerful young gal become aware of the group's ultimate destination. Even 'though this movie is unlikely to come your way in the foreseeable future, I will not spoil the ending, other than to say that it is as black and bleak as it could be, with a totally out-of-left-field denouement. I can well understand why it was thought a suitable project for Office Kitano and I thank the very flawed World Movie Channel for bringing it to my attention.

Ship of Fools (1965)

This all-star film from director Stanley Kramer is set in the early 30s and tells of a voyage from Mexico to Germany. It has one of the great ensemble casts of its day and these are the main characters: Vivien Leigh in her last role is the jaded, world-weary woman that she played so perfectly in her previous film, "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone"; Simone Signoret is an aristo headed for a Spanish island jail after formenting revolution amongst the workers; Oskar Werner is the unhappily married ship's doctor with heart problems who loses his heart to Signoret; Jose Ferrer who lords it over the passengers at the Captain's Table, where only the purest of Germans are welcome, spouts Nazi propaganda to anyone who will listen; Lee Marvin is an uncouth redneck who can't see what the fuss is about -- he never even saw a Jew until he was 15 ("too busy lynching Negroes" quips Leigh); rich Elizabeth Ashley and poor artist George Segal are the sex-obsessed couple who have nought else in common; Jose Greco entertains with his Spanish dance troupe which he pimps out to the passengers each evening; Heinz Ruehmann, a stalwart of German cinema since silent days in his only English-speaking role, is the ostracized Jewish salesman who does not fear for his future since he considers himself a German foremost; finally there is the Oscar-nominated Michael Dunn, one of the most memorable dwarfs in film history. Add to these names various archetypes (the religion-spouting bigot and his hard-done-by virginal nephew, the couple whose pampered fat dog is treated as their child, and more) plus some 600 immigrant workers crowded onto the lower decks who are being sent back to Spain and the stage is set for non-stop drama.



However to paraphrase Dunn's final words in the film, 'What have we learned from all this? Absolutely nothing!' The movie is like a shipboard romance that fades into the distance when one faces the realities of life on shore, but it is a fascinating voyage while it lasts.

Chaos (2005)

This policier set in Seattle stars three of the least charismatic actors currently available: Ryan Phillippe, Wesley Snipes, and Jason Statham. Phillippe while now well over 30 and making a decent attempt to accept more adult roles (I saw him in the thoroughly depressing "Stop-Loss" (2008) a few days ago playing a soldier who considers defecting, when instead of being demobbed he is told that he is being sent back to Iraq), still manages to come across like a youngster playing with the big boys. Snipes, despite having had a definite presence in the past, particularly in the "Blade" series, has, since his recent tax troubles, only appeared in pretty dismissable rubbish phoning in his roles; I watched him in the Mario von Peebles' "Hard Luck" (2006) a few days ago and can now barely remember it. As for Statham who has appeared in a ridiculous number of action roles since his debut in 2000, his appeal eludes me, probably because I can not relate to his cardboard hero in the 'transporter' movies and the like; now maybe if I were a teenaged boy...



In this film Statham plays a suspended cop whose action in shooting a criminal at a police standoff resulted in the death of an innocent hostage. When a gang raids a bank taking 40 hostages, the ringleader Snipes will only deal with Statham and we are led to believe that he is the brother of the guy Statham has killed and that he is seeking revenge. Phillippe is brought in as the straight-arrow policeman attempting to fill his dead father's shoes who becomes Statham's new partner. Of course little is as it seems as the gang escapes from the bank (without on the surface having taken anything) and as their members are killed. The writer-director attempts to put a philosophical gloss on these dire procedings by trying to tell us the action should be interpreted by studying chaos theory. Whatever! The movie ends with a thoroughly amoral and hardly surprising denouement which has in its way become stereotypically par for the course nowadays. The biggest mystery is why there is no attempt to explain away Statham's thoroughly common South London accent, although that too does not seem to matter to his non-discriminating audience. Just count me out.

The Front Page (1931)

And so another one bites the dust! As my readers know I have this famous not-so-little list of films that I really want to see and I finally got to view (courtesy of friend Richard) this original screen version of Ben Hecht's and Charles MacArthurs's famous stage play. It's best-known incarnation is the role-reverse version "His Girl Friday" (1940) with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, which puts paid to the theory that remakes are never any good. I am also quite fond of the Billy Wilder remake using the original title from 1973 with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon in the leads. There has also been a more recent and dismissable version set in a television studio. However the first adaptation from the early sound era has eluded me until now.



First off I must say that I was delighted to have the opportunity of viewing it in a relatively clean print, although the sound-track (very important for so verbal a movie) could have been better. The director Lewis Milestone used his skills with a swirling camera to make it seem less of a stage adaptation despite being locked largely into a single set. Both the director and the film were Oscar-nominated as was Adolphe Menjou in the lead role (although I'll be dipped if I know why) -- not that any of them won. Menjou plays the crafty editor Walter Burns and the Hildy Johnson part is taken by Pat O'Brien in his first lead role -- and far better a role than much of the minor movies which made up his long career. The script is very similar to the 1940 version, although one feeels in retrospect that Grant had rather more screen time, presumably because of the strength of his playing (and he wasn't Oscar-nominated!). The one difference is the pre-code inclusion of some swear words which don't jar overly in the machine-gun pace of the dialogue.



The movie also features a number of character roles for some long-lost faces and the showiest of these are given to Walter Catlett, Frank McHugh, and in a wonderful bit of casting as a fusspot (an image that haunted him throughout his career) Edward Everett Horton. The depiction of a newsroom set up at the scene of a would-be hanging is a wonder, as the various reporters embroider the actual facts to make their stories more readable -- much like today? And the pompous self-interest of politicians is also portrayed, making the screenplay as timely as ever. I guess on balance I would vote for the 1940 version as the best of the three, but one really needs to have seen this early one to fully appreciate the success of that film. So thanks again Richard for helping me enlarge my cinematic education.

Un Air de Famille (1996)

I was quite certain I had viewed this French film previously, but couldn't quite remember it. However since it was written by and featured the husband-wife team of Agnes Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri who were so very good in both "The Taste of Others" (2000) and "Look at Me" (2004), I was happy to give it another go.



The title translates as "Family Resemblances" and concerns the three children of an overbearing mother, who meet with their spouses each Friday evening for a family dinner. This night they are also celebrating the birthday of the uptight eldest son's wife, played brilliantly by Catherine Frot, and they meet up at the run-down bar/restaurant run by younger son Bacri whose wife has just walked out. Their sister, Jaoui, is a 30-year old slacker who may or may not be involved with Bacri's hangdog employee Jean-Pierre Darroussin. There are several flashbacks to their joyful childhood before they mother left their happy-go-lucky father (Bacri's restaurant is named 'The Sleepy Dad Cafe'), but they are as disfunctional a group nowadays as you could hope to meet.



The eldest son is still fussing about his two-minute TV appearance on local television that afternoon (he is 'Number 4' in a local IT firm) and is overly concerned with his superiors' reactions, especially since Jaoui has that afternoon given a mouthful to 'Number 2', nicknamed Benito (for Mussolini). It may be his wife's day to celebrate, but he is so full of himself that it is obvious that he has no time to treat her properly. Her face as she opens her presents and finds that the family has clubbed together to buy her a dog that she does not want is priceless to behold, especially since a paralyzed and senile pet of the beloved breed is present in a corner, named Caruso, because he 'used to sing'. Bacri, who is obviously not the brightest spark, is treated as a hopeless case by his mother and brother, who also dismiss Darroussin completely as a feckless servant. Jaoui in turn is so alienated from all of them that she seems to be living in some sort of parallel world.



The film is quite obviously based on a play and is only slightly opened out under Cedric Klapisch's direction, but it does not suffer for this as the family dynamics and quirky dialogue produce their own rewards. And goofy Darroussin's dance turn with a somewhat inebriated birthday-girl Frot is a wonder to behold.

Awake (2007)

There is a quite reasonable convention that film reviewers and bloggers should not indulge in SPOILERS to avoid ruining the movie for the new viewer. However, some films can not be discussed at all without indulging in these and the convention presupposes that the movie in question could not possibly be enjoyed with such foreknowledge. Well, this film would probably not be all that enjoyable to the virgin viewer and anyone who really wishes to view the dubious procedings would probably not be put off by knowing what's what.



So here we go with spoilers galore. Hayden Christensen, not exactly the cream of leading men, plays one of the richest men in the city after his father's early death. The only problem on the immediate horizon is that he has a wonky heart and a rare blood type. He lives with his overbearing mama Lena Olin who is not aware that he is romancing her assistant, Jessica Alba, and he is too scared to tell her. He becomes friends with surgeon Terrence Howard when the latter saves his life after a previous health scare, and he is therefore keen that Howard should do the transplant when a suitable donor heart becomes available, while Olin is encouraging him to put his trust in a more experienced medical team. Meanwhile Howard encourages him to face up to his mother and to marry Alba, to make the most of whatever time he has left, which he does.



So where do we go from here? Well, it seems that Howard who faces ruin from malpractice suits is actually Alba's paramour and together with a crooked medical team they plan to move him up the donor waiting list by irregular means, let him die on the operating table, and split his vast wealth. The first twist as the blurb at the front would have it is that a certain proportion of patients do not go completely under when anaesthesized and remain conscious of what is going on, pain and all. This is what happens to Christensen as he suffers through the operation and gradually becomes aware of the perfidy around him. This voiceover would have been sufficient had the filmmakers not decided that the plot would be enhanced by having a disembodied Christensen watching and roaming through the hospital. The next twist, when it looks as if their nefarious plot will succeed, is that Olin, when she learns that her son is still being kept alive by artificial means, despite not actually having a heart, takes an overdose so that her heart can be put into her beloved son. The mind boggles somewhat at trying to work out how this could all be done in the time available, to say nothing about whether such a chemically-affected heart would be suitable, and just why Olin's preferred medical team happens to be standing by. So Christensen is given a new lease of life and the baddies are brought down; he may no longer have his Mummy or his beloved wife, but at least he still has all his money! Sorry if I've spoiled it for you. I will admit that the movie held my attention for much of the time as I wondered how it would resolve itself, but I think it had the bare bones for being a far better film than this final cut. (No pun intended!).

Romy Schneider

The new CineMoi French film channel has just finished a mini-season of movies starring Romy Schneider. Now there's a name I know I thought to myself; but when I checked her filmography I had no particular recollection of any of her film roles, despite having seen several of them including a disposable assortment of U.S. movies from the 1960s. Born in Austria, she achieved fame as a teenager in the trilogy of "Sissi" films as the Empress Elizabeth of Austria. She is still revered in Germany for this role and a commemorative postage stamp has even been issued. She followed her lover Alain Delon to Paris and was a fixture of mainly French flicks for the rest of her life, dying at the early age of 43 of a suspected overdose. Since she appeared in an assortment of top productions with A-list co-stars, I was quite looking forward to getting more familiar with her work.



Perhaps I have missed something, but I just can't grasp her magic. She is neither beautiful nor does she seem to have any dramatic depth, so I wonder just what it was that has made her something of an icon. (The French have issued a stamp as well!) She even won the first Cesar Award for best actress for her role in 1975's "L'important c'est d'aimer" -- a film that I found nearly unwatchable as porno-photographer Fabio Testi becomes entranced by her talentless actress, but refuses to have sex with her. (Klaus Kinski in another show-off role as a barnstorming, homosexual actor was the only light relief here). Then there were two films with the ever-watchable Michel Piccoli: in "Les Choices de la vie" (1970) he plays her lover who reviews his life as he lies dying in a car crash and in "Max and the Junkmen" (1971) he plays a top policeman who begins an affair with her 'working girl' in order to entrap a bunch of third-rate petty criminals. He was great in both, but in neither did she make much of an impression. In "Le Train" (1973) she was cast as a Jewish refugee who seduces Jean-Louis Trintignant's husband separated from his pregnant wife as they flee the approaching Nazis. In "A Woman at her Window" (1976) she is the wife of the Italian ambassador to Greece who falls for a hunted communist rebel, but only the supporting role of one of her admirers played by good-old hangdog Phillippe Noiret was really of any interest. There are a further two of her movies in my backlog, but frankly after the above marathon, I'm not in any galloping hurry to view them.



So I'm left with this puzzle. Many people obviously felt that she was talented and her circle of friends amongst the intelligentsia of her day was broad. She was recently voted the most memorable female film star in a German poll. Could somebody please tell me what I am missing.

Drag Me to Hell (2009)

I just may have mentioned previously that I am something of a horror-buff despite my catholic film preferences, so it is no surprise that we went to see this newly-released movie from very busy and very creative director-producer-writer Sam Raimi. It is being hailed as a return to his "Evil Dead" horror roots, although much of his subsequent film-making is hardly shabby, notably "A Simple Plan" and the first (and maybe the second) "Spider-Man". I shall add to the testimonials by concurring that the film is a lot of fun, especially if you have a strong stomach for some of the cartoony violence. The frights are not heavy on gore, but rather excessive on other bodily fluids; in many ways, it's a good old-fashioned scarefest. However despite taking pleasure from the OTT effects, it is hardly a "funny" movie, as I have seen it described.



Alison Lohman plays a loan-officer at a bank, angling for a promotion from her uptight boss David Paymer. Both she and her boyfriend, played by Justin Long, while both pushing 30, looked to my ancient eyes ever so young to be a career banker and if I heard correctly a university professor. (I understand Ellen Page was originally sought for the lead and if anything she would have come across as even younger). Lohman, in order to prove her "toughness" to Paymer and to forestall her rival for the promotion (why an oriental character should have a obviously Jewish name is beyond me), turns down an appeal from an elderly gypsy hag whose house is about to be repossessed; she in turn lays a three-day fatal curse on the poor thing. We therefore get to witness Lohman's increasingly hopeless attempts to forestall her fate and the intervening horrors as she consults an Indian seer (a weak turn I thought), indulges in animal sacrifice, and takes part in an exorcism ceremony. The end is nigh if she can not give away the tainted button that dooms her (a similar device to the classic "Night of the Demon").



It all builds to cheeky thrills and Raimi excels. I particularly liked one scene where she tries to keep it together to impress Long's initially hostile parents at a family dinner, until she loses it when she spots the gypsy's dead eye in her dessert! The ending is half what I expected and half what I did not think it would be; no spoilers here....just to say it was strong and not the cop-out that one has come to expect from inferior movies.

Up (2009)

When I went to see "Coraline" recently (see below), it was not being shown in its 3-D version, since the number of cinemas offering this facility are still relatively few in Britain, not that this detracted from my enjoyment of the film in any way. However, I did welcome the opportunity to attend a preview 3-D showing of the above Cannes opener, not only because it is a film that I would wish to view regardless (and although it has been released Stateside, it will not be released here until October), but also because I was curious to see how the 3-D phenomenon has matured from those few that I'd seen previously.



My immediate reaction, despite the trailer for another animation and a short film aired before the main film being as "in your face" as I recall, capitalising if you will on tricky shots to emphasise the 3-D illusion, "Up" played down the novelty value and used its effects mainly to include and involve the viewer in the procedings. Although I have now read sufficient reviews to realise that not every critic would place it amongst Pixar-Disney's best, I would be inclined to agree with those who have labelled it an instant classic. Mercifully free from a twee storyline and anthropomorphic critters, despite a very appealing big bird and a selection of talking dogs, the main protagonists are an elderly man, childless and now widowed, and a lonesome kid who pours his all into his Wilderness Scout quest for badges. How these two end up together flying into adventure in the man's house attached to an army of balloons is the charming and smile-laden story. It does not shirk from avoiding the pain of a loved one's death nor the cantankerousness of age, but it does find a middle ground for its two flawed protagonists. Like a number of animations it gets a little soggy during the middle section as they are pursued by a dastardly explorer, but there are sufficient little pleasures throughout to make its relatively short running time a delight. The fact that the 3-D becomes less and less important as the viewer warms to the main characters is a testatment to the film's potentially lasting charm.

The Mortal Storm (1940)

1933. A snowy small university town in the German Alps. It is the morning of Professor Roth's (Frank Morgan) 60th birthday. His loving family circle comprises his devoted wife who has two very Prussian grown sons from a previous union and two children of their own, a teenaged son and a beloved daughter, Margaret Sullavan. The professor is admired by his colleagues and adored by his students. That evening at their birthday celebration, the family is joined by two childhood friends, ever-the-good-guy James Stewart and usually-a-good-guy, but not here, Robert Young; they both love Sullavan, but the more extrovert Young has staked his claim first. Then the news comes over the radio: Adolf Hitler has just been named Chancellor, to the enthusiasm of the young men (apart from Stewart of course) who view this as a chance for Germany's rebirth. They do not think that the fact that the professor is a "non-Aryan" -- the word Jewish is studiously avoided -- will change anything and that exceptions will be made. In a pig's eye!!

At once everything begins to change: the young men are mobilised by the Youth Corps led by a very dislikeable Dan Dailey, undesirables are harassed and beaten, and the professor is drummed out of the university for his unacceptable scientific teachings and taken to a concentration camp. Stewart retreats to his mountain-top farm where he lives with his mother, the always remarkable Maria Ouspenskaya, and Sullavan breaks it off with the indoctrinated Young. This is a difficult film to watch as the once strong and happy family circle disintegrates; it was sufficient to result in all MGM productions being banned forthwith in Nazi-controlled territories. Although the movie is very much of its time it still delivers a powerful message against totalitarianism under the direction of its ever-underated director Frank Borzage and through its very able cast.
AWAY AGAIN -- more next week.

Coraline (2009)

Finding myself with an afternoon to kill in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, I went to the movies on my own, which is not something I do too often. The local multiplex has 12 separate screeens for one's delight, but I was not tempted by the likes of "Startrek", "Wolverine", or another "Night at the Museum" -- although all of these will be viewed in due course. For me, the above animated film was the obvious choice, not only because it has had excellent reviews and done good business Stateside, but also for its provenance. Based on a prize-winning novella by Neil Gaiman with a screenplay co-written by him and genius director Henry Selick, I knew I was in for a fantasy treat. Selick was also responsible for the memorable "Nightmare before Christmas" (NOT directed by Tim Burton, despite his name being in the title) and the wonderful "James and the Giant Peach". The film also boasts a fine voice cast, led my Dakota Fanning as the eponymous heroine, and a spooky score.



Coraline moves to an apartment in a creaky old house with her parents who are too involved with their own pursuits to give her much attention; their immediate neighbours are a mad old Russian and two aging ex-burlesque queens -- not great company for a young inquisitive girl. The only other child of her age in the neighbourhood is an initially creepy masked boy who tears about on his bike. Then she discovers a bricked-up, wallpapered-over hole in the wall of their flat which opens up into a parallel world, where her bedroom is a fairyland marvel and where her "other-mother" and "other-father" do their best to spoil her rotten. The only catch is that everyone in that world, bar a talkative cat, has buttons instead of eyes, and Coraline is asked to sew some big, black ones onto her own face if she wishes to stay.



The film which has a PG rating is quite probably unsuitable for susceptible youngsters; while I know that most kids can tolerate the occasional scary story and macabre characters, I can see this film giving some children the old heebie-jeebies, especially as the "other-mother" eventually reveals her true, insectoid real self in her determination to trap Coraline, as she has other ghost-children before her. Against this however are some wonderful fantasy scenes, foremost of which was a theatrical performance by the two rejuvenated ex-ecdysiasts for an audience of appreciative scottie-dogs. That did make me smile! Needless to add, I loved the film as, I think, would most adult audiences; it's the kiddies for whom it was made and certificated that I worry about.

The Projectionist (1971)

It's ages since I watched this movie for the first time and I had forgotten what a treat it is for the movie buff. Like the French flick "One Hundred Years for Mr. Cinema" which has also never been available here, it's one of those movies filled with classic clips and one can happily play "spot the reference". This small independent film stars one Chuck McCann (no, I never heard of him either) playing the projectionist at a New York moviehouse that has obviously seen better days. He wiles away the lonely hours losing himself in the projected films, dreaming conversations with his movie heroes, and imagining a world where he plays superhero Captain Flash, slaying his enemies, and winning the fair damsel.



The theatre manager is a brash Rodney Dangerfield in his first film role, trying to pretend that he is running a first-class house, and browbeating the projectionist and the other downtrodden staff. These scenes of reality are in garish colour, while the fantasy sequences are in black and white. Dangerfield morphs into Captain Flash's nemesis, the Bat, until he is finally vanquished by our daydreaming hero. There is incredibly clever use of clips from far better-known films slipped seamlessly into McCann's imagination, which are used to flesh out his quest and to create make-believe scenarios and a hilarious 'end-of-the-world' trailer. Considering how much fun this film is, I was somewhat surprised to see its relatively low IMDb rating of 5.6 out of 10. Granted the film is uneven and the Flash scenario a little clunky at times, but it is hard to dislike such a sweet film and to my mind it is the perfect cult movie. Then again, not everyone is quite so demented about movies as I am.



I was hoping for some end credits to see if the various clips were acknowledged, but there were none, although IMDb do have a page listing the various film references, both in action sequences and clips. One wonders how such an obviously low-budget effort managed to obtain clearance for so many studio clips and it would not surprise me to learn that this was guerilla film-making without the necessary clearances. Had the movie been more successful, I suspect someone would have jumped upon it with jackboots and this oddity might have been lost to us. And that would be a pity...

I shall be away for the rest of the week, so no new posts for the next few days.

The Night Listener (2006)

I definitely have mixed feelings about Robin Williams. I quite liked a few of his earliest films, like "Moscow on the Hudson" (1984), but then found it increasingly difficult to appreciate his mile-a-minute motormouth performances. These were then followed by the saccharine excesses of movies like "Patch Adams" (1998) and "Jakob the Liar" (1999) which were nearly unwatchable. Granted he has now cleaned up his act and gone for darker material, but there is still the occasional frenetic style that alienates me. Even when he is being still, there is little quiet or understated about his technique.



So why you may ask did I not only watch the above film but also choose to write about it? Well, being the good little film buff that I am, I watch nearly anything going that I have not seen previously; this is my admitted mission statement. And I must confess that this movie kept me watching as I tried to work out where it was going and how it would end. Based on a novel by Armistead Maupin, who also had a hand in the screenplay, it is supposedly based on actual events that happened to him, although I have no idea if that is fact or fiction. Williams plays a radio storyteller called Gabriel Noone, whose show 'Noone at Night' has a dedicated, syndicated audience. The plot opens with his having problems concentrating on his work, as his long-term partner, Jess, has just left him. We only gradually realise that Jess is male and that the character is a flag-waver for gay rights -- much like the author.



An associate gives him the unpublished manuscript of a 14-year old boy from Wisconsin who suffered years of abuse by paedophiles egged on by his own parents and who is in the final stages of AIDS, a disease from which Jess is now apparently recovering. He has been adopted by a carer, played by Toni Collette, and the two begin a long-distance telephone relationship with Williams, since the boy is a big fan of the spooky tales that he tells on air. Williams becomes more and more involved in the boy's life and health-care problems, until Jess points out that the voices of the boy and his carer are uncannily similar. Williams is determined to investigate the truth, but an invitation to spend Christmas with them is withdrawn and he becomes increasingly worried when their telephone number becomes unobtainable.



So he picks himself up and flies out to Wisconsin and the small town in the boondocks where they are living, only to find that the address he has for them is an accommodation address. However he follows up various clues and finally locates Collette, who it turns out is blind; however there is no sign of the lad, despite the fact that all of the locals know about him, although no one admits to actually having met him. His relationship with Collette becomes more and more fraught as she puts various obstacles in his way and finally says that the boy has just died. He returns to New York uncertain as to whether the boy ever existed, but the possibility is left open until the very end of the movie with its unexpected shock twist. The film does not go for the easy answers that a viewer might anticipate and continually underplays the tale. Williams is unusually restrained in the part, despite his growing confusion, but the acting kudos probably should go to Collette.

Disappointments

I'll tell you! You wait for years to view a movie and then find that it is so much worse than you hoped. This is the case for the famous Italian film "Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow" (1963), directed by De Sica, and pairing Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni in three separate stories. For years it was only available to view dubbed, but I held off for a subtitled version now available. The film won the Oscar for best foreign film, beating the far superior Japanese movie "Woman in the Dunes", so I was hoping for a great experience, especially with all those credentials. It was frankly just a wee bit short of embarrassing in part. The first tale concerns Loren having to get pregnant annually to avoid being sent to jail for illegal cigarette trafficing, and her disgust when Mastroianni can no longer perform after seven kids. The second and shortest casts her as a rich and indulged wife who starts an affair with him until he manages to crash her Rolls Royce. The last has her as a high-class prostitute flirting with the student priest in the next apartment while Mastroianni plays a long-standing client, a harrassed businessman who just wants to have sex; this segment contains the "famous" (and quite innocent) striptease which some people recall fondly and which was replayed as a joke in "Pret a Porter".

Both players could be fine dramatic and comic actors in their day, especially Mastroianni, but there is little left here to show them to best advantage. There is a lot of screaming dialogue and sadly little to make the viewer even smile -- unless of course a semi-clothed Loren rings your bell.

My next disappointment was a preview showing of "Synecdoche, New York" (2008) which has not yet been released here, but about which I have been reading raves. It's the first film to be both written and directed by Charlie Kaufman, who was responsible for scripting a series of brilliant movies starting with "Being John Malkovich". This film like his earlier ones is crowded with quirky ideas and characters, but I felt that he did not have the directing skills to bring it all together.

Philip Semour Hoffman plays a minor theatre director, a latent hypochondriac overly aware of his own mortality, who has been awarded a generous Arts Grant and who wants to create something important. He therefore manufactures a growing collection of mini-worlds in large warehouses to re-create different aspects of his life and the lives of others, played by an endless stream of actors including Tom Noonan playing him; after some 19 years, an audience has yet to view the performances! The meaning of the title is the philosophic concept that the whole can equal a part or vice versa; get your head around that.

Various critics have remarked that this is a film that needs to be viewed more than once and I am inclined to agree with that assessment. There is too much going on to take it all in at the first viewing which is what created my own disappointment with this movie; I think a second view would make it a far more worthwhile experience, especially considering the splendid female cast which includes Catherine Keener, Samantha Morton, Hope Davis, Emily Watson, Diane Wiest, and Jennifer Jason Leigh (who appears to have grown an enormous bosom!). So maybe this will not be quite a disappointment in the long run.

The Green Butchers (2003)

The director of this extremely black comedy Anders Thomas Jensen won an Oscar five years earlier for the best live action short, "Election Night", a telling signpost to the talent he shows here and proving that not all Danish cinema is Lars von Trier Dogma. Two apprentice butchers are ridiculed by their boss at the successful sausage shop where they work and are determined to open their own store, which looks doomed to failure. When an electrician gets accidentally locked in the cold store overnight, the more neurotic of the two panics and cuts up his thigh for "chickie-wickie" cutlets when asked by his mocking ex-boss to provide the meat for a large dinner party that evening. These are thought to be so delicious that word spreads and people queue up to buy more, creating the problem of fresh supplies to ensure the new shop's success.



There is a long history of playful and genteel cannibalism in film from Sweeney Todd through "Delicatessen" and this movie is up there with the best. The first lead of "sweaty Svend" is taken by Mads Mikkelsen, LeChiffre from "Casino Royale", sporting an unbelievably weird hairdo of a semi-shaved skull crowned by a great bouffant sweep of hair, making him look like a demented Christopher Walken. His partner, the pot-smoking skinhead Nikolaj Lie Kaas is even stranger. In order to raise his share of the money needed to open the shop, he borrows against the legacy due to his brain-damaged animal-loving twin brother who has been in a coma for the past seven years; he authorises the hospital to "unplug" him to hasten his death, which has the reverse effect of waking him up. Kaas brilliantly plays both parts as Bjarne tries to avoid the loony Eigel, while also trying to play down Mikkelsen's burgeoning killing spree. The movie is full of unexpected turns and one can't help warming to these damaged protagonists through the many twists of the plot. Very warmly recommended, especially to those with a taste for the macabre.



The same evening I also watched another 'colour' film, the Japanese "Black Kiss" (2004), which probably deserves its own review, if only for its spectacular deaths, but only time will tell if I get back to it.

Sleuth (2007) (and 1972)

This film received invariably rotten reviews as people compared it unfavourably with the fondly-remembered earlier version of Anthony Shaffer's stageplay, the last movie to be directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, which paired Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine. I was therefore in no rush whatsoever to see this remake produced by Jude Law with his taking the Caine role (is he out to take on all of Caine's early roles?) and Sir Michael taking the Olivier part. Rewritten by Harold Pinter with the unnecessary addition of a slew of F-words, directed in an artsy-fartsy style by Kenneth Branagh, and amazingly for a re-make running some 40 minutes shorter than the original, I expected the worse, especially since I have previously reckoned that pretty-boy Law has as much depth as a dried-up stream. However, I must admit that within its "re-imagining", both actors were fine and the film worked more or less. What buffs like myself forget is that the modern viewer has probably never seen the original and that a remake can justifiably emerge as an entertainment in its own right.

However, comparing the two versions, one does miss the earlier elaborate country house setting with its toys, mechanical dolls, and clown costumes, marking Olivier as a man who likes to play games; the ultra-modern new set does not allow the same possibilities. The two films tell the same basic tale for the first two-thirds, but differ wildly in their third act; the newer version suggests some sort of unwelcome homosexual attraction between Caine and the sly, sex-exuding Law, whereas the original presented the viewer with a third deadly game in which the young Caine reduced Olivier to a quivering wreck before the final denouement. On balance I am in no doubt which version I prefer, even if I do find Olivier as something of an over-ripe ham in his later roles, but to give credit where it is due, the newer movie is far from a complete failure.

Baby Doll (1956)

Considering that this film is now over fifty years old, it is amazing that the three very able lead actors are still with us (or "available" to quote from "Swimming with Sharks): Karl Malden, Carroll Baker, and Eli Wallach. Director Elia Kazan did this movie version of the Tennessee Williams Broadway play and it created shockwaves on its release. The Catholic Legion of Decency banned it and it was generally thought to be the "dirtiest" mainstream movie to date, although there is no explicit sex or nudity. While it may seem very mild to our modern sensibilities, there is no escaping the heat generated by the action.



Baker is married in name only to redneck yob Malden, having agreed to marry him aged 18 just before her dear Daddy died, and having made clear that she would not be ready for "marriage" before her 20th birthday which is imminent. To subjugate his sexual desires, Malden plays Peeping Tom as she sleeps in the decrepit mansion's old nursery on a child's cot, with the sides let down, in her shorty pajamas (thereafter commonly known as 'baby dolls'). She is indeed uneducated and childish and threatens to break their agreement after their hire-purchase suites of furniture are carted away for non-payment. It seems that Malden's cotton gin business has gone into reverse, after the syndicate opened their own, run by crafty Sicilian Wallach. The obvious answer to Malden's not-too-bright mind is to burn it down, a stupid short-term solution which leads to the following day's events.



Wallach brings his trucks of raw cotton to Malden's run-down gin for processing, but with revenge in mind uses the languid afternoon to seduce Baker and to get her to sign an affadavit agreeing her husband's arson. We never really know just how far his seduction goes, since we only see him coming on to her through suggestion and childish gameplay, including his taking a nap in her crib. Meanwhile Malden returns after having been sent on a wild goose chase for a new saw, to find Wallach in his crumbling mansion and suspects the worse. The fourth character in this domestic tragedy is Baker's somewhat gaga aunt, played by that wonderful character actress Mildred Dunnock, who is meant to be the couple's housekeeper, but whose greatest pleasure in life is visiting patients at the local hospital to munch as many chocolates as possible. At a hopeless supper that evening, Malden in a fit of pique demands that she leave, and Wallach offers to take her on as a cook. However by the end scene when the police arrive after Malden has gone on a rampage with his shotgun and Wallach has gone home alone, not only Baker and Dunnock but we the viewer can only guess what tomorrow will bring.



While one can not really warm to any of these flawed characters, the standard of acting throughout is something marvelous to behold; both Baker and Dunnock received Oscar nominations (and Malden and definitely Wallach should have) as did the brilliant black and white cinematography, shot on location in a small Southern community where local non-professionals (both black and white -- no pun intended) add to the feeling of a real time-warp community.

Mirage (1965)

It must be a good twenty-odd years since I last saw this film from versatile director Edward Dmytryk and I must confess that I barely remembered it, although there are many components in its favour. It stars Gregory Peck in a sub-Hitchcockian thriller in a role that has much in common with his confused character in "Spellbound". Coinciding with a blackout and a man falling from the upper floor of his building, Peck seems to have suffered total amnesia and is unable to make any sense of who he is (although he knows his name and where he lives), his background, or what exactly he has done before the past two years; he seems to believe that he has been working as a "cost accountant" (whatever that is) at an office that doesn't seem to exist amongst co-workers that he can't find. His grasp on reality is not helped by the fact that gunsels Jack Weston and George Kennedy (both in early roles) are after him. This permits Peck to play something of an action hero as he evades them, which somehow feels a little forced.



I can never quite make up my mind about Peck. His good looks and competence assured him leading roles from the start, but there is something of the Redwood about him, not so much wooden as majestic and stiff. In contrast this film provides a wonderful part for Walter Matthau, slightly before his breakout roles, as a wisecracking private detective whom Peck hires to help him work out the truth. SPOILER here: Matthau is killed halfway through the movie and his death takes some of the spark from the proceedings. Apparently he told Dmytryk that this was a mistake and the director assured him that he had a great future as a character actor; Matthau replied in no uncertain terms that he had every intention of being a leading actor. (And so it was, with his non-handsome hangdog looks gracing every subsequent role).



Moving in an out of the action is Diane Baker, as a woman who obviously has some sort of past with Peck and who is concerned for his future, but who does not help the viewer make too much sense of the story -- more window-dressing than pivotal. This perhaps is where the movie falls down before its hurriedly explained denouement; it starts as a wild goose chase and ends up as something of an anti-climax, but there are sufficient highpoints along the way. Filmed on location in New York, the hostile City becomes another character along with supporting players Kevin McCarthy, Walter Abel, and Leif Erickson.