Ape Man

We watched Monkey Man (2024) mainly for Dev Patel (in front of and behind the camera). But also because it looked like a John-Wick-era action classic.

Patel is a desperately poor man, living in an unspecified (?) Indian (?) city, sleeping on the floor with a dozen or so others. He orchestrates the theft of a rich woman's wallet, in a lovingly choreographed scene. The woman runs a high-class nightclub, and when he returns it, he asks only for a job as reward. His resume is his scarred hands, scars he claims to have gotten from working the dangerous jos no one else will take. He gets a chance.

At night, he fights in an underground MMA ring, wearing a gorilla mask (so he's really an ape man?). Here, he throws fights for cash, taking terrible beatings as a result. 

We slowly learn his story: He was raised in a peaceful village and taught by his mother the story of Hanuman, the monkey god. Then the corrupt system came and burned the village, killing his mother and scarring his hands.

His plan, then, is to infiltrate the nightclub to get close to the people who did this to him. He buys a gun from a dealer who asks: "You like John Wick?" Yeah, I'm thinking he likes John Wick.

It's a good plan, with some nice twists, but it fails. He makes it out and hides in a temple. The temple has roots in his old village - a temple of intersex and transsexual worshippers. They nurse him to health, then start him training. Table master Zakir Hussain teaches him to fight to an internal rhythm. These scenes might not be strictly necessary, but we love Ustad Zakir.

The final fight puts him up against the corrupt policeman who burned his town and the political swami who was behind it all.

So there it is, a movie about corruption, Hindu nationalism, trans rights, inequality and revenge. All in the height of modern action style. Some have said they think Patel bit off more than he could chew as first time director. I think he's done a great job, and I hope he continues. 

Tiny Jaws

I've wanted to see Piranha (1978) for a while now. It was Joe Dante's second movie for Roger Corman, with a John Sayles script. This is enticement enough, but I particularly want to see some of the sequels.

It starts with two teens hiking in the woods after dark. They hop a fence with a prominent No Trespassing sign around an old research facility. They decide to go skinnydipping in a pool, and ... the water turns red.

Later, on that same mountain, we find Keenan Wynne delivering groceries (booze) to surly backwoods drunk Bradford Dillman. Then we meet our other protagonist, Heather Menzies, a skiptracer who is assigned the task of finding those missing teens. When she gets to the mountain, she starts bossing Dillman around to get him to help her find the kids. 

They go up to the research facility and start looking around. There are jars full of all kinds of specimens. There is also a little Harryhausen-esque monster running around, but nobody really sees it. Turns out they had plans for it but no budget. Still a cute little bonus. 

They want to see if the kids wound up in the pool, so they find a lever and start draining it. But mad doctor Kevin McCarthy comes yelling at them. Then he steals their car, and drives it into a tree. 

Next morning, back at Dillman's place, McCarthy wakes up and tells them that the pool was filled with mutant piranhas, which were emptied into the river when they drained it. Oh no! What about the kid's summer camp below the dam?

Since they have no working car, they get on a raft and start floating down to alert the authorities. How many swimmers or boaters will get chomped before they get there? And will the mysterious government agents lead by Barbara Steele help or let everyone die?

First of all, this was campy fun. Menzies seems to be competent and pushy, but also sort of ditzy. Dillman seems like a depressed loser, so of course him and Menzies get together. We get a lot of Dante/Corman regulars, like Dick Miller as a resort developer (who doesn't want to close the beach on July 4? Not really, but...) and Paul Bartel as the head of the summer camp, who wants to make sure the little girl who's afraid of the water gets in and swims doggone it. 

But it's also pretty gory, with teens and children being chewed on left and right. No one seems to consider getting out of the water when the bitey things attack. What a concept!

Anyway, the sequel was supposed to be written and directed by James Cameron (who loves those wet movies), but it seems that the exec producer fired him and did a ton of reshoots/re-edits. Took out most of the camp and humor. I guess we'll watch that, if only to get to the latest sequel, Piranha 3DD. 

In conclusion, there is about one second's worth of piranha or piranha model in this movie. Mostly just paper cutout silhouettes. 

Sodium for Godzilla

I figured we should check out Shin Godzilla (2016) since we enjoyed Minus One so much. It was completely different in every way, except that it was a novel re-imagining of the concept. Also, very fun.

It starts with news reports of an abandoned yacht in Tokyo Bay, then a leak in a subway tunnel. There's an investigation, but it doesn't get very far until the monster starts showing up, in the bay and soon, the city. The monster looks very weird, not Godzilla-like at all. 

The governments response team is led by the unconventional but handsome Hiroki Hasegawa. America sends Japanese-American Satomi Ishihara as liaison (note: the actress doesn't do that well with the English dialog - just roll with it, she's great otherwise). She tells them about surpressed research on radioactive mutations, including the code name they gave a hypothetical monster: Godzilla. She lets them know that the monster would mutate further - and it does, looking more like her classic Godzilla self each time they encounter it. 

The fun part is that most of the movie is a bureaucratic procedural, showing how Japan's institutions would deal with a threat like this. There is a lot of responsibility shifting in the first part. There are solutions offered up by the lower levels, which are brought up to higher and higher levels, until the Prime Minister has to decide. Halfway through, he is killed (by Godzila's atomic breath), and replaced by the sleepy, unambitious Farm Minister. This man, though completely out of his league, makes the right decision at a crucial time.

You see, Ishihara-san has assembled a misfit ragtag team of outsiders and nerds, who plan to use blood coagulants in industrial amounts to freeze Godzilla. Now, he literally gives a speech about how they are all ragtag misfit outsiders who need to think outside the box. Heck, his character's name is "Rando". And the solution they come up with is coagulants? Clearly, this is a comedy, a spoof on bureaucracy and disaster movies. At home, we just kept saying "sodium" (ref. MST3K #817, Horror of Party Beach). 

So, like Godzilla Minus Zero is largely a post-war neo-realist film, this is a movie about how the rigid Japanese system deals with disasters and novel situations. And, of course, atomic monsters. 

Dune It Two

Well, we finally watched Dune: Part Two (2024). I say finally, because we have been getting it from the library for weeks, but never watching it, due to its length and our busy schedule. Also, we tried it once, and I fell asleep about an hour in. Ms. Spenser was not having that. So it took a while to clear some time early on an evening.

It starts right after Part One ended. Paul, Chani, Ladt Jessica and the crew are headed for a sietch. They are carrying the body of the Fremen that Paul had killed in a duel. A band of Harkonnen attack, using antigrav, but the Fremen fight them off. Chani thinks Paul was distracted, and she is right - he is having prophetic visions due to the spice he is ingesting. 

In the sietch, the Fremen want Lady Jessica to take the poisonous Water of Life and replace their aged Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother. After she takes the drink, they realize that she is pregnant - meaning that the child, Paul's sister, will be affected. I wonder how a Reverend Mother could have missed this. 

This middle section mainly deals with Paul joining the Fremen in fighting the Harkonnen, disrupting the spice harvest and falling in love with Chani. Of course, Chani still doubts that Paul is the Mahdi, considering it to be Bene Gesserit propaganda. Paul gets his names Usul and Maud'Dib in there, and meets up with old Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin), who has been doing some guerilla spice harvesting on his own.

They are doing so well that Baron Harkonnen demotes Beast Raban, and replaces him with Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler), who is even sicker and nastier. So Paul's group retreats to the deep South. There, Paul is convinced to drink the Water of Life, and see his fate, and the fate of the universe. 

It goes without saying that we loved this movie. It was beautifully made, with some great acting. That said, we also were a little ... not disappointed, but maybe amused by it. The battle tactics never quite made sense. They never discussed the uses and limits of shield technologies, so you see soldiers switch from lasers to swords for no special reasons. Slow-knife fights could be so cool on film, but not here. 

The romance between Paul and Chani never really took off for us, either. She was always too skeptical of him, so when he betrayed her in the end, it didn't quite work. 

The worm-riding scenes were pretty cool, but again, seemed to lack some logic. Ms. Spenser complained, "The segments open the wrong way!" Also, seeing the worms scooting around in the background emphasized their speed, but made them seem a little cartoonish - zoom!

Oh well, this is a hard story to adapt, particularly because the noble hero knows that he is destined to kill billions, and that's his best chance. Villeneuve and Chalamet do a pretty good job of showing how Paul sort of goes dead inside when he accepts this. Of course, this facet of the tale really develops in the next movie. I guess we'll have to wait a while. 

Just Came Dragon Inn

I finally found Dragon Inn (1967), recently released on Criterion. I'd seen the remakes/reimaginings already, Dragon Inn (1992) and Flying Swords of Dragon Gate (2011), but hadn't seen the original, King Hu version.

As usual, the Imperial eunuchs are causing trouble. Cao Shiao-qin is trying to kill off the family of a rival general, who have fled to the west. His intelligence agencies set up an ambush at the Dragon Inn, a low-down spot near the border. They meet up with martial artist Shih Chun, who wants to meet innkeeper Tsao Chien for some unknown purpose. Another pair of fighters show up, one of whom is referred to a handsome young man, although she's clearly a woman... And it turns out that the innkeeper is quite a martial artist, too. These four will protect the general's family against the secret police, and eventually, the eunuch himself.

There are some nice little set pieces, like when someone tries to stab Shih Chun when he's drinking. He grabs the point of the sword between his thumb and finger, with the winecup balancing on the flat of the blade. The assassin can't move it in any direction, and is thrown back into the wall when he flicks the sword away.

But, and I may be jaded by more modern styles, the fighting is good but pretty old fashioned. There's no wirework (I think), but a lot stunt tricks. Also, the Tartars aren't as cool as in Flying Swords. 

Still, it was great to see one of the old school wuxia movies. Hu made this in Taiwan, after making Come Drink with Me for the Shaw Brothers in Hong Kong. I think I liked Drink, better, but I'd watch more of these if I find them. 

Killer Content

This entry is about one of my favorite movies: Once More, My Darling (1949). Ms. Spenser and I taped it off of AMC, back in the eighties or nineties or whenever we recorded VHS tapes of cable channels, and AMC was a movie channel.

We watched it together many times over the years. I found myself daydreaming about the movie on lunch breaks or when out walking. I had things to say about Ann Blyth - so I started a blog as was the fashion of the time. But I don't think I've really said much about Ann Blyth on it.

Then let's talk about Robert Montgomery. who directed this, as well as starring. He plays Collier Laing, a very minor actor from a rich family of lawyers. He is perfect in every way and extremely handsome (Maybe he wrote this too). His mother, Jame Cowl, wants him to give up acting (and running around with women), take up law and settle down. But before he has to make up his mind, he gets a telegram from the government. He's been drafted - re-activated.

You're going to have to take this next part on faith. It's the plot of the movie. You see, a notorious jewel thief has disappeared, but left a necklace with his girl. To flush out the thief, they want to make him jealous, which means Montgomery has been drafted to seduce the girl.

And the girl is Ann Blyth.

When he first meets her, he doesn't recognize her as his assignment. She is dressed in tennis shorts, a tee shirt that says "KILLER", big sun glasses and a ball cap. She tells him right away that he is a very attractive man. He basically tells her, go away kid. But once he realizes it's her, he starts the seduction - except that she has already fallen for him, and wants him all to herself.

Before their first date, she wants to meet his mother, who's hosting a party for a few legal sorts. She shows up in her pajamas (she snuck out of bed), doused in perfume. The maid, Lillian Randolph, says she could wear those pajamas to the races, and inhales the perfume deeply (while everyone else is gagging on it). See, it's always the black actors in the tiny roles who know what's what. 

Her scene at the party is brilliant. She is socially correct, doesn't want to intrude, remembers all the guests names, and speaks quite freely about love at first sight, "youth calling to youth", and her attraction to Cowl's son.

But by the next day, it seems like she wants to get married. Immediately, in Las Vegas.

Blyth is wonderful here. Of course, she's beautiful, a sort of elfin beauty, with a high forehead, almond eyes and a tiny nose and chin. But the way she plays Killer! As she tells Montgomery, she's nineteen years old, American, her friends tell her she isn't bad looking, and as for money, she's rolling in it. She's nearly perfect and she is going to get him if it's the last thing she does.

Montgomery is good too, but he's 45 and looks it, or worse. Blyth is 24 and having no trouble playing 19. The idea that teenagers would go nuts over him might have worked for Cary Grant, but for him ... well, just suspend disbelief. Anyway, he's directing so of course.

In conclusion, Blyth is playing a very particular type of teenaged girl, a very serious, intelligent girl who thinks she's sophisticated and adult, who's just as ditzy as any bobbysoxer in her own way. We don't see it that often. 

Bone Voyage

For the first horror movie of spook season, we picked The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023). It's based on the voyage that Dracula took to England. SPOILER - Everyone on the ship dies. 

It starts with a set of coffins boxes being loaded on the Demeter in some Eastern port. The quartermaster Wojcek (Daniel Dastmalchian) hires a band of laborers for the voyage. An educated black man, Corey Hawkins, tries to get a place, but they pick a stronger looking man. However, when he sees the dragon labels on the boxes, he bails, and Hawkins gets to go onboard.

One of the boxes broke open in moving, and after they are underweigh, Hawkins goes to investigate. He finds a comatose girl, Aisling Franciosi, in a pile of dirt. He starts giving her transfusions to see if he can save her. Most of the crew is against the idea of a woman on board, but the captain won't put her off, if Hawkins takes repsonsibility.

He soon has her awake, and she tells them that there is a horrible monster aboard, and they all need to get out!

Soon, all hell breaks loose. The animals are all killed, then the ship's dog, then the captain's cute little son. Good riddance. Through all of this, Hawkins tries to find a scientific explanation. And if you think Franciosi can give them some advice in killing the monster, she says if they knew how to kill the monster, they would have killed it centuries ago. 

This is the part people call "Alien on a boat". We know there were no survivors - no live survivors, ecept the rats. So we watch people getting picked off one by one. Sadly, this is hard to watch, because they all die so dumb. For instance, they figure out that he needs to be in his coffin by day. Then they ignore that, even after seeing several of the bitten go up in flames in the sun. 

So, in spite of a good idea and best intentions, this wasn't thatgood. Partly the lack of tension - everyone dies - except the undead. Then, the stupidness. Maybe the monster could have been more effective, but it wasn't bad, and you got to see a lot of. We liked Hawkins, Franciosi, and Dastmalchian. I guess it's worth watching, in Spooktober, anyway.