Eyes Without a Face (1960) has been on our queue as a Long or Short Wait for a while. It finally showed up, which is good, I guess.
It starts with a Alida Valli, a striking looking older woman driving through the dark countryside. In the black and white photography, her headlights in the night give the opening a very film noir feel. She stops and dumps a body in the river.
Later, Dr. Pierre Brasseur is giving a lecture to a society crowd on grafting. He is cold, sad and intense, probably because his daughter has been missing. When the police find the body from the river, he identifies it as his daughter - even though her face has been surgically removed.
The reason soon becomes clear. He walks up the long series of stairways in his ornate mansion to the attic room where he has hidden his daughter, Edith Scob. Her face was ruined in an accident, and now she wears a rigid, expressionless mask that only shows her eyes. He has been trying to graft a new face onto her, using girls supplied by Valli. She hates being hidden way, but accepts it - she wouldn’t want her fiancé to see her deformed face.
So far, this is very atmospheric.
When Valli goes out to find another girl, it becomes tense. But when they drug her and begin operating, it is positively gruesome. Part SPOILER, part WARNING - He cuts her face off in a very graphic scene that I had to watch through my fingers.
This is very much a mad scientist plot, complete with beautiful daughter and deformed assistant. Valli is faithful to him because he fixed her face with a graft. The house and the secret laboratory is filled with frenzied barking of the dogs that he uses for his experiments, another very hard to take detail.
I won’t give away the ending, except to say that it ends happily for these doggies. Also, the fiancé is almost entirely useless.
Thursday, February 27, 2020
Wednesday, February 26, 2020
What it Says on the Tin
Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) is an odd movie, but since it was directed by Jim Jarmusch, that’s normal. It’s about a dozen short vignettes, with two or three characters, filmed in black and white, about coffee and cigarettes.
These little films were shot over a period of several years. The first one, shot in 1983, has Steven Wright meet Roberto Benigni. They have a pointless conversion and Benigni even says he doesn’t understand anything Wright is saying. Then Benigni offers to go to Wright’s dentist appointment for him, and they leave.
Several of these little meetings are somewhat uncomfortable. Iggy Pop meets Tom Waits in a dive. Pop is ingratiating and Waits is obnoxious to him. In another number, Alfred Molina invites Steve Coogan for coffee to tell him that they are distant cousins and should consider doing a project together. Coogan can hardly bring himself to care and tries to blow him off with minimal politeness. I sort of doubt that Iggy Pop is so much of a little puppy dog (although Waits may be a belligerent asshole), or that Coogan is really so stuck-up (at least, not around Alfred Molina). But they make interesting little stories.
We also see Jack and Meg White with a Tesla coil, Cate Blanchett talking with her not-famous cousin (played by Blanchett), and RZA and GZA drinking herbal tea and talking with Bill Murray, who plays himself, but a waiter in the diner. And many more.
I am sure that the “scripts” for these was no more than a few suggestions: “Iggy Pop is sweet, Waits in obnoxious, they meet for coffee”. The rest is all improvised. They are mostly funny, some sad, often uncomfortable. But they all revolve around coffee and cigarettes. Truth in labeling.
These little films were shot over a period of several years. The first one, shot in 1983, has Steven Wright meet Roberto Benigni. They have a pointless conversion and Benigni even says he doesn’t understand anything Wright is saying. Then Benigni offers to go to Wright’s dentist appointment for him, and they leave.
Several of these little meetings are somewhat uncomfortable. Iggy Pop meets Tom Waits in a dive. Pop is ingratiating and Waits is obnoxious to him. In another number, Alfred Molina invites Steve Coogan for coffee to tell him that they are distant cousins and should consider doing a project together. Coogan can hardly bring himself to care and tries to blow him off with minimal politeness. I sort of doubt that Iggy Pop is so much of a little puppy dog (although Waits may be a belligerent asshole), or that Coogan is really so stuck-up (at least, not around Alfred Molina). But they make interesting little stories.
We also see Jack and Meg White with a Tesla coil, Cate Blanchett talking with her not-famous cousin (played by Blanchett), and RZA and GZA drinking herbal tea and talking with Bill Murray, who plays himself, but a waiter in the diner. And many more.
I am sure that the “scripts” for these was no more than a few suggestions: “Iggy Pop is sweet, Waits in obnoxious, they meet for coffee”. The rest is all improvised. They are mostly funny, some sad, often uncomfortable. But they all revolve around coffee and cigarettes. Truth in labeling.
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
Heavy Petting
When Ms. Spenser asked me to queue up Pet Sematary (1989), it turns out she meant the 2019 version, which she had seen on a plane and wanted to check out again. But since she hadn’t seen the original, she didn’t mind. Of course, there is the issue with the general badness of Steven King adaptations...
It starts with a family of four moving to small town Maine: doctor Dale Midkiff, mom Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar), a young daughter and toddler son. They move into a beautiful old house, unfortunately right next to a busy road frequented by speeding oil trucks. Across the road lives old duffer Fred Gwynne (Herman Munster), who is alternately warm and wise, and creepy.
The house is also next to the titular pet cemetary, and creepy old Mr. Gwynne takes the family there to wax philosophical about death, which doesn’t seem to be age appropriate for the little girl, who has a cat she greatly loves. When that cat is run over when the rest of the family is out of town, he takes dad to the old Indian burial ground, which is behind a tangle of roots by the pet cemetary - then up a hill, through an abandoned quarry, over a mountain... Not very very close at all.
And the cat comes back. But it’s changed now. Evil. And smelly. Mr. Gwynne tells Midkiff that he should never meddle in God’s domain like this - forgot that it was his idea in the first place. This is not too bad, but when the toddler is run over...
The first problem with the movie is that they could have saved a lot of trouble with a little fence. (Also not meddling in God’s domain.) There’s also the question of whether Gynne is supposed to be homespun or just weird. He is kind of responsible for all this.
But in this movie’s defense, the truck driver who runs over the kid is listening to the Ramones, who also do the theme song for the closing credits.
It starts with a family of four moving to small town Maine: doctor Dale Midkiff, mom Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar), a young daughter and toddler son. They move into a beautiful old house, unfortunately right next to a busy road frequented by speeding oil trucks. Across the road lives old duffer Fred Gwynne (Herman Munster), who is alternately warm and wise, and creepy.
The house is also next to the titular pet cemetary, and creepy old Mr. Gwynne takes the family there to wax philosophical about death, which doesn’t seem to be age appropriate for the little girl, who has a cat she greatly loves. When that cat is run over when the rest of the family is out of town, he takes dad to the old Indian burial ground, which is behind a tangle of roots by the pet cemetary - then up a hill, through an abandoned quarry, over a mountain... Not very very close at all.
And the cat comes back. But it’s changed now. Evil. And smelly. Mr. Gwynne tells Midkiff that he should never meddle in God’s domain like this - forgot that it was his idea in the first place. This is not too bad, but when the toddler is run over...
The first problem with the movie is that they could have saved a lot of trouble with a little fence. (Also not meddling in God’s domain.) There’s also the question of whether Gynne is supposed to be homespun or just weird. He is kind of responsible for all this.
But in this movie’s defense, the truck driver who runs over the kid is listening to the Ramones, who also do the theme song for the closing credits.
Monday, February 24, 2020
Up to Your Ass in ... You Know
Crawl (2019) is pretty much your basic creature feature: two people trapped in a cellar with a lot of alligators. If that sounds like something you’d like, it probably is.
College swimmer Kaya Scodelario gets a call from her sister, who is out of state. She’s heard about the hurricane heading to Florida and is worried about their dad, Barry Pepper. So Scodelario bucks the evacuation order and goes looking for him. He isn’t at his depressing divorced dad condo, so she heads to their old house in the teeth of the storm. She finds him in the unfinished basement, which is starting to flood. Also, there’s a big alligator down there, and it’s got him and now her cornered.
That’s about it - they spend the rest of the movie trying to get out or get to safety while the waters rise higher and the gators get ornerier. Some police come along and get chomped. Some kids in a boat steal the ATM from the gas station across the way and get chomped. Spoiler, I guess.
A few cautions:
Ms. Spenser was not as impressed as I was - maybe it was too silly for her, maybe she would have liked at least one or two real live gators. And I don’t think director Alexandre Aja has made a masterpiece. But it’s a good solid nature-attacks creature feature.
College swimmer Kaya Scodelario gets a call from her sister, who is out of state. She’s heard about the hurricane heading to Florida and is worried about their dad, Barry Pepper. So Scodelario bucks the evacuation order and goes looking for him. He isn’t at his depressing divorced dad condo, so she heads to their old house in the teeth of the storm. She finds him in the unfinished basement, which is starting to flood. Also, there’s a big alligator down there, and it’s got him and now her cornered.
That’s about it - they spend the rest of the movie trying to get out or get to safety while the waters rise higher and the gators get ornerier. Some police come along and get chomped. Some kids in a boat steal the ATM from the gas station across the way and get chomped. Spoiler, I guess.
A few cautions:
- The gators seem to be all CGI
- Our heroes get pretty well mauled by these critters, and survive. They get deep bites, lose limbs, etc, but keep going. I say that if you find yourself being swallowed by a gator and his teeth close around your hips - literally up to your ass in an alligator - you will not survive.
- Also, the basement has a sort of flimsy open brickwork wall to the outside. They could have at least tried to break through it.
Ms. Spenser was not as impressed as I was - maybe it was too silly for her, maybe she would have liked at least one or two real live gators. And I don’t think director Alexandre Aja has made a masterpiece. But it’s a good solid nature-attacks creature feature.
Monday, February 17, 2020
Snow White Bull Fight
Blancanieves (2012) is easy to sum up: A black and white silent version of Snow White, but with bullfighters. That’s pretty much all you need to know to decide if this is something you want to see.
Daniel Gimenez Cacho is the greatest bullfighter in Spain, but is badly gored by a bull just as his beloved wife is going into labor. She dies giving child to a daughter and he is confined to a wheelchair. Soon, he has married his evil nurse, Maribel Verdu (Pan’s Labyrinth). She treats the daughter like a slave and keeps her away from her father. But she does sneak in to see him, and he teaches her about bullfighting in secret. But when she is grown (now played by Inma Cuesta), nurse Verdu kills Cacho and Cuesta runs away to the forest and loses her memory.
She is found by a caravan of six bullfighting midgets, who take her into their lives and name her Blancanieves, like the fairytale (even thought they are missing a dwarf). When one is hurt in the ring, she takes his place and has a glorious victory. She becomes the star of the show, but her step-mother finds her and offers her an apple...
As you might imagine, the black and white photography and visual storytelling is wonderful. It seems that the director, Pablo Berger, was making the film when The Artist came out. But this is a different thing - not a pastiche but a full-on tribute. Closer in style to a Guy Maddin - but not so aimlessly surreal.
My only issue is that I don’t know how to pronounce the title. Since this is silent, they never say her name.
Daniel Gimenez Cacho is the greatest bullfighter in Spain, but is badly gored by a bull just as his beloved wife is going into labor. She dies giving child to a daughter and he is confined to a wheelchair. Soon, he has married his evil nurse, Maribel Verdu (Pan’s Labyrinth). She treats the daughter like a slave and keeps her away from her father. But she does sneak in to see him, and he teaches her about bullfighting in secret. But when she is grown (now played by Inma Cuesta), nurse Verdu kills Cacho and Cuesta runs away to the forest and loses her memory.
She is found by a caravan of six bullfighting midgets, who take her into their lives and name her Blancanieves, like the fairytale (even thought they are missing a dwarf). When one is hurt in the ring, she takes his place and has a glorious victory. She becomes the star of the show, but her step-mother finds her and offers her an apple...
As you might imagine, the black and white photography and visual storytelling is wonderful. It seems that the director, Pablo Berger, was making the film when The Artist came out. But this is a different thing - not a pastiche but a full-on tribute. Closer in style to a Guy Maddin - but not so aimlessly surreal.
My only issue is that I don’t know how to pronounce the title. Since this is silent, they never say her name.
Sunday, February 16, 2020
How Much O’Keefe? Miles O’Keefe
Tarzan, the Ape Man (1981) surprised me - it wasn’t all that bad. Or do I just have too much tolerance for jungle adventures? At least this one makes a big white explorer the bad guy.
Although the title says “Tarzan”, this is a Jane story. Jane is played by Bo Derek, legendary sexpot wife of director John Derek. She has travelled to Africa to find her father, drunk white explorer Richard Harris. The riverboat she is on comes to his camp to find him running around with no pants looking for his cannon. It turns out that he needs the cannon to fire a grappling hook to the top of the unscalable cliffs, behind which lives the legendary Man-Ape. He is not so excited to see his daughter. His assistant, John Philip Law with a little mustache, is a little more psyched. But both intend to capture, or preferably kill and stuff, Tarzan.
So they climb the cliffs, plus or minus a dead bearer or two, and are soon in the land that time forgot. A hidden tribe starts picking off members of the expedition, and finally (about 40 minutes in) Tarzan shows up to start rescuing them. He is played by MST3K fave Miles O’Keefe. We see him swinging on a vine (always in slow mo) and riding on an elephant. He has a chimp companion, but also an orangutan, which is weird, since they are Indonesian and unknown in Africa. I’m sure there’s a good reason.
The rest of the movie is Jane and Tarzan’s courtship, where Derek seduces O’Keefe with the subtlety of a Mac truck. We get to see a lot of Bo Derek boobage, and hear her reporting to her father in realtime about the state of her virginity - fortunately when he isn’t there. When he is killed, she starts talking to Law when he isn’t there. But only about ape-man sex.
Like I said, I didn’t mind most of this. The first two acts, with Harris as the focus, is quite fun - he’s a great villain. The scenery and animal life is pleasant (although maybe there could have been a few, you know, Africans around. The soft core sex in the last act is kind of icky, but maybe you like that.
I don’t think I’ll be watching it again soon, though.
Although the title says “Tarzan”, this is a Jane story. Jane is played by Bo Derek, legendary sexpot wife of director John Derek. She has travelled to Africa to find her father, drunk white explorer Richard Harris. The riverboat she is on comes to his camp to find him running around with no pants looking for his cannon. It turns out that he needs the cannon to fire a grappling hook to the top of the unscalable cliffs, behind which lives the legendary Man-Ape. He is not so excited to see his daughter. His assistant, John Philip Law with a little mustache, is a little more psyched. But both intend to capture, or preferably kill and stuff, Tarzan.
So they climb the cliffs, plus or minus a dead bearer or two, and are soon in the land that time forgot. A hidden tribe starts picking off members of the expedition, and finally (about 40 minutes in) Tarzan shows up to start rescuing them. He is played by MST3K fave Miles O’Keefe. We see him swinging on a vine (always in slow mo) and riding on an elephant. He has a chimp companion, but also an orangutan, which is weird, since they are Indonesian and unknown in Africa. I’m sure there’s a good reason.
The rest of the movie is Jane and Tarzan’s courtship, where Derek seduces O’Keefe with the subtlety of a Mac truck. We get to see a lot of Bo Derek boobage, and hear her reporting to her father in realtime about the state of her virginity - fortunately when he isn’t there. When he is killed, she starts talking to Law when he isn’t there. But only about ape-man sex.
Like I said, I didn’t mind most of this. The first two acts, with Harris as the focus, is quite fun - he’s a great villain. The scenery and animal life is pleasant (although maybe there could have been a few, you know, Africans around. The soft core sex in the last act is kind of icky, but maybe you like that.
I don’t think I’ll be watching it again soon, though.
Tuesday, February 11, 2020
Super Fun
We went in assuming that Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019) was nothing more than a fluffy action movie. We were right, and that was fine.
Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) is a California-based law officer turned spy, while Shaw (Jason Statham) is a London-based criminal turned spy. There is a virus loose - and it resides in the body of Statham’s sister, Vanessa Kirby, who works for MI-6 and 7/8s. She was recovering it from some hijackers when Black Superman Iris Elba shows up - he is inhumanly fast, strong, and wears bullet-proof armor. So the powers that be call in Hobbs and Shaw.
Part of the fun is how much Hobbs and Shaw hate each other. They spend almost all of the movie sniping at and sabotaging each other. Another part is how they mirror each other. They are introduced with a split screen, showing them eating breakfast (Hobbs eating instant coffee crystals and a dozen raw eggs, Shaw making an omelet) then going out to get info (Hobbs on a motorcycle, Shaw in a McLaren) and so forth. There’s a great scene where they have to fight their way through two parallel rooms, separated by a pane of glass. Each takes a room and deals with whatever comes up, in their separate but equally awesome way.
For the first 2/3s, this is a great action film. Elba makes a great villain, with almost too much power, who always gets to fume and snarl when Hobbs and Shaw escape his clutches - say, by hitting him with a bus. He also has a neat self-driving motorcycle. And we get Helen Mirren as Statham and Kirby’s mom. Then we get to meet some of Hobbs’ family.
The whole gang goes to Samoa, to get help from Johnson’s estranged family. His brother, Cliff Curtis, is a genius mechanic who runs a legitimate auto chop shop. He is a lot smaller than Johnson. But Lori Pelenise Tuisano, who plays his mom, is almost as big and just as feisty. So there is a big battle with a combination of traditional Samoan weapons, booby traps and rat rods.
This actually starts better than it ends, because there is a ridiculous truck vs. helicopter scene that went on way too long. It was also silly - like something from a Disney Cars movie. Of course, this isn’t the only implausible thing in the movie, so maybe I should have just gone with it.
All in all, a super-fun adventure, a lot more light-hearted than the more serious F&F movies. Who would have thought that a movie about street racers would lead to this.
Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) is a California-based law officer turned spy, while Shaw (Jason Statham) is a London-based criminal turned spy. There is a virus loose - and it resides in the body of Statham’s sister, Vanessa Kirby, who works for MI-6 and 7/8s. She was recovering it from some hijackers when Black Superman Iris Elba shows up - he is inhumanly fast, strong, and wears bullet-proof armor. So the powers that be call in Hobbs and Shaw.
Part of the fun is how much Hobbs and Shaw hate each other. They spend almost all of the movie sniping at and sabotaging each other. Another part is how they mirror each other. They are introduced with a split screen, showing them eating breakfast (Hobbs eating instant coffee crystals and a dozen raw eggs, Shaw making an omelet) then going out to get info (Hobbs on a motorcycle, Shaw in a McLaren) and so forth. There’s a great scene where they have to fight their way through two parallel rooms, separated by a pane of glass. Each takes a room and deals with whatever comes up, in their separate but equally awesome way.
For the first 2/3s, this is a great action film. Elba makes a great villain, with almost too much power, who always gets to fume and snarl when Hobbs and Shaw escape his clutches - say, by hitting him with a bus. He also has a neat self-driving motorcycle. And we get Helen Mirren as Statham and Kirby’s mom. Then we get to meet some of Hobbs’ family.
The whole gang goes to Samoa, to get help from Johnson’s estranged family. His brother, Cliff Curtis, is a genius mechanic who runs a legitimate auto chop shop. He is a lot smaller than Johnson. But Lori Pelenise Tuisano, who plays his mom, is almost as big and just as feisty. So there is a big battle with a combination of traditional Samoan weapons, booby traps and rat rods.
This actually starts better than it ends, because there is a ridiculous truck vs. helicopter scene that went on way too long. It was also silly - like something from a Disney Cars movie. Of course, this isn’t the only implausible thing in the movie, so maybe I should have just gone with it.
All in all, a super-fun adventure, a lot more light-hearted than the more serious F&F movies. Who would have thought that a movie about street racers would lead to this.
Monday, February 10, 2020
Who Watches the Watcher?
We got The Watcher in the Woods (1980) more or less by accident. It was a ways down on my queue, maybe in tenth or twelfth place. But there were some “Short Waits” above it, and some that aren’t but they just skipped over. I really like to build well-balanced 3-disc program for a weekend, but I guess I have to take what they send. Fortunately, I’ve learned to construct my queue in depth.
Anyway, this is a Disney horror movie - that is, slightly spooky for kids. Carroll Baker and David MacCallum move into a palatial British home with their two daughters, Lynn-Holly Johnson and Kyle Richards. The reason the rent is so cheap is that landlady Bette Davis (!!!) is looking for a special family, and thinks these girls, er, family will do the trick.
The girls start seeing visions and hearing things, and Johnson, the teen, falls in a lake and gets stuck under water. Davis grabs a stick and starts pushing her under, which is pretty scary, but she was just trying to push her under the roots so she can get free. She’s actually very nice.
Her secret is that she had a daughter who disappeared many years ago. She thinks the girls are sensitive to the vibrations and may be able to contact her. It turns out that three of the locals were her playmates, and may have been involved.
The atmosphere is actually quite creepy for a kid’s movie. The house has that combination of welcoming and weird that a good haunted house should have. It should be appealing so people don’t just leave when things get strange, but things should also get suitably strange. The ending, which I won’t spoil, is pretty lame, but fair.
I guess I queued this up for Bette Davis, but this isn’t really up there with her finest work, even in her later period. Then again, I’m not a special Davis fan, so I don’t mind. I just wish I’d seen this when I was 10 instead of 60.
Anyway, this is a Disney horror movie - that is, slightly spooky for kids. Carroll Baker and David MacCallum move into a palatial British home with their two daughters, Lynn-Holly Johnson and Kyle Richards. The reason the rent is so cheap is that landlady Bette Davis (!!!) is looking for a special family, and thinks these girls, er, family will do the trick.
The girls start seeing visions and hearing things, and Johnson, the teen, falls in a lake and gets stuck under water. Davis grabs a stick and starts pushing her under, which is pretty scary, but she was just trying to push her under the roots so she can get free. She’s actually very nice.
Her secret is that she had a daughter who disappeared many years ago. She thinks the girls are sensitive to the vibrations and may be able to contact her. It turns out that three of the locals were her playmates, and may have been involved.
The atmosphere is actually quite creepy for a kid’s movie. The house has that combination of welcoming and weird that a good haunted house should have. It should be appealing so people don’t just leave when things get strange, but things should also get suitably strange. The ending, which I won’t spoil, is pretty lame, but fair.
I guess I queued this up for Bette Davis, but this isn’t really up there with her finest work, even in her later period. Then again, I’m not a special Davis fan, so I don’t mind. I just wish I’d seen this when I was 10 instead of 60.
Tuesday, February 4, 2020
Devil or Angel
I wanted to see Angel on My Shoulder (1946) mainly because it is sort of the same movie as one of our favorites, Here Comes Mr. Jordan. In that classic, angel Claude Rains sends the prematurely deceased boxer Robert Montgomery back to Earth in the body of a rich banker. In Angel, crook Paul Muni is sent back to Earth by a devil, also Claude Rains. And he plays the two roles almost exactly the same.
Muni plays a gangster just released from prison. His lieutenant picks him up and promptly shoots him, sending him straight to Hell. He is determined to break out, so when Rains offers him a chance back on Earth, he takes it. He will be in the body of a judge running for governor - a judge who is too honest and good for the powers of Evil to allow to go unmolested. Muni’s job is to derail his run for office, and hopefully mess up his reputation entirely.
Two things go wrong. First, the opposition party are a bunch of criminals. When they send a couple of goons to strong arm him, he fights back, and his reputation as a crime fighter is only enhanced. The other is the judge’s girl, Anne Baxter. He begins to fall in love with her. And even though he is crude where the judge was cultured, she kind of likes his new, straight-forward style.
It’s hard for me to believe that Paul Muni was both Louis Pasteur and Emile Zola. He makes a perfect mug. He’s much more convincing as a gangster than Montgomery as a boxer. Rains is great as the anti-Mr. Jordan. But we’ll always prefer Mr. Jordan, because it features the great James Gleason as trainer Max Corkle.
Muni plays a gangster just released from prison. His lieutenant picks him up and promptly shoots him, sending him straight to Hell. He is determined to break out, so when Rains offers him a chance back on Earth, he takes it. He will be in the body of a judge running for governor - a judge who is too honest and good for the powers of Evil to allow to go unmolested. Muni’s job is to derail his run for office, and hopefully mess up his reputation entirely.
Two things go wrong. First, the opposition party are a bunch of criminals. When they send a couple of goons to strong arm him, he fights back, and his reputation as a crime fighter is only enhanced. The other is the judge’s girl, Anne Baxter. He begins to fall in love with her. And even though he is crude where the judge was cultured, she kind of likes his new, straight-forward style.
It’s hard for me to believe that Paul Muni was both Louis Pasteur and Emile Zola. He makes a perfect mug. He’s much more convincing as a gangster than Montgomery as a boxer. Rains is great as the anti-Mr. Jordan. But we’ll always prefer Mr. Jordan, because it features the great James Gleason as trainer Max Corkle.
Monday, February 3, 2020
Dead Heads
The Dead Don't Die (2019) is Jim Jarmusch’s oddball followup to The Only Lovers Left Alive. That was a lush candlelit vampire movie, full of doomed romanticism, based on Renaissance paintings. This one is a dumb, goofy zombie movie, based on low-budget horror movies, like Night of the Living Dead.
It starts with Bill Murray and Adam Driver going into the woods to see if they can find out who has been stealing chickens from farmer Frank Miller (Steve Buscemi). (Wasn’t “asshole farmer thinks something is killing his liverstock, but the sheriff thinks he’s an asshole” how Dark Was the Night started too?) Miller thinks it’s Hermit Bob (Tom Waits, who kind of narrates), but Murray thinks Miller is an asshole, and Hermit Bob never hurt anyone. They head back to the station (although Murray wants to stop for some coffee and maybe a donut at the diner). They share some chit-chat about strange it is that it’s still bright daylight at 8:00. Driver notices that his watch is stopped. It probably has something to do with polar fracking. They listen to Sturgill Simpson on the radio, singing “The Dead Don’t Die”, which Driver likes, because it’s the theme song. Murray hates it.
Back at the station, we meet deputy Chloe Sevigny, looking a lot like Marge Gunderson. At the diner, we meet Miller, a MAGA bigot is talking to Danny Glover, who owns a hardware store. We hear about the odd new undertaker, Tilda Swinton, then see her go through her samurai sword exercises.
We meet Bobby (Caleb Landry Jones), a nerd kid who has a gas station and comic book and collectibles store. RZA, the Wu-PS driver, delivers some packages. Later a cute girl (Selena Gomez) and two guys drive through on a road trip. And we’ve pretty much got the setup. The sun finally sets. In the cemetery, an arm pops out of the grave of one Sam Fuller - not the director, but zombie Ivy Pop. He and his girlfriend, Sara Driver (no relation to Adam), set off in search of brains - and coffee. And you can guess (some of) the rest.
So the quiet little town is overrun by zombies. They tear up the waitresses in the diner (Rosie Perez and Eszter Balint - from Stranger than Paradise) and everyone who sees them wonders if they were killed “by a wild animal - or a lot of wild animals”. Driver keeps saying this is going to end badly. Bobby knows that the way to “kill the dead is to kill the head”. But that doesn’t help him much. Only Swinton with her sword seems to be in good shape - and she’s got a ride out of town.
The references in this movie are myriad - the road-trip kids are driving Plymouth Fury from Night of the Living Dead - and Murray points it out. Bobby has a Svengooli poster, and greets kids with his tagline “Stay sick, kids”, and they respond with his alternate “Turn blue, Bobby”. Swinton (who, by the way, has a face that is it’s own special effect) tells Adam Driver that Star Wars is “good fiction”. It also has more than a bit of the Jarmusch special - aimless conversation punctuated by long silences. And instead of the lush gothic warmth of Lovers, we get the everyday ordinary small town, plus comments on consumer society.
In conclusion, I liked the theme song a lot - this Sturgill Simpson guy is a great country singer.
It starts with Bill Murray and Adam Driver going into the woods to see if they can find out who has been stealing chickens from farmer Frank Miller (Steve Buscemi). (Wasn’t “asshole farmer thinks something is killing his liverstock, but the sheriff thinks he’s an asshole” how Dark Was the Night started too?) Miller thinks it’s Hermit Bob (Tom Waits, who kind of narrates), but Murray thinks Miller is an asshole, and Hermit Bob never hurt anyone. They head back to the station (although Murray wants to stop for some coffee and maybe a donut at the diner). They share some chit-chat about strange it is that it’s still bright daylight at 8:00. Driver notices that his watch is stopped. It probably has something to do with polar fracking. They listen to Sturgill Simpson on the radio, singing “The Dead Don’t Die”, which Driver likes, because it’s the theme song. Murray hates it.
Back at the station, we meet deputy Chloe Sevigny, looking a lot like Marge Gunderson. At the diner, we meet Miller, a MAGA bigot is talking to Danny Glover, who owns a hardware store. We hear about the odd new undertaker, Tilda Swinton, then see her go through her samurai sword exercises.
We meet Bobby (Caleb Landry Jones), a nerd kid who has a gas station and comic book and collectibles store. RZA, the Wu-PS driver, delivers some packages. Later a cute girl (Selena Gomez) and two guys drive through on a road trip. And we’ve pretty much got the setup. The sun finally sets. In the cemetery, an arm pops out of the grave of one Sam Fuller - not the director, but zombie Ivy Pop. He and his girlfriend, Sara Driver (no relation to Adam), set off in search of brains - and coffee. And you can guess (some of) the rest.
So the quiet little town is overrun by zombies. They tear up the waitresses in the diner (Rosie Perez and Eszter Balint - from Stranger than Paradise) and everyone who sees them wonders if they were killed “by a wild animal - or a lot of wild animals”. Driver keeps saying this is going to end badly. Bobby knows that the way to “kill the dead is to kill the head”. But that doesn’t help him much. Only Swinton with her sword seems to be in good shape - and she’s got a ride out of town.
The references in this movie are myriad - the road-trip kids are driving Plymouth Fury from Night of the Living Dead - and Murray points it out. Bobby has a Svengooli poster, and greets kids with his tagline “Stay sick, kids”, and they respond with his alternate “Turn blue, Bobby”. Swinton (who, by the way, has a face that is it’s own special effect) tells Adam Driver that Star Wars is “good fiction”. It also has more than a bit of the Jarmusch special - aimless conversation punctuated by long silences. And instead of the lush gothic warmth of Lovers, we get the everyday ordinary small town, plus comments on consumer society.
In conclusion, I liked the theme song a lot - this Sturgill Simpson guy is a great country singer.
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