Since Ms. Spenser enjoys horror more than I do, I’m always looking for some good spooky thrills. Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010) didn’t qualify. But it sure is fun.
A gang of college kids are going camping in West Virginia - stop me if you’ve heard this before. We were reminded of the band in MST3K’s Pod People. A pickup truck passes them, and the hillbillies driving give them long, intense stares. Later we find out that these hillbillies are Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine). The stare was because Dale was taken with all the beautiful young women. At a rest stop, he tries to talk with them - but because he’s carrying a scythe and is kind of bashful and awkward, they think he is creepy.
So while they are setting up camp and telling horror stories about hillbillies murdering college kids, Tucker and Dale arrive at Tucker’s “fixer-upper” summer place, a rundown shack. It’s dusty, broken down, and there are ominous newspaper clippings on the wall. Dale can’t believe the grandeur. Then the kids go fishing and the hillbillies go fishing. One of the girls, Katrina Bowden, falls off a rock and hits her head, so Tucker and Dale take her back to the shack. Dale is pretty much smitten and tries to make her comfortable while she is unconscious.
The kids decide that Tucker and Dale have kidnapped Bowden, and start sneaking up. Meanwhile, Tucker accidentally chainsaws into a bee’s nest, and starts running away, waving his chainsaw. One of the kids thinks he’s being chased and runs away - straight into a tree branch impaling himself.
So it goes: one kid sees Tucker working a wood chipper and tries to push him in, but falls in himself. The sheriff arrives and accidentally shoots himself in the head. One by one, they are all dying.
When Bowden wakes up, she’s scared, but Dale’s sweet nature grows on her. In fact, she’s studying communications and when the kids still left alive come to rescue her, she sits them down to talk about their feelings. Then things get real.
There are two great things about this movie. The first is in the premise: Due to prejudice and coincidence, some college kids think two sweet hillbillies are psycho killers - and they wind up killing themselves. It may seem tough to spin this out into a whole movie, but they make it seem effortless, inevitable. But the real great thing is Tucker and Dale. Tucker is the irascible friend, always teasing and acting superior, but he always tells Dale how great he his and how much he has to offer. Dale is just a big shy dummy, full of heart, and (plot point) never forgets a trivial fact.
I guess I can’t really say that the college kids, even Bowden, are quite so well drawn. But I’d rather see stereotyped yuppies than hillbillies.
So, come for the shocks and laughs, stay for the heart. Now, can anyone suggest a really scary movie for Ms. S?
Wednesday, August 29, 2018
Monday, August 27, 2018
Shocker
We queued up Shock (1946) because it stars Lynn Bari, but more importantly, Vincent Price. We didn’t really know anything else about it, and that was enough.
It starts with Anabel Shaw checking into a San Francisco hotel. Her husband, who she thought was lost in the war is coming home, and she has arranged to meet him here. Nervously, she waits, and waits, falls asleep and has nightmares, wakes up and walks to the window. Across the way, she sees Vincent Price arguing with a woman, and kill her.
When her husband, Frank Latimore, shows up the next morning, he finds her staring out the window, unresponsive, in shock. The hotel doc recommends the best brain doctor in town, who is staying right at this very hotel: Vincent Price. And he knows what she saw.
Price and his nurse, Lynn Bari, take her to his private sanitarium, and try to brainwash her into forgetting. When that doesn’t work, they decide to take stronger steps: insulin shock treatment, ending with a fatal overdose.
This may not be the greatest B-movie, but it has a great concept. Everyone thinks Shaw was driven mad by the loss and re-appearance of her husband. When she accuses Price of killing his wife, that just confirms it. The tension in the insulin scene is incredible - sending someone into insulin shock over and over is very scary torture, even when it isn’t being done to hide a murder.
Our leap of faith was justified, and even if it hadn’t been, it’s only 70 minutes long.
It starts with Anabel Shaw checking into a San Francisco hotel. Her husband, who she thought was lost in the war is coming home, and she has arranged to meet him here. Nervously, she waits, and waits, falls asleep and has nightmares, wakes up and walks to the window. Across the way, she sees Vincent Price arguing with a woman, and kill her.
When her husband, Frank Latimore, shows up the next morning, he finds her staring out the window, unresponsive, in shock. The hotel doc recommends the best brain doctor in town, who is staying right at this very hotel: Vincent Price. And he knows what she saw.
Price and his nurse, Lynn Bari, take her to his private sanitarium, and try to brainwash her into forgetting. When that doesn’t work, they decide to take stronger steps: insulin shock treatment, ending with a fatal overdose.
This may not be the greatest B-movie, but it has a great concept. Everyone thinks Shaw was driven mad by the loss and re-appearance of her husband. When she accuses Price of killing his wife, that just confirms it. The tension in the insulin scene is incredible - sending someone into insulin shock over and over is very scary torture, even when it isn’t being done to hide a murder.
Our leap of faith was justified, and even if it hadn’t been, it’s only 70 minutes long.
Thursday, August 23, 2018
Left Hand Red
Twister (1996) seems to have a reputation as kind of a guilty pleasure. Now that we’ve seen it, it’s one of ours too.
It’s about Bill Paxton (“Game over, man!”) taking his new fiancée Jami Gertz out to the middle of nowhere, Oklahoma, to get his soon-to-be-ex-wife Helen Hunt to finally sign the divorce papers. Hunt is out in OK with her band of merry storm chasers, that Paxton left to become a TV weatherman and marry a sex therapist (not as sexy as it sounds).
The merry band all assume Paxton has come back to join him - a fun band of scruffy hobby scientists and grad students, including Philip Seymour Hoffman in a sort of Jack Blackish role. They also run into Cary Elwes as the corporate sellout (vaguely Eurotrash?) storm chaser with the big budget and poor attitude. As you might have guessed, Hunt convinces Paxton to join in on one more storm hunt.
There are small tornadoes, big tornadoes, twin tornadoes. There are wrecked trucks, bridges, and one drive-in movie screen destroyed in the middle of The Shining (Steven Spielberg produced). Of course, Gertz gets fed up with Paxton’s storm chasing addiction, making this a “comedy of remarriage”. It’s handled fairly well: Gertz is always on the phone with a client, even in the middle of a storm, and she does get pretty hysterical after a house almost collapses on her, so clearly she’s not right for him. But she leaves on her own terms, tells Paxton they are through and says, “I know my way home.”
Although I kind of liked it as a rom-com, it was really a special-effects extravaganza. Director Jan de Bont pulled out all the stops, to the point of severely injuring Helen Hunt more than once. Not sure it was worth it, but it’s a lot of fun.
It looks like Michael Chrichton worked on the script, which may account for the total lack of scientific coherence.
It’s about Bill Paxton (“Game over, man!”) taking his new fiancée Jami Gertz out to the middle of nowhere, Oklahoma, to get his soon-to-be-ex-wife Helen Hunt to finally sign the divorce papers. Hunt is out in OK with her band of merry storm chasers, that Paxton left to become a TV weatherman and marry a sex therapist (not as sexy as it sounds).
The merry band all assume Paxton has come back to join him - a fun band of scruffy hobby scientists and grad students, including Philip Seymour Hoffman in a sort of Jack Blackish role. They also run into Cary Elwes as the corporate sellout (vaguely Eurotrash?) storm chaser with the big budget and poor attitude. As you might have guessed, Hunt convinces Paxton to join in on one more storm hunt.
There are small tornadoes, big tornadoes, twin tornadoes. There are wrecked trucks, bridges, and one drive-in movie screen destroyed in the middle of The Shining (Steven Spielberg produced). Of course, Gertz gets fed up with Paxton’s storm chasing addiction, making this a “comedy of remarriage”. It’s handled fairly well: Gertz is always on the phone with a client, even in the middle of a storm, and she does get pretty hysterical after a house almost collapses on her, so clearly she’s not right for him. But she leaves on her own terms, tells Paxton they are through and says, “I know my way home.”
Although I kind of liked it as a rom-com, it was really a special-effects extravaganza. Director Jan de Bont pulled out all the stops, to the point of severely injuring Helen Hunt more than once. Not sure it was worth it, but it’s a lot of fun.
It looks like Michael Chrichton worked on the script, which may account for the total lack of scientific coherence.
Monday, August 20, 2018
Second to Last
Now that we've seen Star Wars: Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), we're up to date on released Star Wars movies. We no longer fear spoilers.
Out of all the Star Wars movies, this is one. It has enormous scope, juggling several plots - or one plot and several subplots. Basically, the remaining Resistance are fleeing from the First Order, when Dameron Poe, Oscar Isaac, decides to lead a bombing attack on their dreadnought. This starts with a cute scene where he calls General Domhnall Gleeson then pretends he can't hear him. He keeps saying, "Should I hold? I'll hold", while Gleeson gets madder and madder. Of course, it's a stall, to get the bombers in range. Sadly, although they damage the dreadnought, they lose most of their ships. Now all they can do is run - and the First Order has a tracking device on them, and they are running out of fuel.
Also, General Organa, our beloved Leia, gets sucked out of the bridge into space, which has got to hurt.
Meanwhile, Rey (Daisy Ridley) is trying to get Luke (Mark Hamill) to train her and join the fight himself. But he's old and embittered because he let his student and partner Rylo Kenny (Adam Driver) go to the dark side.
Meanwhile, back in space, Poe, Finn (John Boyega) and new character enter: Rose (Kellie Marie Tran) go AWOL on a side quest to a casino planet. This is basically an extended James Bond riff, featuring Benicio del Toro as a raffish thief.
But here's the odd thing about this movie: everything Poe does either fails or works only marginally. Meanwhile, Laura Dern, as Vice Admiral Holdon, has been quietly getting things done while General Organa is unavailable. I think this is done subtly, but maybe I just don't pick things up very quickly.
So, I guess the next movie will be the last movie in the last trilogy, so after that we will hear no more about that galaxy long long ago and far away. Unless, against all odds, they try to milk the franchise to death. If they do, I'll probably watch.
Out of all the Star Wars movies, this is one. It has enormous scope, juggling several plots - or one plot and several subplots. Basically, the remaining Resistance are fleeing from the First Order, when Dameron Poe, Oscar Isaac, decides to lead a bombing attack on their dreadnought. This starts with a cute scene where he calls General Domhnall Gleeson then pretends he can't hear him. He keeps saying, "Should I hold? I'll hold", while Gleeson gets madder and madder. Of course, it's a stall, to get the bombers in range. Sadly, although they damage the dreadnought, they lose most of their ships. Now all they can do is run - and the First Order has a tracking device on them, and they are running out of fuel.
Also, General Organa, our beloved Leia, gets sucked out of the bridge into space, which has got to hurt.
Meanwhile, Rey (Daisy Ridley) is trying to get Luke (Mark Hamill) to train her and join the fight himself. But he's old and embittered because he let his student and partner Rylo Kenny (Adam Driver) go to the dark side.
Meanwhile, back in space, Poe, Finn (John Boyega) and new character enter: Rose (Kellie Marie Tran) go AWOL on a side quest to a casino planet. This is basically an extended James Bond riff, featuring Benicio del Toro as a raffish thief.
But here's the odd thing about this movie: everything Poe does either fails or works only marginally. Meanwhile, Laura Dern, as Vice Admiral Holdon, has been quietly getting things done while General Organa is unavailable. I think this is done subtly, but maybe I just don't pick things up very quickly.
So, I guess the next movie will be the last movie in the last trilogy, so after that we will hear no more about that galaxy long long ago and far away. Unless, against all odds, they try to milk the franchise to death. If they do, I'll probably watch.
Sunday, August 19, 2018
Pussycat Hats
When I realized that I had let Josie and the Pussycats (2001) float to the top of the queue, I was worried. Ms. Spenser asked me why I hated her so much. Then, the amazing happened: It turned out to be great.
It starts with the boy band Du Jour getting on their sponsored private jet with manager Alan Cummings. Although Du Jour (including member Seth Green) are idiots, they have noticed something odd about their recordings. Cummings promises to explain after he talks to the pilot. He goes up front and tells the pilot to “take the Chevy to the levee”, and they bail out, leaving the plane to crash. Now he needs another (disposable) band. Next stop, Riverdale, home of Josie and the Pussycats.
Josie is Rachel Leigh Cook, songwriter and lead singer. Rosario Dawson, in her first big role, plays bass. Tara Reid is on drums as Melody, a lovable ditz. She’s kind of a mixture of Peter Tork and Goldie Hawn. She is also about the only thing I remember from the comics - pretty sure I never saw the cartoon.
To get this out of the way first, the Pussycats have a great sound. It’s got a great Joan Jett/Runaways feel, maybe softened just a bit. They even have a “Cherry Bomb” song: “Teenaged Prom Queen”. So I would rate the music as “good”.
Other characters include Gabriel Mann as Alan M., folk singer and maybe boyfriend to Josie. Paulo Costanzo plays the Pussycats snobby and dim manager, and Missi Pyle lays his twin sister, who says she is only in the movie because she was in the comic. Parker Posey plays the head of the record label who is using the disposable bands to sell stuff to kids. They are all really good.
So, interesting plot, strong cast, good music, and the jokes tend to work. Kind of like the Spice Girls movie (which is probably an influence), an unexpected hit.
It starts with the boy band Du Jour getting on their sponsored private jet with manager Alan Cummings. Although Du Jour (including member Seth Green) are idiots, they have noticed something odd about their recordings. Cummings promises to explain after he talks to the pilot. He goes up front and tells the pilot to “take the Chevy to the levee”, and they bail out, leaving the plane to crash. Now he needs another (disposable) band. Next stop, Riverdale, home of Josie and the Pussycats.
Josie is Rachel Leigh Cook, songwriter and lead singer. Rosario Dawson, in her first big role, plays bass. Tara Reid is on drums as Melody, a lovable ditz. She’s kind of a mixture of Peter Tork and Goldie Hawn. She is also about the only thing I remember from the comics - pretty sure I never saw the cartoon.
To get this out of the way first, the Pussycats have a great sound. It’s got a great Joan Jett/Runaways feel, maybe softened just a bit. They even have a “Cherry Bomb” song: “Teenaged Prom Queen”. So I would rate the music as “good”.
Other characters include Gabriel Mann as Alan M., folk singer and maybe boyfriend to Josie. Paulo Costanzo plays the Pussycats snobby and dim manager, and Missi Pyle lays his twin sister, who says she is only in the movie because she was in the comic. Parker Posey plays the head of the record label who is using the disposable bands to sell stuff to kids. They are all really good.
So, interesting plot, strong cast, good music, and the jokes tend to work. Kind of like the Spice Girls movie (which is probably an influence), an unexpected hit.
Thursday, August 16, 2018
Weak
We love classic rock documentaries, and The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years (2016) isn’t bad. But it doesn’t have much new, at least not for me.
As you might guess from the title, it focuses on the Beatles days as a touring band, from Liverpool to Hamburg to America to the roof of Apple Studios. The main takeaway is that their equipment was pitifully insufficient for the stadiums they wound up in. Combined with the insane screaming of their fans, that made them pretty much inaudible.
We do get some nicely cleaned up performance footage, but I don’t feel like there was much I hadn’t seen before. A lot of the best seemed to be borrowed from the Maysles’ movie. Watch that instead.
As you might guess from the title, it focuses on the Beatles days as a touring band, from Liverpool to Hamburg to America to the roof of Apple Studios. The main takeaway is that their equipment was pitifully insufficient for the stadiums they wound up in. Combined with the insane screaming of their fans, that made them pretty much inaudible.
We do get some nicely cleaned up performance footage, but I don’t feel like there was much I hadn’t seen before. A lot of the best seemed to be borrowed from the Maysles’ movie. Watch that instead.
Wednesday, August 15, 2018
Wig and Mustache
We promised to watch more Yul Brynner, so: Villa Rides (1968). I’m not sure it really counts, because he has hair, as well as a mustache.
It stars Robert Mitchum as an arms dealer who flies a biplane into Mexico with guns for a Mexican army general (Herbert Lom) for the fight against Villa. His plane broke its landing gear, so he has to trek to the nearest village to get it repaired. The soldiers come and hang everyone they consider “opposition”, including gentle noble Fernando Rey.
Meanwhile, Brynner as Villa, along with his henchmen, Charles Bronson are waiting to attack until the soldiers have made martyrs for the revolution. Mitchum is attracted to Rey’s beautiful daughter. But before he can get too far, Villa “marries” her to show that he does not consider her to be disgraced - also, to get her into bed, and possibly to trump Mitchum.
So, we get some romance and several battles against the army. At one point, they capture a band of soldiers and pen them up. Bronson has them let out a few at a time. They will be allowed to go free if they can make it over a wall before he shoots them. They don’t make it over the wall. So Bronson played a cold-hearted killer.
In the end, Villa is overthrown by trusting his president. Will Mitchum give up his neutrality and profit-seeking to help his revolutionary friend?
So, though we love us some Robert Mitchum, and came for the Brynner, and got some extra Charles Bronson, we didn’t think much of this. There was a weird mix of comedy and violence, and the romance was sort of tossed aside for the male bonding stuff. Not terrible, though.
It stars Robert Mitchum as an arms dealer who flies a biplane into Mexico with guns for a Mexican army general (Herbert Lom) for the fight against Villa. His plane broke its landing gear, so he has to trek to the nearest village to get it repaired. The soldiers come and hang everyone they consider “opposition”, including gentle noble Fernando Rey.
Meanwhile, Brynner as Villa, along with his henchmen, Charles Bronson are waiting to attack until the soldiers have made martyrs for the revolution. Mitchum is attracted to Rey’s beautiful daughter. But before he can get too far, Villa “marries” her to show that he does not consider her to be disgraced - also, to get her into bed, and possibly to trump Mitchum.
So, we get some romance and several battles against the army. At one point, they capture a band of soldiers and pen them up. Bronson has them let out a few at a time. They will be allowed to go free if they can make it over a wall before he shoots them. They don’t make it over the wall. So Bronson played a cold-hearted killer.
In the end, Villa is overthrown by trusting his president. Will Mitchum give up his neutrality and profit-seeking to help his revolutionary friend?
So, though we love us some Robert Mitchum, and came for the Brynner, and got some extra Charles Bronson, we didn’t think much of this. There was a weird mix of comedy and violence, and the romance was sort of tossed aside for the male bonding stuff. Not terrible, though.
Tuesday, August 14, 2018
Moon Maid
Three-Cornered Moon/Maid of Salem (1933) is a neat Claudette Colbert double-bill, one comedy, one drama.
Moon posits a wealthy family of nutcases in during the Depression. Mother is ditsy Mary Boland. The brothers are William Bakewell, Wallace Ford, and Tom Brown - an actor with only one line in a play, a law clerk who wants to just chuck it all, and a college student with a complicated love life. Claudette Colbert is their sister, billed as the sanest of the mad bunch. Her weakness is mainly her fiancé, Hardie Albright, an unpublished novelist, genius, and artist, who sponges off of her.
When they are together, he talks of suicide, and she joins in, but when she realizes he might be serious, she rushes him to her doctor, Richard Arlen. Arlen calls his bluff and hands him some pills, suggesting he take an overdose.
Everything is going fine, until the bank calls up. Boland isn’t very clear, but it’s something about a margin, and no money in the bank. They are wiped out, and now must go to work. This part is pretty goofy, because, in the midst of the Great Depression, a family of layabouts and dilettantes all easily find work (although not easy work). Colbert lies her way into a shoe factory, and can barely keep up with the work - and doesn’t want to date the boss to keep from getting fired.
But the main source of plot motion (if not family income) is that Richard Arlen moves into the mansion, paying rent. There’s some cute business about the family desperate to get the rent so they can run to the deli for some meat. In fact there’s a lot of slapstick with the brothers running around - I liked it, but YMMV.
Anyway, it’s pretty obvious that Arlen is looking to shake Colbert free from her freeloading boyfriend. And it all works out, as you might guess. This isn’t the sharpest pre-Code comedy, and even Colbert has trouble grounding her kooky character. But we enjoyed it.
Maid is basically The Crucible with a lot less wit and insight. It does have an interesting cast: Fred MacMurray, Gale Sondergaard, Louise Dresser, Bonita Granville, along with Colbert. We fell asleep for this. Again, YMMV.
Moon posits a wealthy family of nutcases in during the Depression. Mother is ditsy Mary Boland. The brothers are William Bakewell, Wallace Ford, and Tom Brown - an actor with only one line in a play, a law clerk who wants to just chuck it all, and a college student with a complicated love life. Claudette Colbert is their sister, billed as the sanest of the mad bunch. Her weakness is mainly her fiancé, Hardie Albright, an unpublished novelist, genius, and artist, who sponges off of her.
When they are together, he talks of suicide, and she joins in, but when she realizes he might be serious, she rushes him to her doctor, Richard Arlen. Arlen calls his bluff and hands him some pills, suggesting he take an overdose.
Everything is going fine, until the bank calls up. Boland isn’t very clear, but it’s something about a margin, and no money in the bank. They are wiped out, and now must go to work. This part is pretty goofy, because, in the midst of the Great Depression, a family of layabouts and dilettantes all easily find work (although not easy work). Colbert lies her way into a shoe factory, and can barely keep up with the work - and doesn’t want to date the boss to keep from getting fired.
But the main source of plot motion (if not family income) is that Richard Arlen moves into the mansion, paying rent. There’s some cute business about the family desperate to get the rent so they can run to the deli for some meat. In fact there’s a lot of slapstick with the brothers running around - I liked it, but YMMV.
Anyway, it’s pretty obvious that Arlen is looking to shake Colbert free from her freeloading boyfriend. And it all works out, as you might guess. This isn’t the sharpest pre-Code comedy, and even Colbert has trouble grounding her kooky character. But we enjoyed it.
Maid is basically The Crucible with a lot less wit and insight. It does have an interesting cast: Fred MacMurray, Gale Sondergaard, Louise Dresser, Bonita Granville, along with Colbert. We fell asleep for this. Again, YMMV.
Wednesday, August 8, 2018
Sigh
So, now we've seen Dario Argento's Suspiria (1977). It's the only Argento movie we've seen, and I think we may be happy to keep it that way.
It starts with Jessica Harper, an American dancer, going to a school in Germany. She arrives in the middle of a storm, just in time to see another girl run out of the school and into the night. Harper bangs on the door, but nobody will let her in. As she drives off in the taxi to find a hotel, she sees the girl running through the forest.
The girl winds up at a friend's apartment in a very de Stijl building. She takes a bath, but an unseen figure grabs her, ties a noose around her neck and throws her out a window into the courtyard. Her friend, who has been running through the building trying to get help, looks up to the skylight covering the foyer, just in time to see the body on the noose come hurtling through it, killing her with glass and metal.
This first big kill ends with the black and white checkerboard floor sprayed with red blood - the kind of abstract, super-saturated shot that he is known for. We will see a lot more fashionable violence in this movie. Also, a lot more violent violence. A slow throat-slitting and a graphic disembowelment, for example (at least as far as I could tell, peaking through my fingers). I’m pretty sure we won’t be watching any more of Argento’s “Mother” trilogy.
It’s too bad, because there is a lot of striking (but not horrifying) visuals here. The atmosphere of languid decadence and menace in the dance studio is interesting. Harper collapses in the studio and is moved more or less against her will from an apartment (the one the murders took place in) to the school proper. She is also fed a controlled diet with a glass of drugged wine. Will she shake off these malign influences.
Sure. And it’s pretty great. Just a little too much gross violence for us.
Also, the electronic score by Euro-program band Goblin is just OK - did not make us fans.
It starts with Jessica Harper, an American dancer, going to a school in Germany. She arrives in the middle of a storm, just in time to see another girl run out of the school and into the night. Harper bangs on the door, but nobody will let her in. As she drives off in the taxi to find a hotel, she sees the girl running through the forest.
The girl winds up at a friend's apartment in a very de Stijl building. She takes a bath, but an unseen figure grabs her, ties a noose around her neck and throws her out a window into the courtyard. Her friend, who has been running through the building trying to get help, looks up to the skylight covering the foyer, just in time to see the body on the noose come hurtling through it, killing her with glass and metal.
This first big kill ends with the black and white checkerboard floor sprayed with red blood - the kind of abstract, super-saturated shot that he is known for. We will see a lot more fashionable violence in this movie. Also, a lot more violent violence. A slow throat-slitting and a graphic disembowelment, for example (at least as far as I could tell, peaking through my fingers). I’m pretty sure we won’t be watching any more of Argento’s “Mother” trilogy.
It’s too bad, because there is a lot of striking (but not horrifying) visuals here. The atmosphere of languid decadence and menace in the dance studio is interesting. Harper collapses in the studio and is moved more or less against her will from an apartment (the one the murders took place in) to the school proper. She is also fed a controlled diet with a glass of drugged wine. Will she shake off these malign influences.
Sure. And it’s pretty great. Just a little too much gross violence for us.
Also, the electronic score by Euro-program band Goblin is just OK - did not make us fans.
Sunday, August 5, 2018
Turning the Page
We are proceeding with the next chapter: Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013). It sort of feels like filler.
It starts 30 years ago, with Elise from the first movie visiting Patrick Wilson's character as a young boy. He has been having supernatural problems. Elise settles these, and makes him forget.
In the present day, Elise is dead. We saw Wilson killing her at the end of the first movie. He is definitely under suspicion, but he thinks he's innocent. As things start getting weird again, the family moves back in with his mother, Barbara Hershey. This puts him back at the scene of his childhood trauma.
They also get back in touch with Specs and Tucker, still mourning Elise's death. They go through her files, and find the tapes she made of Wilson's case. They enhance and find the image of adult Wilson standing behind himself as a boy.
The boogie man in this chapter turns out to be "The Bride in Black", a serial killer from back in the day who wore a black wedding dress. Spirit flashbacks reveal him to be an abused kid with psychosexual mommy problems - I am not sure this is at all interesting.
Slightly more interesting is when Wilson becomes completely possessed by the spirit of the bride, and his son, who was lost in a coma in the last movie, must go into the Further (spirit world) to extract him.
This is a busy movie, with a lot of genuine tension and scares. It also didn't hold together especially well for me. It was great to see Elise again, both in her early days and as a spirit. But on the whole, this didn't especially hold together for me. Let's see what the next chapter holds.
It starts 30 years ago, with Elise from the first movie visiting Patrick Wilson's character as a young boy. He has been having supernatural problems. Elise settles these, and makes him forget.
In the present day, Elise is dead. We saw Wilson killing her at the end of the first movie. He is definitely under suspicion, but he thinks he's innocent. As things start getting weird again, the family moves back in with his mother, Barbara Hershey. This puts him back at the scene of his childhood trauma.
They also get back in touch with Specs and Tucker, still mourning Elise's death. They go through her files, and find the tapes she made of Wilson's case. They enhance and find the image of adult Wilson standing behind himself as a boy.
The boogie man in this chapter turns out to be "The Bride in Black", a serial killer from back in the day who wore a black wedding dress. Spirit flashbacks reveal him to be an abused kid with psychosexual mommy problems - I am not sure this is at all interesting.
Slightly more interesting is when Wilson becomes completely possessed by the spirit of the bride, and his son, who was lost in a coma in the last movie, must go into the Further (spirit world) to extract him.
This is a busy movie, with a lot of genuine tension and scares. It also didn't hold together especially well for me. It was great to see Elise again, both in her early days and as a spirit. But on the whole, this didn't especially hold together for me. Let's see what the next chapter holds.
Saturday, August 4, 2018
Nothing Can Go Wrong...Go Wrong...
I first saw Westworld (1973) at the drive-in, first run (?) with Soylent Green. But Ms. Spenser hadn’t seen it, and what with all the buzz around the new tv series, I queued it up.
Like many 70s movies, it starts with a layer of meta - a commercial for Delos, a compound with 4 adult theme parks: Westworld, Roman world, Medieval world and TBD world. Then we see our cast on the plane (man, do normal planes from the 70s look like luxury today). James Brolin is the cool dude who has been there before, Richard Benjamin is the nervous newbie. The idea is that each park recreates a period in history, where all the NPCs (non-paying customers?) are robots. Therefore, you can do whatever you like - particularly kill or fuck these robots. The “fuck” part is only implied at first - lots of nudge-nudge when discussing the decadence of Romanworld. But first comes the killing.
At a cowboy bar, Yule Brenner comes in and starts trying to pick a fight with Benjamin. Benjamin doesn’t want to fight, but with Brolin’s encouragement, finally blows Brenner away. Then he gets to go upstairs with pretty sex-bot Linda Scott at Majel Barrett’s whorehouse.
In between the guest action, we see the high-tech control center where robots are repaired and re-programmed. We overhear the techs talking high-tech, and also making dentist appointments. But if you listen closely, you’ll hear hints of coming problems.
It all comes to a head when robot Yule Brenner returns for another gunfight. But this time he shoots James Brolin dead. (SPOILER.) It’s quite a moment in what has been more or less a comedy. Cool, savvy Brolin is dead, and nervous, nerdy Benjamin is being pursued by the implacable Gunfighter, Yule Brenner.
I guess you’d have to call the whole movie a black(ish) comedy. It’s based on the Delos spokesperson who says, like the setup to the joke, “Nothing can go wrong.” Brolin and Benjamin do well in their roles, but what really stands out is Yule Brenner. He is so creepy as the strong, silent Gunfighter. Now we’re ready to watch as many of his other movies as possible.
Like many 70s movies, it starts with a layer of meta - a commercial for Delos, a compound with 4 adult theme parks: Westworld, Roman world, Medieval world and TBD world. Then we see our cast on the plane (man, do normal planes from the 70s look like luxury today). James Brolin is the cool dude who has been there before, Richard Benjamin is the nervous newbie. The idea is that each park recreates a period in history, where all the NPCs (non-paying customers?) are robots. Therefore, you can do whatever you like - particularly kill or fuck these robots. The “fuck” part is only implied at first - lots of nudge-nudge when discussing the decadence of Romanworld. But first comes the killing.
At a cowboy bar, Yule Brenner comes in and starts trying to pick a fight with Benjamin. Benjamin doesn’t want to fight, but with Brolin’s encouragement, finally blows Brenner away. Then he gets to go upstairs with pretty sex-bot Linda Scott at Majel Barrett’s whorehouse.
In between the guest action, we see the high-tech control center where robots are repaired and re-programmed. We overhear the techs talking high-tech, and also making dentist appointments. But if you listen closely, you’ll hear hints of coming problems.
It all comes to a head when robot Yule Brenner returns for another gunfight. But this time he shoots James Brolin dead. (SPOILER.) It’s quite a moment in what has been more or less a comedy. Cool, savvy Brolin is dead, and nervous, nerdy Benjamin is being pursued by the implacable Gunfighter, Yule Brenner.
I guess you’d have to call the whole movie a black(ish) comedy. It’s based on the Delos spokesperson who says, like the setup to the joke, “Nothing can go wrong.” Brolin and Benjamin do well in their roles, but what really stands out is Yule Brenner. He is so creepy as the strong, silent Gunfighter. Now we’re ready to watch as many of his other movies as possible.
Thursday, August 2, 2018
Amazing and Tormented
The Amazing Mr. X (1948) is amazing. There is, however, no real Mr. X.
It stars Linda Bari, a wealthy widow living in a mansion by the sea. She is just about ready to move on from her husband, and possibly accept the attentions of her neighbor, Richard Carlson. She walks across the beach, the same beach her wonderful impetuous husband used to run down to with her. There, in the crashing waves, she hears her calling her name. Then she runs into Turhan Bey.
Bey is a spiritualist who knows who she is, who her husband was, and all the little irritating habits her neighbor has. Then he vanishes, but not before he gives her his card, identifying him only as Alexis, spiritualist.
She begins to feel haunted by apparitions (just like in The Awakening!). Her sister, Cathy O'Donnell, tries to explain it away. Finally. she goes to visit Bey in his haunted mansion, where the doors open spookily - which he laughs off as an effect to impress the rubes. He offers to help, but you have to wonder: Is he real or phony?
SPOILER - he is phony. Bari's maid is his confederate, and it's all a ruse. But then, at a seance, Bari's husband really does appear, playing Chopin on the piano like he always has. I won't spoiler the rest, but it's a doozy.
But for us, the most amazing thing is the parallels between this movie and the Mystery Science Theater 3000 Bert I. Gordon classic, Tormented. First, there's Richard Carlson, the neighbor, playing the milquetoast "second husband" role. He was the famous "Tom Stewart killed me!" in Tormented. Who was a pianist, just like Bari's husband. Of course, both movies are ghost stories, and both feature lots of crashing waves. What a treat, after seeing Winky, to get to see Tom Stewart!
For non-MST3K fans, the big draw for this will be the mysterious and exotic Turhan Bey. It's easy to see how Bari's sister would fall in love with him, even after he's exposed as a fraud. Bari is good as well, very classy. Altogether, a superior B-movie.
It stars Linda Bari, a wealthy widow living in a mansion by the sea. She is just about ready to move on from her husband, and possibly accept the attentions of her neighbor, Richard Carlson. She walks across the beach, the same beach her wonderful impetuous husband used to run down to with her. There, in the crashing waves, she hears her calling her name. Then she runs into Turhan Bey.
Bey is a spiritualist who knows who she is, who her husband was, and all the little irritating habits her neighbor has. Then he vanishes, but not before he gives her his card, identifying him only as Alexis, spiritualist.
She begins to feel haunted by apparitions (just like in The Awakening!). Her sister, Cathy O'Donnell, tries to explain it away. Finally. she goes to visit Bey in his haunted mansion, where the doors open spookily - which he laughs off as an effect to impress the rubes. He offers to help, but you have to wonder: Is he real or phony?
SPOILER - he is phony. Bari's maid is his confederate, and it's all a ruse. But then, at a seance, Bari's husband really does appear, playing Chopin on the piano like he always has. I won't spoiler the rest, but it's a doozy.
But for us, the most amazing thing is the parallels between this movie and the Mystery Science Theater 3000 Bert I. Gordon classic, Tormented. First, there's Richard Carlson, the neighbor, playing the milquetoast "second husband" role. He was the famous "Tom Stewart killed me!" in Tormented. Who was a pianist, just like Bari's husband. Of course, both movies are ghost stories, and both feature lots of crashing waves. What a treat, after seeing Winky, to get to see Tom Stewart!
For non-MST3K fans, the big draw for this will be the mysterious and exotic Turhan Bey. It's easy to see how Bari's sister would fall in love with him, even after he's exposed as a fraud. Bari is good as well, very classy. Altogether, a superior B-movie.
Wednesday, August 1, 2018
Southern Reach
Even before I read Jeff VanderMeer's novel, I was excited about the upcoming movie: Annihilation (2018). After I read it, I was even more excited. I was puzzled when I saw it though, until I saw a quote from the Alex Garland, who wrote and directed: He called it a "dream of the book". He read the book, then adapted it without re-reading (or looking at the second and third books of the "Southern Reach" trilogy). So, although it doesn't share many events with the book, it captures the feeling very well.
It starts with Natalie Portman in quarantine, being debriefed by by Benedict Wong. She doesn't seem to have much to say. They talk about her husband and - flashback. Her husband, Oscar Isaac, is a soldier. He went on a mission and didn't come back for a year. Portman, a cancer biologist, has just given up on ever seeing him again, when he appears in the house. He can't say where he's been or how he's gotten back - he doesn't seem to know. Then he gets very sick, the government comes and sticks him in a secret facility.
A psychologist, Jennifer Jason Leigh, gives her a few clues - there's an area of the United States, Area X, behind a force field of some sort, called the Shimmer. No one and nothing that goes into the area comes back. Except Isaac. Now, Leigh is going in, and Portman volunteers to join.
The team includes Tessa Thompson, a black physics genius, Tuva Novotny, another scientist, and Gina Rodriguez, a medic (I really thought it was Michelle Rodriguez - similar look and badass personality, but no relation, I guess). They hike into the Shimmer, and wake up in tents, with evidence that they had been there for days. They start to hike toward the shore, to find the Lighthouse.
They travel through tropical jungle, running into horrible creatures, beautiful flowers, and rampant moss and mold. Worse, they find humans transformed into these new lifeforms. And they also start gong mad, and start dying. Tessa has the best death - she knows she will live on in some way and doesn't want to end up eternally screaming in fear. So she lets the Shimmer transform her into a human shaped flowering bush.
When they get to the Lighthouse, they find a sphincter-like hole in the base and a tunnel beneath. In the book, it was a little different. They found a hole near their base camp, that the biologist thought of as a tower - one that went down instead of up. Also, there was a fire-and-brimstone sermon written in moss that went on and on, the deeper you went. I was sorry they left that out.
Some other differences: In the book, no one had names, just roles: The biologist, the psychologist, etc. The psychologist had loaded them up with post-hypnotic suggestions, so the disorientation wasn't entirely due to the Shimmer (which wasn't called that in the book - it was just Area X or the Southern Reach). Also, in the movie, Tessa Thompson has some bafflegab explanation for the phenomenon, but the book left it as just a mystery.
Also, in the book, the biologist is a bit autistic, even before she enters Area X. She didn't much care for people, felt distant even from her husband, but could get lost for hours just watching a tidal pool, a tadpole pond, or the puddle in a drained swimming pool. Portman's character is much more of a normal, engaged, social person.
But the movie did manage to get some of the blankness, the anomie, the void at the heart of life inside and outside the Shimmer. Garland does a little more explaining (hint: it's about identity) but still lets some of the mystery stand.
It seems that the studio thought he left entirely too much mystery in, that the movie was too intellectual and nobody would understand it. As a result, it was barely released, and Netflix paid to stream it. Kind of a shame, but at least we got to see it.
Another difference from the book - the book was very clearly set on the coast of the Florida panhandle. It is never mentioned, but I could tell VanderMeer was describing the area around St. Marks. I had visited the lighthouse there when I lived in Tallahassee. It seems they tried to film there, but the vegetation was so thick, the camera couldn't really register anything. So the final look isn't quite Gulf Coast.
It starts with Natalie Portman in quarantine, being debriefed by by Benedict Wong. She doesn't seem to have much to say. They talk about her husband and - flashback. Her husband, Oscar Isaac, is a soldier. He went on a mission and didn't come back for a year. Portman, a cancer biologist, has just given up on ever seeing him again, when he appears in the house. He can't say where he's been or how he's gotten back - he doesn't seem to know. Then he gets very sick, the government comes and sticks him in a secret facility.
A psychologist, Jennifer Jason Leigh, gives her a few clues - there's an area of the United States, Area X, behind a force field of some sort, called the Shimmer. No one and nothing that goes into the area comes back. Except Isaac. Now, Leigh is going in, and Portman volunteers to join.
The team includes Tessa Thompson, a black physics genius, Tuva Novotny, another scientist, and Gina Rodriguez, a medic (I really thought it was Michelle Rodriguez - similar look and badass personality, but no relation, I guess). They hike into the Shimmer, and wake up in tents, with evidence that they had been there for days. They start to hike toward the shore, to find the Lighthouse.
They travel through tropical jungle, running into horrible creatures, beautiful flowers, and rampant moss and mold. Worse, they find humans transformed into these new lifeforms. And they also start gong mad, and start dying. Tessa has the best death - she knows she will live on in some way and doesn't want to end up eternally screaming in fear. So she lets the Shimmer transform her into a human shaped flowering bush.
When they get to the Lighthouse, they find a sphincter-like hole in the base and a tunnel beneath. In the book, it was a little different. They found a hole near their base camp, that the biologist thought of as a tower - one that went down instead of up. Also, there was a fire-and-brimstone sermon written in moss that went on and on, the deeper you went. I was sorry they left that out.
Some other differences: In the book, no one had names, just roles: The biologist, the psychologist, etc. The psychologist had loaded them up with post-hypnotic suggestions, so the disorientation wasn't entirely due to the Shimmer (which wasn't called that in the book - it was just Area X or the Southern Reach). Also, in the movie, Tessa Thompson has some bafflegab explanation for the phenomenon, but the book left it as just a mystery.
Also, in the book, the biologist is a bit autistic, even before she enters Area X. She didn't much care for people, felt distant even from her husband, but could get lost for hours just watching a tidal pool, a tadpole pond, or the puddle in a drained swimming pool. Portman's character is much more of a normal, engaged, social person.
But the movie did manage to get some of the blankness, the anomie, the void at the heart of life inside and outside the Shimmer. Garland does a little more explaining (hint: it's about identity) but still lets some of the mystery stand.
It seems that the studio thought he left entirely too much mystery in, that the movie was too intellectual and nobody would understand it. As a result, it was barely released, and Netflix paid to stream it. Kind of a shame, but at least we got to see it.
Another difference from the book - the book was very clearly set on the coast of the Florida panhandle. It is never mentioned, but I could tell VanderMeer was describing the area around St. Marks. I had visited the lighthouse there when I lived in Tallahassee. It seems they tried to film there, but the vegetation was so thick, the camera couldn't really register anything. So the final look isn't quite Gulf Coast.
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