Sisters are Doing It

Just a quick cleanup before the new year. We are spending the holidays with my sister and family. We had other plans as well, but the Omaha variant foreclosed those. So we’ve watched a fair number of streaming movies. These are all on Netflix, but I don’t think I’ll link them. It turns out to be a pain to get a good link, and they’ll probably all disappear from the service in a few days. 

Croupier (1998) is a Mike Hodges film starring Clive Owen. He’s a wannabe writer in London whose father is a degenerate gambler who gets him a job as a croupier. He tries to stay aloof from it all, but gets caught up in various schemes and deceptions. I’m not sure all the schemes make sense (who shopped Bella? What was up with the money launderers? How did they make money on a failed robbery?) but it was pretty compelling. Owen had an icy beauty that just works - he even starts out a bleached blonde. Also, Alex Kingston has a nude scene. So if you want to see River Song naked, sweetie, check it out.

We expected Fear Street Part One: 1994 (2021) to be kind of lightweight, since it was based on an R.L. Stone series. But it was a teen slasher with a pretty high body count. It’s set in Shadyside, a community with a distressingly high number of serial killers, going back to a curse put on it by a witch in 1660. Some teens, including a lesbian, her ex-girlfriend, her nerdy brother, and her drug-dealing cheerleader friend and her goofy boyfriend, get targeted by the curse. Expect in this case, it’s the undead serial killers from past cases chasing them. It was pretty good, although we aren’t big on slashers. We may or may not watch the rest of the series.

Feeling the need for something a little less harrowing, so we tried Fearless (2006). This is Jet Li’s final wushu movie, directed by Ronny Yu. It’s set in the early 20th century, with Li as Huo Yuanjia, a martial arts teacher. He starts as strong but arrogant fighter, who overreaches and kills the wrong man. When his family is killed in revenge, he goes to north Thailand to mourn. The mountain people (and a young blind woman) restore his faith and he returns to make amends.

He finds that the foreigners are now in control of China. They consider the Chinese to be weak and feckless. So Li enters into competitions to show that he can beat any foreigner. 

It’s a well-worn formula but the art direction is beautiful as always (especially among the Hmong) and the fights are cool. Plus the message of unity and self-discipline are heartfelt and inspiring. 

So that’s about it for this year. We fly home on New Year’s Eve if the airline gods allow. With luck we’ll soon be drinking champagne cocktails and watching Marx Bros. and Three Stooges. See you in 2022. 

Edited to add: I forgot we watched Stanley Donen’s Indiscreet (1958) with Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant. I was surprised that it was in color, and not directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and that there were no Nazis in it - because I was thinking of Notorious. Anyway, the first 2/3s were a swooningly beautiful love story about two super-rich, charming people. Bergman in particular was amazing. The Donenesque twist was not as delightful as he probably thought, but still kind of fun. His sophisticated modern love stories don’t always translate across time that well.

Oh, look it’s 2022. 

Happy New Year!

Mazzik Man

I think Ms. Spenser requested The Vigil (2021) based on the recommendation of one of the horror authors she followed. It was not because she is Jewish. 

It starts with a support group for New Yorkers who have left an ultra orthodox Jewish sect. Our protagonist, Dave Davis, seems to be suffering from anxiety, PTSD, guilt, and maybe a touch of hallucination. He also is unemployed and is having trouble making rent. Also, when a nice girl in the group tries to invite him out, he doesn’t know what to say. The sect separated men and women. 

Outside, his old rabbi offers him work as a shomer - someone who sits vigil over a corpse all night, reading psalms to settle its soul. He doesn’t want to be involved, but he needs the money…

The deceased was a holocaust survivor who never left his home and drove off his kids. The widow has Alzheimer’s, supposedly. She doesn’t want Davis around. Left alone, he starts seeing a shadowy figure creeping Widow later explains that it is a mazzik, a demon who tortures broken people.

Later, when he tries to leave, he finds his bones breaking the further he gets from the house. He has to return to stop the pain. At least in this movie, we know why he doesn’t just leave. 

We kind of liked this movie - it’s pretty much right in our zone of psychological horror without much gore. On the other hand, the protagonist is such a broken sad sack, it’s a little hard to identify with him. And the plot could have been a little more complex or original - I felt like I was a step or two ahead for most of the movie. I expected to be surprised by at least one twist, but didn’t really get one. 

Your mileage may vary, of course. Even mine might have, if I’d been in a different mood. But for now, I’d call it a worthy effort. 

Hits Keep Coming

Didn’t we just see a 2021 Ryan Reynolds movie? Yes, but in Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard (2021), he’s an uptight exasperated quipping machine, not a lovestruck naive quipping machine. Very different.

In this direct sequel, Reynolds is in therapy. His therapist convinces him to take a break from body guarding, to stop carrying a gun and get some rest. She is mainly trying to get rid of him because he scares her. So we find him resting on a beach when Selma Hayek comes busting in. Her husband, hitman Samuel L. Jackson, has been kidnapped, and he asked for Reynolds to help get him out. 

So even though he is on sabbatical and refuses to carry a gun, he can’t resist the honor of being asked to help. Of course, Hayek misheard - he actually asked for anybody BUT Reynolds. But they do get him out. And are immediately captured by Interpol agent Frank Grillo who has a mission for them involving villain Antonio Banderas.

For reasons, Reynolds takes the gang to see his father Morgan Freeman, who promises to help and of course betrays them. And so on. You don’t care about that, right? It’s all about Reynolds refusing to carry a gun (shades of Destry). He is always either complaining about his interrupted vacation or saying, “we need a carefully thought out plan” just as Hayek and/or Jackson just jump out, guns blazing. 

It’s pretty funny and exciting, as promised. It even has a callback to the nuns from the first movie. Hayek was underused in the first one, and now gets to have some real fun. Is this our favorite new series? No, but we will watch the sequel if they make it: Son of Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard?

Beauty at the Vanities

I wanted to see Murder at the Vanities / Search for Beauty (1934) because my frat back in college used to rent Murder and show it for the “reefer” based music. Turns out I had misremembered most of it.

Murder takes place at Earl Carroll’s Vanities, a real New York night club show, famous for scantily clad women. Carroll is out of town, so Jack Oakie is taking over. His stars are Kitty Carlisle and French nonentity Carl Brisson, soon to be wed. Meanwhile, police detective Victor McLaglen wants free tickets to the show, but Oakie won’t come across. They have a nice exchange of insults throughout the movie.

Someone starts trying to kill Carlisle, so McLaglen decides to take the case, mostly so he can watch the show. The bodies start to pile up, but the show must go on. 

So how is the show? Sadly, not great. Kitty Carlisle sing/talks through her numbers. Brisson sings “Cocktails for Two” - we prefer the Spike Jones version. Carlisle’s reefer song is a Latin number called “Marijuana”, and it isn’t good. I had remembered that Ellington performed “That Funny Reefer Man”, but that was Cab Calloway. Maybe it was included on the film as a short subject. 

Duke does have a number, but it is a jazz riff on Chopin’s Hungarian Rhapsody, called “Rape of the Rhapsody”. Cringe. At least the number has some good dancing. The rest of the numbers feature hundreds of beautiful women in scanty dress just posing. Some are topless, but always behind their crossed arms. Pre-Code, but not so sexy. In fact, the presence of Kitty Carlisle makes you think of the musical numbers in a Marx Brothers movie that you fast forward through. 

Search turned out to be a lot more fun. It starts with Robert Armstrong and Gertrude Michael getting out of jail. Armstrong has a great idea for a new hustle - totally legit. They’ll take over an old-times Health and Exercise magazine, recruit some athletes, and get them to show some skin. They just need some upfront money - James Gleason (Here Comes Mr. Jordan).

The athletes they pick are Buster Crabbe and Ida Lupino (still with a little English accent). They think this is all legit, and actually set up a health farm.  But Armstrong is going for sleaze so there’s going to be a showdown.

The funny thing is, the movie is the same way. It’s about health and exercise and clean living, but you get to see Buster Crabbe’s naked butt in the shower room - although Lupino’s shower scene is shoulders and up. 

It’s all good fun - there’s even a musical that’s no worse than the ones in Murder. Plus, James Gleason is one of our favorite character actors. So I’d say the double bill is worth it, but you can skip the first movie. 

Poor Little Greenie

Part of the reason I queued up The Green Knight (2021) is that I remembered that Ms. Spenser was a fan of the poem. Also, it was one of the big art house hits of 2021. Also, I was wrong about Ms. Spenser - she’d never read it.

It stars Dev Patel as Gawain, who looks like Adam Driver, according to Ms. Spenser. He gets up on Christmas morning in a brothel, but because he’s King Arthur’s nephew, he cleans up and heads to court. So even though he isn’t ready to be a knight, and is pretty much a wastrel, he gets to sit with he king and queen, who are both white-haired and old. When the king is trying to start the revelry, a giant knight in green armor with a bark-like helmet comes in and sets up a game. Anyone in the court can take a whack at him with his axe. Then next Christmas, the Green Knight could return the blow. 

Gawain accepts the challenge, and Arthur lends him Excalibur, reminding him that it’s just a game. So Gawain chops his head off.

Now this is odd. We have seen that Gawain is a drinker and runs with loose women, but not that he’s violent or ambitious. Maybe he just wasn’t too bright. Anyway, the Green Knight picks up his head and leaves, reminding Gawain that he will have to submit to a beheading next year.

So Gawain spends the year drinking and whoring. Meanwhile, his mother (not identified, but maybe Morgan le Fay? And played by Sarita Choudhury) and some other witchy types are making mystic magic. When Gawain gets ready to leave, his mother gives him the Green Knight’s axe, and a green belt that will protect him from harm.

So he sets out. He has a number of adventures. Some are ghastly - a poor boy stripping bodies on a battle field misdirects him and later ambushes him. Some are comical - he meets the ghost of St. Winifred, who demands that he return her head to her body, and is rather snippy about it. And he seems to be followed by a fox that might be his mother.

Finally, he meets a lord with a fine  mansion and sexy wife. While the lord is out hunting all day, the lady is trying to seduce Gawain. 

But finally he goes to meet the Knight. He meets up with the Knight, and at the last moment - he bolts. He goes back to Camelot, inherits the kingdom, etc. But SPOILER we can tell it’s an Owl Creek Bridge scenario. It’s all a dream or fantasy. He comes to back in front of the knight. I won’t spoil the ending.

This is a puzzling movie. It’s tone is very inconsistent - sometimes ancient, sometimes modern, although it does have a somewhat Mallick-like pace. There’s social commentary in some scenes, witchcraft in others. Each section has a title card with a different ye-olde typeface, indicating a certain eclecticism. I had heard that the principle was that the ancient mindset is alien to us, so some thing won’t make sense to the modern mind. I don’t think director David Lowery achieved this. At least it felt like more of a muddle. But it’s an interesting, good looking muddle, and worth watching. 

Free as in Press, not as in Beer

Free Guy (2021) is a movie that is almost pure concept: What if Ryan Reynolds was an NPC in a computer who became aware? If you think you will find that funny, you're probably right. If not, how about if I tell you Taika Waititi is in it?

Like I say, Reynolds is a non-playable character (NPC) in a computer game, Free City. Everyday he gets up, has a great cup of coffee, and goes to work at the bank with his buddy Lil Rel Howery, the security guard. Every day they get robbed by the sunglasses people - they are the players who come to Free City to rob, kill, and plunder. I guess Grand Theft Auto is idea.

Reynolds has always dreamed of his ideal woman, and one day he sees her. This leads him to put on the sunglasses ("Put on the damn glasses") and start racking up points in the game. Because if he levels up enough, he can hang out with her.

Meanwhile, in the real world: The human operating Reynold's ideal woman is Robin Comier. She a nerdy game dev who is trying to prove that Free City uses some of the code for Life Itself. Life Itself is an advanced AI utopian game, developed by Comier and her platonic friend, Joe Keery (Stranger Things). Keery is now working for the Free City company as a lowly minion, browbeaten by flamboyantly evil boss, Taika Waititi.

So let's take stock. Lot's of Reynolds quipping, although he is playing a naive nice guy here. Lot's of goofy action. A nerdy love story. A critique of gaming culture - the violence, the obsession, and the evil bosses. It's all well done, directed by Shawn Levy. 

But is it actually good? I don't know - we enjoyed it, and it wasn't exactly forgettable. But it wasn't exactly ground-breaking either. Just a good, funny concept, a likable leading man (great comedy chops, but is he getting over-exposed?) and hate-able villain. The love story was my least favorite part, partly because Keery had to be such a whiny wimp. Remember Daniel Radcliffe in Guns Akimbo? Very similar. 

But it did what it was supposed to - keep me entertained (and Ms. Spenser semi-entertained) for 90-odd minutes. Like a computer game, I guess. 

Marwene!

Destry Rides Again (1939) is a re-watch for us. We mainly wanted to see the amazing opening sequence. Under the title, we take a long tracking shot down the street of a wild west town, with cowboys on horseback firing pistols, and barfights busting out of the saloon, with dancing girls trying to reel the boys back inside. It's a bravura performance by director George Marshall.

We go inside the saloon to find the owner, Brian Donlevy, in a card game, trying to win the deed to a ranch. Just before the showdown, his gal Frenchy (Marlene Dietrich) spills some coffee and switches some cards on the rancher. When the rancher comes back with the sheriff, Donlevy shoots him dead offscreen - that is, convinces him to "leave town".

Since the town needs a new sheriff, Donlevy convinces the mayor, Samuel S. Hinds, to appoint the town drunk, Washington "Wash" Dimsdale (Charles Winninger). He has been bending everyone's ear about how things were when he was Sheriff Destry's deputy, so they figure it will be fun to watch him try it himself. But Wash sobers up, and calls for Destry's son to come to town to be his deputy.

So Destry shows up, but he's not a rootin', tootin' he-man - he's Jimmy Stewart. He's soft-spoken and doesn't even carry a gun. Figures someone could get in trouble that way. But just to be friendly, he borrows Donlevy's gun and shoots the balls off a decorative doo-dad from across the street. 

And when Donlevy throws Frenchy at him, he's very polite - and friendly. 

So it's Donlevy vs. Stewart - Stewart wants to convict Donlevy fair and square, and Donlevy keeps underestimating Stewart. Meanwhile, Frenchy gets in at least one catfight, rollicking all over the saloon. The bartender is played by Billy Gilbert, in barely a bit part. Our favorite from Palm Beach Story, Mischa Auer, is called Callahan by everyone, because that was his wife's (Una Merkel) first husband's name, and it's easier. He loses his pants to Frenchy at cards. And for every situation, Stewart "once knew a feller who...". 

Lots of fun, full of quirky characters, great lines, evil bad-guys, beautiful women, fist fights, gun battles, and Marlene Dietrich singing "See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have". About the only downside is her other song, "Little Joe". It's tiresome and repetitive, and shows up too many times in the movie. 

Draw Blood!

Werewolf of London (1935) is another classic we never got around to. Now we have.

It starts in Tibet (near Vasquez Rocks, where Kirk fought the Gorn). Botanist Henry Hull is searching for a rare flower that grows on moonlight. As his bearer's all desert him, he is attacked by a beastly creature. But the next scene has him back in England, so I guess it was all right.

He is spending all of his time in his lab. His wife, Valerie Hobson, is always on him to help her host her society parties, but he just wants to fiddle with the plant he brought back from Tibet. He's trying to get it to blossom under artificial moonlight. 

But one of their guests is uninvited: Warner Oland as the mysterious Dr. Yogami. He gives Hull the spiel: If you are bitten by a werewolf, you become one yourself. You have to kill each night (of the full moon? Unclear). Only the moon-flower's blossoms can temporarily hold the desire to kill at bay.

Hull doesn't believe him, but soon finds himself becoming... hirsute... under the rays of his moonlamp. When the moon comes up, he is only able to quell the transformation with a blossom. The next night, he's out with his wife at Spring Byington's party, and has to rush home to get the antidote - but Oland has stolen all the blossoms. There's only a bud left. And so the werewolf kills.

So Hull tries to get himself locked up, either by a slum landlady or by J.M. Kerrigan, his cockney assistant. Meanwhile, his wife is getting romanced by an old flame, Lester Matthews. 

We weren't really expecting this movie to be so funny. There is a whole drawing room and tea parties movie going on (Spring Byington!) while Hull is either botanizing or wolfing. The landladies he looks to to lock him up, Mrs. Whack and Mrs. Moncaster are always soused on gin and try to eat through their hat's veil. Then there's the mysterious "Oriental" Dr. Yogami, sneaking around stealing flowers. And Henry Hull obsessing and suffering through it all. 

Very enjoyable, although they never went to Soho in the rain, or had pina coladas at Trader Vics. A wasted opportunity.

Voodoo Skull

The House on Skull Mountain (1974) is pretty interesting, 70s horror movie with voodoo themes and a mostly black cast and almost no exploitation.

An old black woman is getting her last rites in her house (on Skull Mountain). She gives four letters to the priest and asks him to deliver them when she passes. She then dies holding a box of voodoo dolls.

The letters are invitations. The first two to arrive are shown driving up a mountain road. One is a sophisticated black woman (Janee Michelle), the other a rude young man (Mike Evans) who basically tries to run her off the road. When a flying skull appears before his windshields, the tables are turned. 

When they get to the house, they find the burial in process with only the priest, butler (Jean Durand) and maid (Ella Woods) in attendance. Almost nobody notices, but before the grave is filled, a raven drops a totem made of a bone, a feather and some beads on the coffin. It leaks blood and bursts into flames. 

A third guest is meek domestic Xemona Clayton (an associate of Martin Luther King!). After she arrives, the lawyer lets them know that they are all grandchildren of the deceased, and that the will would be read when the fourth guest arrives. So the lawyer will come back next week, while everyone has a nice vacation in this spooky voodoo mansion.

After the lawyer leaves, the last heir shows up - Victor French, a white man! (Evans makes a crass remark about a "honky in the woodpile".) He looks sort of like a retired hickey player with a walrus mustache, but he's actually a professor of anthropology in Maine. Actually, an expert on voodoo.

Now, I'm not an expert on voodoo, but I've read a little, and this movie presents at least a surface level of realism. The snake deity Damballah is the main troublemaker here, and Erzulie the Beautiful is our friends protector. I won't tell you who dies or when, but I will say you get a full on voodoo ceremony. Also, a little romance between Michelle and French, with a date in Atlanta, including a visit to Underground Atlanta. At least now we know that Skull Mountain is supposed to be in Georgia.

I might as well tell you whodunnit, because you'll probably guess anyway. Yes, the butler did it. 

Black Widows Everywhere

I haven't paid much attention - is Black Widow (2021) one of the hated or beloved Marvel movies? We kind of liked it.

It starts with two kids playing in a nice suburb in Ohio, 1995. The older, 10-12 years old?, seems a bit uneasy, but the younger, 5-6?, is just goofy. Their mother calls them in to supper, and their dad comes home. He announces that they are going on a big adventure. They grab a go-bag and some guns, but mom won't let them take a photo album. 

They wind up in a car chase/running gun battle with the police. They get to the airport, but mom is shot. Dad seems to be able to hold onto the wing of the small plane they fly out in. When they land in Cuba, it becomes clear - they are Russian spies, undercover. The kids are just camouflage. I never watched The Americans, but I bet it's a source.

Anyway, cut to "Present Day", in this case, during the Avengers Civil War. The younger girl has grown up to be Florence Pugh. In Budapest, she is trying to kill another woman, who turns out to be a rogue widow. Just before she kills her, she gets sprayed with a little vial of gas that turns off her programming. Now she's free and she's sorry for what she has done.

Meanwhile, the older girl is now Scarlett Johansson, hiding out from the Sokovia Accords. She gets a package from Pugh, which turns out to be the vials of deprogramming gas. She gets attacked by this super-soldier in a General Grievous mask. This is Taskmaster, who can copy anyone's fighting style, with a few extra tricks. Nonetheless, Johansson gets away, and with the vials, which were the target all along.

She heads to Budapest to find out what's up. After a cute little sister fight, they work out the plot of the movie. Sinister figure Dreykov has found a way to program perfect assassins, and has done this to Pugh, Johansson, and all the other widows. The gas can deprogram them - although Johansson doesn't need it for some reason? Anyway, they have to get to the place this programming is done, the Red Room. And to do that, they need their old fake American dad.

That's David Harbour, who seems to have perfected the Bad Dad in Stranger Things. He used to be the Red Guardian, the Soviet answer to Capt. America, but after glasnost, he's just a strong, fat, bearded guy in prison. So the girls break him out. But he can't really help. They'll need fake mom.

She is Rachel Weisz, a behavioral biologist living on a farm. She has training a pig not to breathe on command - until it dies, although she lets up at the last moment. They ask for her help, and instead she tells them that she has called the Red Room on them. 

So they wind up in the Red Room, which turns out to be a heli-carrier, like SHIELD's. Dreykov is Ray Winstone, a kind of fat old Russian version of a Hollywood macher. And he still has programming hooks into Johansson.

There's some confusing stuff here lifted from Face/Off, and it all ends with a lot of explosions and more than one freefall fight scene. We also find out the Taskmaster is Olga Kurylenko, horribly scarred as a girl by Johansson. Also, in need of deprogramming gas.

Like most Marvel movies, this seems radically overstuffed and full of ridiculous and wonderful action scenes. But it also has a real human heart, the story of the sisters and their make-believe parents forming some kind of crazy family. Harbour's role is played for humor - you get to see him grunt and strain to get into his old costume, hear him brag about fighting Capt. America, and try to get it on with Weisz. But also, you find that he's a blowhard who cares at least a little for the girls who he pretended were his daughters. Weisz seems almost comically evil, but also just needs a good example to find the courage to fight Winstone. 

So even though it probably had too much going on for it's two-hour-plus run-time, it's good stuff. The villains are programming, mind control, and submission to authority - that's about Russia, but also other authoritarian regimes. the heroes are cranky, guilty, and not entirely on the side of good, but they care for each other in some way. Also, lots of fights and explosions.

It ends after the Infiinity Wars. The Black Widow has died and Pugh is putting flowers on her grave. Julia Louis-Dreyfuss shows up at the end, offering Pugh the job of killing the man responsible for her death. So it looks like Pugh will be the new Black Widow, and her first job will be killing Hawkeye. I mention this because when I checked Wikipedia, I discovered that JL-D is playing the Contessa, a 70's Agent of SHIELD character I always wanted more of. 

And to top it all off, we get a couple of jabs at Rob Liefeld, including a poke about the super-hero landing crouch and outfits with a lot of pockets.

Heavenly Blue

For some random reason, we decided to watch another classic SNL pairing: Steve Martin and Rick Moranis: My Blue Heaven (1990). OK, SNL and SCTV.

This movie is sort of the sequel to Goodfellas (I guess, never seen it). When Nick Pileggi was writing Goodfellas, he spent a lot of time on the phone with Henry Hill. Pileggi's wife, Norah Ephron, got pretty fed up listening to Hill's bullshit, and wrote My Blue Heaven about his time in witness protection.

Basically, FBI desk jockey Rick Moranis relocates Steve Martin in Squaresville, CA outside of San Diego. Martin is a New Yawk mobster with a moussed haircut and some flashy suits. He has to lay low until he can testify in a murder trial. He soon discovers how many other mobsters are in protection in this town (including William Hickey as a pet shop owner). He also meets and makes an enemy of the cute but strait-laced Assistant DA in town, Joan Cusack. She's not his type, but he thinks he can set her up with Moranis.

So while Martin and friends start a low-key crime wave, he also tries to get Moranis to loosen up. When they go to New York for the trial, he hits the clubs with Moranis and teaches him to do the merengue. This is the reason we wanted to see this - to see Steve Martin effortlessly, and Moranis a little more clumsily, do this dramatic Latin dance.

Later, when Moranis takes Cusack to a party, he shows the lessons he's learned by slipping the band leader a tip and dancing the merengue with Joan. Since she's a head taller than him, it looks funny, until he takes off. It's one of my favorite dance scenes, and I have watched a lot of Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. 

It ends happily for everyone, even Moranis' partner Bill Irwin. If you don't know Irwin, he's an incredible physical comedian. One of his gags is to try not to dance. First his shoulders twitch, then his feet move, and soon he's doing a wild rubber-legged routine, while trying to keep a straight face and tamp down the joy. 

One thing this movie reminded me is that Norah Ephron is a great screenwriter. In the hands of this cast, and director Herbert Ross, it can't miss.

Old Man Dracula

As mentioned previously, Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) is available on Netflix streaming, so we (re)watched it. 

I wanted to watch it for the late period practical effects - mostly in camera or simple double exposure. There were shadow plays, painted backdrops, vamps gliding on hidden skateboards, and so on. We noticed a trick from Vampyr - the shadows cast by no visible bodies. F.F. Coppola's art direction was sumptuous and decadent, but also sort of retro. Or is that just what movies looked like in the 1990s?

Keanu Reeves played Jonathan Harker like a stiff with a very wonky accent. I see now how we (mis?)judged him as a terrible actor in the day. We love him now, of course. When Anthony Hopkins shows up as Van Helsing, he kind of fades away from the movie. Even Cary Elwes, Billy Campbell, and Richard E Grant, as Lucy Westenra's (Sadie Frost) suitors, get more to do. And of course, Tom Waits' Renfield gets to have the most fun.

But the movie is really about Gary Oldman's Dracula, with a lot of different make-up looks, and Winona Ryder's Mina Harker. He got to play a lot of different types of role, from ancient to contemporary to bestial. She gets to play the victim as addict (possibly sex addict). 

I was more impressed with the look of the movie on this watch. But I think I felt the same way about the story as I did the first time: It doesn't really hold together. Too many parts jammed together, trying to do too much. Still, we did get to hear Oldman do the "I never drink... wine" line, and the one about the children of the night. 

Circle of Irony

I'm going to blame Circle of Iron (1978) On Rod Heath of This Island Rod. He explained this movie as a late 70s martial arts fantasy/mystical journey, and we had to watch it.

It starts by claiming that Bruce Lee proposed this story to James Coburn and Sterling Silliphant. Be that as it may. Lee did not live to make it (or turn it down), but Silliphant did write it. Coburn wisely avoided it. Instead it stars Jeff Cooper as a martial artist. He competes in a tournament held by Roddy McDowell and makes it to the final round. Then he is disqualified for hitting his opponent when he is already down. So he doesn't get to go search for the Zetan (in the end revealed to be Christopher Lee) and the Book of Knowledge. 

Except - who's stopping him? He follows the winner, but notices a blind man with a flute staff pass by several times. It is, yes, David Carradine, old Kung Fu himself. He follows the blind man and sees him fight off a tribe of bandits, using his whistling flute staff, and asked if Carradine would be his teacher. He is denied, but follows Carradine anyway, until he gets sick of his Zen-lite pronouncements.

He goes through a number of extremely odd adventures, like fighting a band of monkey people (with Carradine playing the monkey king). The monkeys tell him to seek a rose in the desert, so he heads that way. He comes across Eli Wallach in a pot of oil. Wallach is trying to dissolve the bottom half of his body to purify his mind, and when Cooper peeks in, sees that his "thing" is nothing but a tiny worm. But Cooper figures his vow of chastity will be enough, and declines to join Wallach.

It doesn't take him long to meet a desert warlord (Carradine again) who gives him one of his wives. So much for chastity. And so on.

The acting and production of this one the level of Ator, the Golden Eagle meets American Ninja. The deep "Oriental" philosophy is mostly on or below Kung Fu level. Yet, odd touches like Eli Wallach dissolving his nethers in oil keep this from being a total waste of time. This also goes by the title The Silent Flute - although it isn't silent, although Carradine can't see it. 

So if I've convinced you to watch this, forget it. Don't be like me. 

Blues in the Night

Now that Spooktober is over, we decided to catch up on a few odd whims we've had - like re-watching The Blues Brothers (1980).

I'm just going to assume that everybody knows this movie and skip the summary: Dan Akroyd and John Belushi play the Blues Brothers, two criminals who also had a blues band. They need to get some money fast to save the orphanage they were raised in, so they get the band back together and play a concert. But in the process piss off a country band, some Illinois Nazis, and several groups of police. Oops, there's the summary.

Here are a few things we noticed this time around:

• We had forgotten that John Candy was in this, as Belushi's parole officer.
• Ms. Spenser had forgotten that Carrie Fisher was in this, as Belushi's homicidal ex.
• We remembered that Pee-Wee Herman is in this, but forgot that his role is 1-second long, and he has like one line: "Very good, sir".
• Belushi is a lot less prominent in this than I remembered. It's pretty much Akroyd's movie.

Overall, the movie seemed to have some pacing issues - we felt like there was quite a bit of dead time between the (incredible) set pieces. The set pieces are incredible, with cop cars flying everywhere, and a mall demolished, etc. But what we were really about was the music. There are some great performances by some classic acts. Duck Dunne, Steve Cropper, and Willie Hall are basically the MGs. Matt Guitar Murphy and the SNL horn section all have speaking roles. But also:

• John Lee Hooker and band perform "Boom Boom" on the streets of Chicago.
• Aretha Franklin has an amazing number, and some fierce dialog.
• Cab Calloway does "Minnie the Moocher". You can see he's an older man, but when the curtain goes up and his black suit turns into a white tux, he delivers an amazing performance.

Ms. Spenser was a little annoyed at the racial subtext (musicians: Black. Audience: White. Saviors: White.). But getting these guys gigs was important, and (I hope) gave them a little late career juice. And we got to see Cab one last time. 

Vamp On

I am afraid that my picks for Horror-tober weren't as successful as some years. But I picked Carl Dreyer's Vampyr (1932) for Halloween night, and that made up for a lot.

It stars "Julian West" (stage name for Nicolas de Gunzberg) as a student of the occult - but we meet him one a fishing trip. He is looking for a room at a lonely and somewhat creepy inn. That night, an old man wanders into his room, leaves a package inscribed "To be opened in the event of my death" and leaves.

West gets up to follow him, and in the dreamy day-for-night sees shadows dancing, leading him to a ruined building. One of these shadows is a one-legged soldier - who is finally joined by the actual person. West also meets a peculiar old man who later turns out to be the town doctor (played by the quaintly named Jan Heironimiko). When West leaves, we see the doctor attending to a stern and strong old woman.

The next day, West finds that the old man from his room is the lord of the manor. He has two daughters - one who has a strange wasting disease. But before they meet, the lord is mysteriously shot. In the commotion, the sick daughter wanders outdoors and we (but not the members of the household) see her being bitten on the neck by the old woman. 

When they get around to opening the package, they find a book about vampires (or vampyrs). It even mentions one Marguerite Chopin, an evil old woman from that very town. Although she is now dead (supposedly), there are still rumors...

I mentioned the dreamy day-for-night, but actually the whole film has a dreamy feel. The photography is soft-focused and a little over-exposed, giving some characters the appearance of being lit from within. The shadows without people attached isn't the only surreal special effect, although it is most prominent. And Marguerite Chopin, played by Henriette Gerard, is a different type of vampire, a female vampire who is not a sexy lesbian (although Le Fanu was a source for the story). Her strong masculine features are quite forbidding.

This was almost a silent film, coming from the earliest days of sound. But it doesn't have the static camera, locked in a sound stage that some early talkies have. Of course, there is very little dialog, so that must have helped technically. 

This is the first Dreyer we've seen. Now, we're keen to try more, maybe Joan of Arc. 

The Bad, the Good, and the Oh Well

 Since I'm almost caught up with the movies we've watched, I'm going to take a minute to discuss the whole Netflix DVD thing. 

Streaming is still streaming: The selection is poor, the experience is weak, and our internet connection usually drops at some point in the movie. Lately, another problem is that movies are scattered over 4-5 services, and you have to subscribe to all of them to have a hope of seeing what you want to see. And that seems to be mostly recent movies and movies that are loved by people who used to see them every weekend on cable. Amazon Prime used to have a lot of old movies, but they've been disappearing. At least, I think they are - the interface is almost impossible to use. I go to JustWatch.com, mostly, and it's interface isn't as good as it should be. So we still want DVDs by mail.

The Bad: let's say we get two discs a week, and watch them on Saturday and Sunday. They go in the mail Monday. That used to mean that Netflix got them on Tuesday or Wednesday, and sent out the new discs. We got them on Thursday or Friday - in time to watch on the weekend. 

But under the Improved Postal Service, you can't expect overnight service. So now Netflix gets the disc on Wednesday or Thursday, and ships them to us so we get them Friday or Saturday - if everything works out. If Netflix doesn't ship by Wednesday, I panic and tell them the disc is lost in the mail, and hope they mail it in time. 

The Good: They usually do this. In fact, they usually send at least one of the discs before they receive it. They sent an email explaining that the disc gets scanned in the post office, and they get informed that it's en route. So that shaves a day off, which is usually enough. I have had to hit the panic button a few times, but I've always gotten at least one disc by Friday. Possibly because I almost always send a disc back on Saturday.

That's right, the hypothetical above is a lie. I make sure we watch a disc Friday night, never a streamer.

The Oh Well part? The disc we tried to watch on Friday was unplayable. Tried it in two machines, tried a damp cloth, then soapy water. Nothing. It was Bram Stoker's Dracula, which just happened to appear on streaming the next week. Oh well.

Count Yor Blessings

Count Yorga, Vampire (1970) is a title I had heard many times, but never seen. With little more than that to go on, I queued it up. Once more we see the importance of adequate research.

It takes place in modern day LA. Several friends are meeting for a seance, held by the mysterious Count Yorga (Robert Quarry). The crowd is a little too rowdy for him to contact the mother of one of the crew. But Yorga does calm her down with hypnosis. When two of the others give him a ride to his canyon home in their VW microbus, they get stuck in mysterious mud puddle on their way back. They decide to sleep in the van until morning, but are attacked by Yorga and his henchmen. He is a vampire! Not a spoiler, it's in the title.

When the woman who was attacked starts acting listless and eating kittens, the crew starts to suspect vampirism. The visit Count Yorga in the middle of the night and try to get him to stay up until dawn, and then sunburn him. This is a long section of cringe - a couple of guys coming to visit at 3:00 AM who just won't leave. They aren't even good conversationalists. And it comes to naught, when the Count kicks them out before the sun rises. 

At that point, he goes into his basement full of undead women. Sadly, these women do not perform the traditional gratuitous interpretive dance scene. 

What else do you need to know? Quarry is an acceptable, but not great vamp. The rest of the acting is sub-TV production level, as are the sets, direction, etc. There's a little bit of 1970 LA location filming, as two guys have brunch and walk around while working out the plot of the movie in dialog added in post. That's about it for entertainment value here. There isn't even any semi-nudity or gratuitous go-go dancing. 

I'm not sure why this is considered a classic, or even if it is. I can say I've watched it now. If you haven't seen it, skip it. You'll be glad you did.

Ch-ch-ch-Changeling

For October, the Nitrate Diva has been tweetering a list of favorite horror films. Most I've either seen (a few) or are not available to me. But she did recommend The Changeling (1980), so we got it.

It starts with George C. Scott and his wife and daughter, on vacation. Their car has broken down on a snowy road, and he goes to a nearby phone to call for help - just in time to see his family killed when a snow plow hits a car and crushes them.

He can't stand to stay in his NY apartment, so he moves to Seattle to work at his old alma mater. He is a famous composer - and I rather like his old-fashioned Mozart-ish (?) melodies. The local historical society offer him the use of an old mansion (and the lady, Trish Vandevere from the society is pretty cute). So things are going pretty well for him, other than the tragedy and all. Until the weird happenings start.

It's the usual - noises, doors slamming, etc. Everyone says that nothing creepy has happened in the house for 40 years, which ignores the fact that it's over a hundred years old. He does the old micro-fiche in the library thing and finds out that the house was built by the father of a US senator, old Melvyn Douglas. Douglas grew up in the house, a sickly, crippled boy. Then his father took him to Europe for a while, and he came back hale and healthy. Does the title now make sense?

This is a pretty slick, well-produced, well-constructed ghost movie. Ms. Spenser didn't like that they had to go to another, semi-related property to solve the last puzzle. It was gratuitous, but I didn't think it hurt the plot or pacing. Also, I think she might have preferred something a little scarier. And of course, the bad guy (Douglas) didn't really do anything wrong - it all happened when he was a little kid. Oh well, can't have everything. At least Scott was great throughout.

The Boys in the Black Room

 The Black Room / The Man They Couldn't Hang (1935) is another of those great Karloff double-bills. Maybe not the best of them but pretty great. 

The Black Room takes place in ye olde times. A baby is born to the Count, which is cause for great jubilation. But wait! It's twins, cause for great lamentation. For as Sir Exposition tells us, the first Count was killed by his younger twin, in the Black Room. And the family motto is, "As it begins, so shall it end".

Also, the younger has a paralyzed arm. 

So the twins grow up to both be Boris Karloff. The elder becomes Count. He is a slimy, sloppy, lustful, and all around creepy guy. The younger is a lovely man - he leaves for the big city (Prague) because he makes the Count nervous. But he comes back when the Count calls for him. You see, he's so unpopular that the peasants are trying to kill him daily. All he wants to do is letch on the women of the town, especially the daughter of the mayor, Marian Marsh (Trilby). When young Karloff meets her he can see why (because she plays the harp).

The Count's plan is simple: He will abdicate and let his brother take over - everyone loves him. He assure him that he holds no ill will - look, he's had the Black Room bricked up. He just wants to show him one thing first. Around the back, and through a secret door in the fireplace, it's - the secret entrance to the Black Room. Which contains a pit full of the bodies the Count has killed. So he stabs young Karloff and throws him down to die. Then he just has to fake a paralyzed arm, and bang - he's now the good brother.

If one Karloff is good, two must be better, right? Especially when he has a chance to play such opposites - the sunny younger twin and evil older. He even gets a Great Dane - possibly one of his own, since he kept Great Danes in real life. Maybe his best acting role ever.

The Man They Couldn't Hang isn't as great, and also resembles a few other movies, like Before I Hang or The Man with Nine Lives. Karloff as Dr. Savaard (great name) plans to halt the life processes of (kill) a volunteer, then keep him alive with an external artificial heart, and revive him. The volunteers girlfriend, however, calls the police and they prevent him from reviving him. He is arrested, tried for murder, and hanged.

But his daughter, Lorna Gray, takes the body, and his assistant uses the heart machine. They fix up his neck while he is dead, which is a big labor saver. Then they revive him. And the members of the jury that convicted him start dying. And the ones left alive are all invited to a party...

It's a bit of a mess, but still fun. 

Silent Cage

We aren't really Nic Cage fans. We appreciate his commitment to weirdness, but it isn't always our thing. So I don't really know why I queued up Willy's Wonderland (2021).

It starts with Cage getting a flat on a lonely country road. A voluble tow truck driver comes by and picks him up. Cage responds to his questions with a silent pained look - which is all you get from him this entire movie.

Since he doesn't have cash to pay for the repairs, the tow truck driver offers to let him clean up Willy's Wonderland overnight. Willy's Wonderland is a kiddy's restaurant with animatronic characters from an obscure TV show - a sort of local Chuck E. Cheese. But when kids started to go missing, it closed and fell into disrepair. But with a little clean up, they might re-open.

So the driver and a local business man lock Cage in the restaurant, and share some conspiratorial comments. Cage puts a six-pack of energy drink in the fridge, sets an alarm on his watch, and starts cleaning.

Meanwhile we meet Emily Tosta, the teenaged ward of Beth Grant, the crusty old sheriff. Tosta and a group of her friends, including a slut and her jock boyfriend, a puppy-dog good guy, and another guy, are all dedicated to destroying Willy's Wonderland, which they believe is evil, and responsible for the death of many young people. We never doubted it.

It turns out that the townspeople are propitiating the spirits in the animatronics by bringing them sacrifices. Oh, you figured that out already? Right. 

While he is cleaning, Cage is attacked by one of the animatronics - and he crushes it, kills it with his mop. Then his alarm goes off, so he takes a 15-minute break, drinks an energy drink, sets the alarm again, and gets back to work.

Tosta and crew are ready to burn down the place, but she insists on going in to warn Cage. They all wind up inside, and of course, start dying. When they find Cage and warn him, he gives them that silent pained look and goes back to cleaning. He only stops to kill a doll when it attacks, or to take his breaks when the alarm goes off. Even if it's in the middle of an attack. 

It's a pretty funny movie, as far as the action goes. The kids are pretty 2D, except Tosta and her friend Caylee Cowen, a tart with smarts. The animatronics kills are accompanied by "cute" songs which are pretty forgettable, for which I guess I'm thankful. 

And through it all, Cage never speaks, or, I think, changes expression. Honestly it's a good look on him. 

Baba Bah

I went into Baba Yaga (1973) knowing little except that it was a 70s European psychedelic horror thriller. That plus the title sold me. Should have looked a little deeper.

It is based on an erotic comic strip by Italian Guido Crepax. We first meet Isabella de Funes as Valentina, a photographer, at a modish party in Milan. Some men take her home, but she asks them to drop her off so she can walk home. But her walk is interrupted when she is struck by an expensive car driven by Carroll Baker. Baker is an chic. blonde older woman who says her name is Baba Yaga. She helps get de Funes home, and fondles her camera in an odd way, commenting that it can freeze time. 

De Funes visits Baker in her home for a photoshoot, and Baker gives her a doll in bondage gear. Soon, de Funes is having strange erotic dreams. Also, if she takes a picture of something, it freezes - a film camera stops rolling, and a person stops breathing. 

When de Funes goes to Baker's mansion to have it out, Baba Yaga lets rip - de Funes endures a series of hallucinations of Nazis, sees the doll come alive, and is stripped and whipped bloody. (Although the next day she finds no trace of wounds.)

All of this is surrounded by de Funes taking sexy photoshoots and talking crap politics with her boyfriend who directs commercials. 

It's a pretty drab affair, unless you enjoy the naked breasts enough to make up for it. The horror of Baba Yaga controlling de Funes mind, and torturing her in dreams is fine, but somehow static. It doesn't really raise the tension, just sort of sits there. 

And of course, Baba Yaga isn't Baba Yaga. You know how they call John Wick Baba Yaga, and it's ridiculous because (among other things), "baba" means "granny"? At least he's scary. Baker is to pretty and not scary enough - although she did have a creepy vibe. I don't insist on a cabin with chicken legs, but give us something.

However, although this Baba Yaga was missing a real Baba Yaga, it did have a real Golem (unlike Limehouse Golem). They watch the old silent film die Golem on TV at one point. 

Red House Over Yonder

Edward G. Robinson is famous as a gangster, but he had a lot more roles than that. Like The Red House (1947), a horror movie.

It starts by describing a small rural town as full of twisty roads that lead to deadends, and farms where families keep to themselves. But these days, it just a normal country town. (It looks like California, of course.) The school bus is dropping kids off. Julie London (the singer, but as a high school girl) is inviting Lon McAllister to go swimming, just the two of them - and they can change at the lake. But first he has to help out Allene Roberts. She lives on a lonely farm with her adoptive father (Robinson) and mother. They are considered reclusive by the townspeople, but welcome him warmly and feed him well. Robinson has an artificial leg, and Robertswants him to hire McAllister to help out. Since his widowed mom isn't making much with the general store she runs, he could use the money.

It all goes fine until McAllister decides to take a shortcut home through the woods. Robinson tells him it's dangerous and gets more and more anxious to keep him from going through. He might stumble upon the Red House - which would be bad for reasons he won't explain. McAllister goes anyway, but gets spooked and heads back, and winds up sleeping in the barn.

The next time he comes, he's determined to make it. He comes to Robinson's place through the woods to work out the route. He heads home that way again against Robinson's wishes. But this time, he's conled over the head. Turns out that Robinson has let local layabout Rory Calhoun hunt the woods if he keeps everyone else out.

Roberts and McAllister start getting curious, and start combing the woods for the Red House, along with London. It's getting pretty plain that Roberts is actually trying to steal McAllister away from London (whose character has the ridiculous name of Tibby). But when London makes McAllister take her out, Roberts goes house hunting herself.

Calhoun spots her, thinking it's McAllister and starts shooting at her - aiming to miss, but getting too close. Roberts falls and breaks her leg. This really gets to Robinson. It seems he lost his leg in the woods, something about the Red House, or the ice house. He starts acting strange, calling Roberts "Jeannie", her mother's name. When Roberts' leg heals, everything comes to a head.

As horror goes, this is mild enough. But as a thriller, it's great. The cast is solid, the setting beautiful and creepy when it needs to be. And Robinson is charming and sweet, until he isn't anymore. Director Delmer Daves did all right. 

Expressionist Impression

We don't watch a lot of silent movies, but thought that Terror-tober is the right month to finally watch The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920).

It starts with a young man (Frederic Feher) telling his troubles to an older man in a garden. It seems that a certain Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss) had come to the fair in his town to display a somnabulist. Caligari was a weird looking man in a cape, top hat, and round glasses. Feher and a friend went to see his act. Caligari opened a coffin-like cabinet to display Cesar the somnabulist (Conrad Veidt). Cesar is deathly pale and thin, and appears to be sleeping. Caligari has him get out of the coffin, and claims he can answer any question. When Feher's friend asks him when he will die, Cesar says "before dawn!". 

And it comes true, because Cesar, still in a trance, sneaks into his room and kills him. And this isn't the only mysterious killing in this town.

Feher and his girl Lil Dagover suspect that Caligari and Cesar are behind these killings. And so, with a dummy in his cabinet, Cesar sets out to kill Dagover. But he can't do it - instead he grabs her and carries her away over the rooftops. But the townspeople give chase, and finally Cesar drops her, and collapses dead.

Caligari runs off with Feher chasing, and ducks into an insane asylum - and it turns out that he is the director. And, in the end, it turns out that Feher and Dagover are inmates of the asylum. And the man he was talking to in the garden (of the asylum) is his doctor. 

It's an interesting and bizarre tale, but the visual elements are the real excitement. This is the height of German Expressionism, with wildly tilted scenery, painted shadows, and cartoonishly graphic painted backdrops. Veidt's Cesar is also very Expressionist, dressed in a black skinsuit, with angular elbows and a sinuously curved spine - rather Nijinksy. He made a great monster.

Svengooli

Svengali (1931) isn't usually considered a classic horror movie, but I don't know why not. It makes a good one.

We meet Svengali (John Barrymore) in a garret in Paris. He is a music teacher, with long hair, a long pointy nose, and a straggly beard. His vocal student, a middle-aged woman with little talent - she sings the kind of thing you hear in Three Stooges shorts. She then confesses her love, and tells him she has left her husband for him - without taking a cent in settlement. He fixes her with his glowing stare, and throws her out. 

Later, when we find out she has killed herself, Sven and his violinist pal, Gecko (Luis Alberini), decide to go sponge off of some English acquaintances, old artists Donald Crisp and Lumsden Hare. They are having a bath and decide to bathe Svengali as a joke. So they dump him in the tub fully dressed and go to meet their younger (better looking) fellow artist Bramwell Fletcher. 

Sven gets out of the bath and steals one of the artists best suits, right when Trilby (Marian Marsh) waltzes in. She is a model, and seems to be wearing nothing but a military coat. Mistaking Svengali for one of the artists, she poses for him, singing a little air. Svengali decides that, although she can't sing, she has a perfect mouth cavity for a soprano, and decides to make her a star. Meanwhile, Fletcher gets a look at her and falls in love.

Svengali is able to use his burning, hypnotic gaze to make her sing brilliantly. Her debut is a big success, and it really is quite astounding - I wonder who did the vocals for the performance. But Fletcher starts showing up at performances to shame Svengali, causing him to break the concentration needed to control Trilby. He flees across Europe and they wind up performing in an Egyptian cabaret. The hypnosis seems to be taking a toll on Svengali. Also, he has fallen in love with Trilby, which she doesn't reciprocate - unless he commands her under hypnosis, which he says is "just Svengali talking to Svengali".

Directed by Archie Mayo, the movie has a very German Expressionist feel. The sets are full of crooked halls and massive beams at odd angles, with massive shadows. Svengali and Gecko are strangely humorous characters, considering how dangerous Svengali is. Of course, Luis Alberni is always good for a laugh. There's more than a hint that Svengali is a dirty Jew, but never explicit enough to be able to call it anti-Semitic.

More importantly, Marsh never wears the narrow-brimmed hat that took the name of her character Trilby. To bad.

Staying Alive

Ms. Spenser specifically asked to see No One Gets Out Alive (2021) because she's a fan of Adam Nevill, who wrote the novel that this is an adaptation of. Of course, she sort of prefers his short stories.

Cristina Rodio is an undocumented Mexican immigrant, working in a garment sweatshop in Cleveland. She finds a creepy old boarding house to live in. The landlord, Marc Menchaca, doesn't ask questions but does want first and last month's rent, which hits her savings very hard. There is only one other woman in the place, and she is quiet and hostile. Rodio hears crying coming from her room, but it isn't her. Also, there's a hulking man wandering around - Menchaca says it's his brother, who's sick.

Other than this creepiness, two things are troubling her: She needs papers, even if they are fake. Even her aunt and uncle, who live out in the suburbs, believe that she was born in Texas and don't want anything to do with illegals. The other thing is dreams and memories of her mother, who she nursed for years through a fatal illness. 

The other boarder moves out (or disappears?) and two Romanian prostitutes move in - Machaca is clearly taking the rent in trade. This ups the creepy to the point where she runs out, but she needs her deposit back. Machaca takes her back to the house to get it, and that's when the killing starts.

SPOILER, I guess. We get a home movie to do exposition on an archeological expedition in Mexico, which unearthed a box. The archeologist discovered that human sacrifices to the monster in the box restored health. Now Menchaca and his sick brother are feeding it the women who come to the boarding house. 

So big fights, running around, killing, and then the monster - supposedly an Aztec goddess associated with moths - and human sacrifice. But I have one serious complaint (also, big SPOILER): The monster design is ludicrous. It has a face covered with a fleshy membrane veil, two human arms for legs, with a vagina dentata between them to bite off the heads of the victims. I think the Aztecs had more class than that.

Actually, the movie is fine. It has the usual humans-are-the-real-monsters theme and it works. The setting is suitably creepy, and the scares are scary. I wish that the Aztec god aspect had gone a little deeper - none of the art direction really said ancient Mexico. The moths that flew around when something was about to happen were atmospheric, but didn't do much. And that monster, ooh.

Also, someone does get out alive. I can actually imagine a sequel.

To the Lighthouse

Neither the Sea nor the Sand (1972) is sort of a ghost or zombie story, but it's more like one of those overwrought 70s tragic romances. At least, I think it is - I don't watch many.

Susan Hampshire is visiting a lighthouse on the Isle of Jersey. Frank Finlay is there by chance and they fall in together, crossing the causeway to the shore before the tide cuts them off. She is pretty, he is brooding. He comes from an old Jersey family, she has a husband back in England that she no longer loves. He invites her back to the manor house, where she meets his disapproving, stuck-up brother. They make love.

When it comes time for her to leave, she begs him to let her go, but he just looks at her with his brooding eyes. In the end, she gets off the ferry and stays with him.

Brother is a bit of a bring-down, so they go to stay at a cottage in Scotland, again beside the sea. He makes her quite cross by playing in the roaring surf - since we read a summary of the movie, we know he isn't going to survive, so we are worried too. But he survives and laughs it off. Then, on another day, he just drops dead on the beach. When a doctor arrives, he pronounces it a subarachnoid hemorrhage. 

Hampshire is devastated, and begs him to return to her, never to leave her, to come back. She spends the night with the body in the shed. And the next morning, he's up and walking around. He's silent, and he seems to spend all his time looking at Hampshire, but he's walking under his own power.

And so, Hampshire tries to find happiness living with a dead guy. But he doesn't really fit into her world - no pulse and all that. And when he kisses her, she's pretty turned off. So she realizes the next step. She pleads with him to leave her, to let her live. He heads to the causeway to the lighthouse - but it isn't low tide. And she has no choice but to follow him and drowns.

So, not really horror, but horror as a metaphor for all-consuming passion. Hampshire is makes a good star - she's old enough to be a neglected wife, pretty enough to inspire an affair. Frank Finlay does brooding fairly well. He gave me a kind of Alan Bates/Oliver Reed kind of feel. Which is funny because he played Porthos to Reed's Athos in Lester's Three Musketeers. 

But frankly, it needed more horror.

Limehouse Blues

I'll start out by spoiling it: there is no metaphysical golem in The Limehouse Golem (2016). It is not actually horror, per se, more of a serial killer story. That isn't what we were looking for. But it did have a lot of Bill Nighy, and that counts for a lot.

Nighy is a police detective, moved out of London to the sticks because he was suspected of homosexual tendencies. But they've brought him back to solve the case of the Limehouse Golem, a serial killer in the dockside, lowlife Limehouse district. He leaves notes, calling himself the Golem. But Nighy is more interested in another case: Olivia Cooke is accused of killing her husband, Sam Reid. She is a music hall darling, he was an aspiring playwright. So in between the investigation, we get to hear about her appalling upbringing, sewing sails and being sexually abused, until she got to do a turn in the music hall, and caught on. 

As far as the investigation goes, Nighy finds a clue pointing to de Quincy's (famous opium eater and degenerate) essay on the fine art of murder. He goes to the British Museum Reading Room, and finds that their copy of the essay has been scribbled in with a demonic diary of the murders - the murderer was in this very room. The records show that only four people had access to the book at the proper time: Reid, music hall cross-dressing legend Dan Leno, novelist George Gissing, and Karl Marx. Nighy tries to get handwriting specimens from each. The scene with Marx is pretty funny - Nighy doesn't really suspect him.

As Cooke is about to be hanged, he begins to suspect that Reid was the golem, and that Cooke killing him was justice. If he could just find a writing sample to prove it. Or perhaps there is another solution...

You may or may not get the twist. What matters is how we get there. We get quite a bit of music hall, including Dan Leno (a real historical person, played by Douglas Booth, often in a dress), some rotten homophobia, and a lot of sexual abuse of the poor. The music hall touches are a touch surreal, framing the movie as if it were part of a sketch. There's even a hint of mysticism at the end. 

So, while not supernatural in the most part, it was very well done. Just wish we had gotten a real golem.

Midnight Mission

I'm not sure Bowery at Midnight (1942) is technically a horror movie. But it does star Bela Lugosi, and it isn't NOT a horror, so...

It starts with a prison break. The escapee overhears some bums mention a soup kitchen so he heads over. He finds a genial and generous Bela Lugosi presiding. Bela takes him aside and reveals his secret: Bela knows that he is an escaped safecracker, and offers to take him on a job. They rob a jewelry store safe, and then Bela has his henchman kill him. Bela is the jewel thief who leaves a dead henchman at each job. Must make recruitment hard - no, we just saw how easy it is.

It turns out that Bela has been living not just a double life (philanthropist and thief) but spends his days teaching psychology. With a specialty in criminal insanity (mwa-haha!). John Archer is one of his students, and coincidentally, is dating a nurse who works at the soup kitchen.

One day, Tom Neal (Detour) stumbles in with some wounds, and the nurse (Wanda McKay) treats him. Then Bela decides to take him into the fold. He takes in to his hidden underground lair, where his assistant, a mad junkie doctor Lew Kelly, plays with and disposes of his corpses. 

One day, Archer goes to visit his girlfriend at the mission and finds that his psych professor is moonlighting there. This starts things unraveling. McKay goes looking for Archer, and bribes the doctor with his "prescription" to let her find the underground lair. I'll skip some of the best parts (Bela killing his henchman by throwing him off the roof into a crowd - acts as a diversion - for instance), and just mention the almost-horror element: The doctor offers to hide Bela, and throws him in with the corpses - that he has been re-animating! But there's only a split second of this zombie plot. 

So, triple role for Bela, including one murderer, a junkie mad doctor, jewel robberies, Tom Neal, and so much more, all in about an hour and three minutes. This is real value. 

Crafty

Up to now, had not seen the original The Craft (1996). We got interested in the remake, so decided now is the time.

Robin Tunney and her family move to LA, to a nice old Spanish Colonial mansion. They are greeted by a crazy man with a snake he found - it has a message. But he gets the bum's rush.

At school, she notices three outcast girls: Neve Campbell, Fairuza Balk, and Rachelle True. They are rumored to be witches and are bullied/feared. She tries to be friendly but they reject her - until they notice that she may have Powers. They need a fourth for their coven, and she might be it.

They take her to an occult bookstore for some light shoplifting, but on the way, the crazy snake guy shows up again. Tunney yells at him, and he gets hit by a car. Did she kill him by ... witchcraft?

Skeet Ulrich, a popular jock, spends some time with Tunney, and tries to get her into bed. When she doesn't come across, he tells his buddies that she did, and was a lousy lay. This will be her problem. Campbell's is that she has a massive scar on her back from a burn. Balk has a drunk mother and abusive father. True is black, and the cute blonde girls are racist to her. So they do a summoning. And it works:

• Campbell's scars heal
• True's tormentor's blonde hair falls out
• Balk's father dies, and they get an insurance payout
• And Ulrich falls obsessively in love with Tunney

So, it looks like witchcraft is a good deal, right? Well, you'd think so. But it starts to get out of hand. Tunney tries to dial it back, but the other girls won't have it. They become enemies and have a big mystical fight. The ending -SPOILER- is one of my favorite parts. Tunney gets enough power to defeat the other girls, especially Balk, more or less the leader. The next day, Campbell and True show up to sort of apologize and offer to be friends again.

So, not much horror, really, although the end got a little better. More like Heathers with some witchcraft. I've heard bad things about the sequel, but we'll probably watch it anyway.

A What in Where?

A Field in England (2013) is a Ben Wheatley movie, and therefore, pretty strange. It's a very stripped down historical psychedelic mystical horror movie - possibly the only one of its kind, and therefore, the best.

It's set in a field in England, of course, during a battle in the Civil War. Our protagonist, Reece Shearsmith, is running away. A commander is trying to kill him for deserting, but he is killed by Ryan Pope, a soldier. They join up with another deserter, Peter Ferdinando, who is seeing to his dead friend (named Friend, played by Richard Glover). When Cutler suggests they go to an inn he spotted for some beer, they all come along, including Friend, who has got better.

On the way we learn that Shearsmith is a servant to a powerful alchemist, while Friend is a fatalistic idiot. He is very Baldrick from Black Adder. He has figured out what God is punishing us for: Everything.

They stop in a field (in England) and Pope cooks up a meal of mushrooms. Everyone takes them except Shearsmith, who is fasting. Then the hallucinations start. The movie is in black and white, and the hallucinations are odd close-ups, fast cutting, whirling cameras and so forth. Simple and effective. Pope hands out shovels and orders everyone to dig - there is treasure buried somewhere. The inn with the beer - that was a lie!

There's a long scene with the whole crew pulling on a rope, and you finally find that there is a wizard on the other end, Michael Smiley. Possibly he was underground, looking for the treasure. They force Shearsmith to take the mushrooms, then torture him offscreen, to force him to use his skills to find the treasure. 

I'll skip to end, which has a free-for-all shootout similar to Free Fire. Friend is killed at least once more, and so is pretty much everyone else. 

It's an odd movie - black-and-white and very cheap (it looks like) with only five or six characters, no sets, no special effects. It has a mix of very historical feel (Shearsmith is like a slave to his master, but considers that a proper state of affairs) and modernity - shrooms, for example. It is also violent and horrible, yet also comical, with a long toilet joke (without the toilet, because it all takes place in a field) (in England). Not sure we exactly enjoyed it, but glad we saw it. 

The Only Way Out is Not to Play

We continue to watch streaming horror - this time we picked As Above, So Below (2014). Although it had some elements in common with the last batch (young persons researching the supernatural), it was mostly completely different. And perhaps not altogether successful.

It starts in Iraq with star Perdita Weeks clandestinely searching the underground tunnels for mystical artifacts - right before they blow them up. When she tragically survives (hah!), we segue to Paris, where she is being filmed by Edwin Hodge - so this becomes sort of found footage here. They meet up with her friend Ben Feldman, an eccentric researcher and guerilla clock repairman. The goal - to find the philosopher's stone hidden by alchemist Nicolas Flamel. This section here is sort of a combination Indiana Jones and Dan Brown.

The search will lead to the catacombs of Paris, so they hire a rogue spelunker guide, along with his girlfriend and friend. So this crew of 6 descends into the catacombs. It takes a while for the horror to take over from the adventure. There are tunnel collapses, squeezes through piles of human bones, and a meeting with a tunnel rat who was supposed to have died down there years ago. He is pretty much mad.

Then the cameraman dies, falling off a rope down a hole. Then a few more, and all along they have to keep heading down. It becomes a mantra - The only way out is down. By the third act, the horrors get more metaphysical: moving gargoyles, rivers of blood, a burning car. Then, shall I spoil it? OK, here goes.

They find the philosopher's stone. It actually heals one of their wounded. But an alchemical symbol reminds them it is not the real stone - they get that as well. (I won't spoil it, but it's pretty stupid). The survivors, now only Weeeks, Feldman, and the spelunker's friend, keep going down and down, through more and more claustrophobic and, I guess, symbolic and mystical passages. Finally - big reveal - they find a manhole in the floor of the cavern. They climb down it and come up in a street in Paris. Upside down of course. The end.

I sort of like the whole idea of the catacombs - we recently saw the Lupin episode that went down there. I also love alchemical mysticism, but not when done no better than Dan Brown. Also, the wait to get to the horror was interminable. Then the horror was weak, So I guess I'm saying this one didn't work out.

Jump into the Fire

Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him?) (2006) is another movie that sort of floated to the top of the queue. I'm glad we watched it, but maybe we didn't need to right on that night.

If you don't know Harry Nilsson, he sang (but didn't write) Everybody's Talking at Me, wrote and sang The Lime and the Coconut, Jump Into the Fire, I Can't Live (If Living is Without You) and a lot of other, but less popular songs. He had a bit of a rough childhood - his dad didn't come back from the war. Many years later he found out that he didn't die, he just didn't married another woman and raised another family. Harry got into music, went to LA, and eventually sold a song to the Monkees. He made an album that got him some fame. In particular, the Beatles loved it. So he was hanging out with Micky Dolenz, Ringo, and John Lennon among many others. 

And that's sort of the message of the movie. He was a massive partier - a drinker and drugger. As Dolenz says, you go out with him on Friday in LA and wake up on Wednesday in a massage parlor in Las Vegas, wondering how you got there. That part is fun, but also sad, since he was killing himself slowly.

He also repeated his father's story - left a wife and son, then met a teenaged Irish girl (while drunk), and when she was old enough, married her. They had five kids, all lovely, and I'm sure he loved them. His son from the first marriage didn't seem too broken up by it, but it must have been hard. The movie doesn't seem to think this is a problem, but again, sad.

He never seemed to reform his hard-living ways, but when they finally killed him, he had a loving family, so I suppose there's that.

Interesting guy, but this seemed a bit surfacey. It holds back, which I don't think Nilsson did. Maybe just as well - that kind of living isn't good for you.

Anyway, I put this on the queue because I was looking for Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?, which wasn't available. It's a Dustin Hoffman movie about a rock star who's cracking up. I feel like it's largely forgotten except for the title. Anyway, I actually bought a copy. I'll review when I watch it.

Island of Misfit Movie

The Misfits (2021) just sort of jumped off of the Short Wait section of my queue. Not one I was waiting and hoping for.

Nick Cannon narrates - it's about a group of ethical thieves and grifters who steal to right injustices. They recruit master thief Pierce Brosnan for a big job - a vault full of gold under a Spanish prison. There is some international travel (Dubhai for some reason) and of course, a lot of suavitude from Brosnan, but the whole heist thing is ridiculoous.

I won't insult you by discussing it, and also I don't remember much of it. But there is a Maltese Falcon involved, and in fact they do melt the gold down and mold it into the falcon, and get it out that way. Which was supposed to have been improvised by the gang, although they had brought smelting equipment and mold making gear. So, more Lavender Hill Mob.

I don't actually hold it against Rennie Harlan that he directed this mess. Some of the direction was quite good, in an action-blockbuster kind of way. Brosnan seemed to be sort of phoning it in, and the rest of the cast weren't doing great work either. But most of the problem was with the story - it wasn't clever on any scale. The basic scheme was lousy, the good-guy criminals is overdone (even in Leverage), and there weren't any cool scenes or clever quips. 

This wasn't a made-for-Netflix production, or anything like that, but it had that feel. Here are some names, and what is technically a script. Take a pile of money and film it. People will watch anything. Well, I did.

Horror-ween Kick-Off

Ms. Spenser has declared an early start to the Halloween scary movies season. So we watched a bunch of recent (ish) streamers.

Demonic (2015) takes place in two time frames. Frank Grillo is a cop heading to his girlfriend's place when he gets a call. There was a disturbance in an old mansion, and he finds several dead kids, and one live but traumatized one. He calls his girlfriend (Maria Bello), a psychologist, to talk to the kid while he searches the scene. 

Then there's the "how they got there" time frame. A bunch of college kids want to investigate a house where a mass murder occurred. They include Dustin Milligan (the survivor), his girlfriend, her ex-boyfriend, and the usual cameraman, gadget guy, etc. Turns out Milligan's mother was the lone survivor of the murder, and there's a demon involved.

Malevolent (2018) also has a bunch of kids investigating haunted houses, but in this case, they are charlatans. Working in Scotland, they pretend to investigate, make some spooky noises, tell the "ghosts" to go in peace and collect a fee. Florence Pugh wants to quit this scheme, because she's getting too many real ghost vibes. But her brother. Ben Lloyd-Hughes has to keep going because he owes a lot of money. So they take a job investigating a house where several children were killed - ostensibly by the now dead son of the woman who hired them. They died with their mouths sewn shut. Hope this doesn't happen to any of the ghost busters... 

Temple (2017) takes place in Japan. A young woman wants to research and photgraph Japanese country temples. She convinces her boyfriend to come along, along with her longtime platonic male friend. He has been a little depressed lately, and speaks a little Japanese. They find an old book with some info about an old temple, but the shopkeeper won't sell it to them. They buy it from a little boy who just kind of appears.

They go to the temple (against everyone's advice, and of course, bad things happen - including platonic boyfriend stepping through the floorboards and breaking his leg. So they are stuck for the night - until they freak out and leave Platonic on his own. Bad decision.

It's odd that these movies shared so many elements. Of course, there's the young-people-doing-research/making-a-documentary angle. That's a pretty common setup, I guess. But two of these have a real boyfriend/ex- or non-boyfriend dynamic, and Malevolent has a brother/wannabe boyfriend thing that is somewhat similar. And both Malevolent and Temple have someone fall through a floor and break a leg, so the group can't run away. Maybe everyone is working from the same template somewhere. 

Yul Love It

Ms. Spenser is a big fan of Yul Brenner - especially in Westerns. So we didn't mind that only the second Sabata film, Adios Sabata (1971) was available on Netflix. This one has Brenner in the title role, the other two have Lee Van Cleef (who she kind of likes as well, so we'll watch those if they show up). 

This is a spaghetti Western, filmed at Cinecitta and directed by Gianfranco Parolini. It takes place in Mexico under the Austrian Emperor Maximillian, and starts with someone looking for Sabata to do a job (Ignazio Spalla). When Brenner comes out and wins a quick duel, he figures he's come to the right place. Spalla wants Sabata to help steal a wagonload of gold from the Austrians for the revolution. Dean Reed shows up a little later, looking possibly to latch onto this caper. He seems pretty shady.

Spalla has two colorful henchman: One dances a flamenco of death before killing someone. The other has shoes with a little socket on the top. He drops a round stone into the socket, gives a kick, and propels the stone into whatever target he wants. Silent and deadly.

I'll skip over the rest of the movie until the end, when they need to infiltrate a fort to get to the gold. This is a longish set piece which starts out silently. The rock kicker's skills come in handy, knocking off sentries before they know what's happening, 

Other than this, this is a pretty ordinary spaghetti Western, with a faux Morricone soundtrack. It had the cool henchmen, the shady outsider, and Brenner had a cool weapon - a Winchester with a magazine for twelve bullets - but he keeps a cigarillo in the last slot. The flamenco boy and rock kicker were cool, and the attack on the fort was nicely done. But it was mainly Yul Brenner, looking ultimately cool that we were there for. 

Not that we won't watch Lee Van Cleef's Sabata if we get a chance. 

The Man Who Wasn't There

Ms. Spenser wasn't too thrilled by the start of Nobody (2021). She figured it just another decent-man-pushed-beyond-his-limits movie like Straw Dogs. Once she realized what it was really about, she started to love it.

It stars Bob Odenkirk, a put-upon everyman. He always misses garbage pick up, his teen son ignores him, his wife barricades herself in bed behind a wall of pillows. Only his little daughter seems to do more than tolerate him. Then one night, he heats a noise downstairs. It's a robbery - two people in ski masks, one with a gun. He tells them to take the money in the bowl in the kitchen - then his son tackles one of the bandits. But he doesn't want any heroics - he makes his son let go, and the bandits run. 

Word gets around, and everyone is pretty scornful - why didn't he put up a fight. A cop tells him he did the right thing, but that isn't what he's thinking. He takes this philosophically. going to work, missing garbage pickup, etc. He even talks about it to a friend over ham radio (a friend who is supposed to be dead), and mentions that he could tell the gun had no bullets. 

Then his little girl can't find her kitty bracelet - it was in the bowl with the money. So Odenkirk goes hunting. The first stop is a tattoo parlor to get some info. They laugh at him, except for one guy, a vet, who prudently slinks out. Odenkirk demolishes a roomful of bikers and seems to enjoy it. When he finds the bandits, they're a family with a baby, so he leaves them scared but whole. 

On the bus home, a gang of Russian hooligans get on and start messing with a rider, a young woman. The bus stops and the driver gets out her phone to call the police. Odenkirk gently takes away her phone, puts her off the bus, and then starts hurting people. He pretty much kills one of them, crushing his larynx and then giving him a trache with a dirty straw.

SPOILER - Odenkirk isn't just everyman. He's a very skilled trained assassin, who decided to settle down and live a boring, non-lethal life. But he misses the mayhem and has been looking for an excuse to lash out. The robbery wasn't enough, but they didn't have to kill his dog. His daughter's bracelet was enough excuse, but if that didn't work out, there's always someone who needs a beating.

For the rest of the movie, you get Odenkirk kicking butt, along with his brother and ham radio pal, RZA, and their geriatric dad, Christopher Lloyd. Which is a lot of fun, including the sort of silly mousetrap gadgets (including actual mousetraps) they use to take down the Russian mob. 

But that's not what this is really about. It's about how men may try to give up their passion and settle down to family life, but they've got to find balance. Some time for family, some time for killing bad guys. So true. 

Battle Royale

 As the COVID quarantine threatens to extend endlessly, one thing I am beginning to miss is big new action movies. So many have been scheduled into the misty future or put on Yet Another Streaming Service that I don't want to pay for. Thank goodness, Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) came around.

It starts in the jungle with a pretty little Asian girl (Kaylee Hottle) meeting with an angry Kong. It seems she can communicate with it by sign language (the character and actor are deaf). I felt like she was going to be a replacement for Millie Bobby Brown, but wait.

Brown has been listening to a lot of podcasts by investigative caster and nutcase Brian Tyree Henry. He has infiltrated the Apex company because he suspects they are up to something with the monsters. And then Godzilla, who has been quiet up to now, attacks their facility, letting Henry get a look at some kind of machine. 

It turns out that they are investigating the Hollow Earth as the home of the monsters. They hire Alexander Skarsgard to investigate, although he is considered a mad scientist. His plan is to let Kong lead them to the Hollow Earth. For this, he needs to work with Kong-Whisperer Rebecca Hall, Hottle mother. Together, they will dope up Kong and put him on a ship for the Antarctic.

Meanwhile, Brown and her buddy Julian Dennison (Hunt for the Wilderpeople) are helping Henry infiltrate the Apex plant, and accidentally get shipped to the Hong Kong office. There, they discover Apex's secret: MechaGodzilla! (Oh, sorry if that's a spoiler.)

There's a GvK fight on the high-seas, with Godzilla the champion. There is some Kong v misc. monsters in the Hollow Earth. Then Godzilla and MechaGodzilla mess up Hong Kong for a while, and Kong joins in to defeat MechaG. So, Godzilla wins, but lets Kong rule Hollow Earth, while he (she? I forget if this version lays eggs) rules the world above. And so there is peace in the monsterverse - for now.

But when it was all over, I was kind of nonplussed. Sure the fights and explosions were mostly fun. The fight in Hong Kong looked a little miniaturish - they kept knocking down skyscrapers trimmed in neon. But I assume that was an homage to the original movies. My big problem was that it was overstuffed with stuff - the Apex had at least two major villains with backstories that I only got from reading Wikipedia after the fact. The Skarsgard/Hallsections were kind of interesting, because they were reasonably realistic scientists, not action heroes. Although it was pretty funny to find out that the crackpot Hollow Earth theorists had a major military base and some futuristic Tron cars. 

The Henry/Brown/Dennison parts were the most fun - Henry buys into every imaginable conspiracy theory and gets one right more or less by accident. Brown is smart, warm and fearless, and Dennison does the standard wacky, reluctant friend thing very well. But my favorite part may have been Hottle, a solemn, wise, silent presence. I wanted to see more of her. Maybe she could meet up with the tiny girls who summon Mothra. 

Fugit

Paul Scheer was opining that The Fugitive (1993) is a better movie than, for example, Speed. Well, I couldn't argue one way or the other, so we watched The Fugitive.

It starts with some confusing scenes of violence - a woman being murdered. Ms. Spenser immediately checked out here, although she has seen worse. Maybe it was the stylization. Anyway, Dr. Harrispn Ford comes home to the scene, and fights off the attacker (a one-armed man, we learn later), who runs off. When the police get there, it looks like an open and shut case - Ford did it. He is swiftly tried and convicted. On his way to the Big House, the adventure starts. 

First, another prisoner tires to escape and the guard blows him away. There's a struggle and the driver is killed. So the prison bus is now out of control. It comes to a stop on the railroad tracks, and a train smucks it to high heaven - after Ford gets out. This is a pretty wild set piece to open with.

The US Marshalls show up, lead by Tommy Lee Jones, a hard-ass who immediately sets up a perimeter to catch the escapees, especially Ford. Everyone figures he was killed in the crash, but not Jones. 

Ford sneaks into a hospital to treat his wounds, and takes off in an ambulance. Jones is hot on his trail in a copter. Ford winds up at a dam, and when manages to get hold of Jones' gun. When he pleads that he didn't kill his wife, Jones has the bad-ass line: "I. Don't. Care." So Ford jumps off of the mile-high dam. Once again, everyone assumes he's dead, but not Jones.

Unfortunately after these two big set pieces, things slow down a little. Ford sneaks back to Chicago to look for the one-armed man. He gets some help from old friends, but trusts no one - good plan. There's a good scene where they pass each other on opposite stairwells, and Ford almost slips by. But Jones recognizes him and chases him down a long stairwell - but loses him in Chicago's iconic St. Patrick's Day parade. 

The ending is a bit anticlimactic - It's pretty paranoid, but the stakes seemed to be ridiculously low. I think the TV series had the same problem.

I didn't actually watch The Fugitive on TV, but I think Ford does a pretty good job playing David Janssen's character - the same intensity, paranoia, and intelligence. But Tommy Lee Jones' bad-ass marshall steals the show. He has a quirky group of assistants (Joey Pants as "Cosmo") and snaps out orders with the occasional quirk tossed in ("And don't let them tease you about your ponytail"). It makes sense that the sequel is just about him. 

Sim City

 I'm not sure if this one counts, since it isn't available from Netflix as a DVD or pretty much anywhere streaming. But we recently bought An Inspector Calls (1954) from Kino Lorber, along with some other stuff, so here it is.

It starts with an interesting title sequence: A sumptuous table where the guests are eating the nuts course (as in "from soup to"). But while the table setting is quite genteel, we see the hands grabbing walnuts and fruit voraciously. Then we meet the guests:

• The father: A rich portly industrialist who expects to be recognized on the Honor's List
• His wife: A stuffy conventional old bird
• Their daughter: A pretty thing, although she's said to have a temper
• Her fiancé: A rich young man, eager for her father's approval
• The son: A somewhat inebriated young man who looks a little like Eric Idle. Since his character's name is Eric, we called him Eric the Half-a-Drunk

Then, an inspector calls - Alastair Sim. This is not Inspector Cockrill from Green for Danger or the lodger from Cottage to Let. He is somewhat more mysterious. He isn't announced at the door, he climbs through a window. He explains that a woman has died from drinking cleaning fluid, a horrible death, perhaps suicide. And one by one, he explains how each of them knew her under various aliases, and each of them wronged her.

Each one's story is illustrated by a flashback, and in each case the person feels guilty but insists that they can't be blamed for her death. I'll spoil the end a little, because I liked the twist - the fiancé notes that they all knew this woman by a different name - maybe they aren't even the same person! Maybe there is no dead woman at all! Maybe the inspector isn't really... But I won't spoil any more.

This movie was directed by Guy Hamilton (Goldfinger) from a play by J.B. Priestly (who I thought discovered oxygen, but that was Joseph). The play was a strong indictment of capitalist society, and premiered in Moscow. I was afraid in a few places that some leniency would be shown to the rich and powerful, but it was only a feint. Still solid today.

Fire on the Mountain

I actually kind of liked Those Who Wish Me Dead (2021) - partly because I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be a comedy.

It starts out as two threads: a pair of cold assassins (Aiden Gillen and Nicholas Hoult) wiping out a judge in Miami, then heading for Jacksonville. These guys are so hard, so unemotional, that I suspected them of being some sort of comic relief: "You've got a spot of blood on your shirt there." 

In Jacksonville, dad Jake Weber sees the news on TV and takes off with his son Finn Little. They are headed to Montana.

Meanwhile, in Montana, smoke jumper Angelina Jolie is kidding around with her crew, but inside she's in bad shape. She saw some kids and a fellow firefighter die in a forest fire, and it haunts her. She gets stationed in a firetower, because being alone in the woods is the best way to get your head straight. We also meet her ex-boyfriend, Sheriff Jon Bernthal, and his pregnant wife Medina Senghore. It seems that Weber went to their survival school, and that's where he's headed.

But the bad guys have figured this out too, and manage to kill the dad, but the kid gets away. The assassins (who may not be as good at their jobs as you were lead to believe) have to get the kid to make sure that he doesn't have the McGuffin. So they set a forest fire to keep things stirred up.

They also go after Senghore, who gets away with some improvised weapons and a shotgun. Well, she runs a survival school. 

We're now about an hour in, and finally the kid meets up with Angelina Joli. They start walking to town through a lightning storm, but it still takes forever for them to see the fire. They turn around, but the assassins find them at the firetower - so they run, back into the fire.

From the promos, I had the idea that the whole movie took place in the fire - but it was only a bit at the end. It was very well done, and I guess a lot of it was really burning, not CGI (unlike the firetower, which was). So the best part wasn't actually very long. But all in all, not bad. The story was a little overstuffed, and the set up could have been brisker. Also, the dialog was pretty predictable. We had a game where we tried to predict it, and if we got it wrong, tried to decide if our line was better. 

This was written and directed by Taylor Sheridan (Wind River). It isn't as intense as that was, partly because the Montana setting was much more chill than the Wind River Rez. But there was at least one scene with Jolie getting beat up. Seeing her skinny beauty getting pummeled seems to get some people off.

And about that McGuffin: A few pieces of paper with some handwritten notes that could bring down some powerful men in politics and organized crime. Several commenters on IMDB and elsewhere were upset that we never find out what it is all about. I don't think they understand the concept of a McGuffin. What I was upset about is that it was in Jolie's pocket when she dived underwater. It might have even been in her coat pocket before she threw off her coat into the forest fire. I don't see how it survived. But the kid was getting ready for a press conference as the movie ended, so I guess it must have.