Beeing and Nothingness

I first saw The Spirit of the Beehive (1973) early in my career as an cinephile, at my college's film society. At the time, I felt it was slow and lovely, but pointless. Since we've been watching Guillermo del Toro, I've been thinking about it more and more. And finally (after sending one broken disc), Netflix has allowed me to revisit it.

It takes place in a small town of Hoyuelos, shortly after the Spanish Civil War. A travelling cinema has brought James Whale's Frankenstein to town, and everyone comes to watch it, even the kids. Two little girls run home screaming in delighted terror, but afterwards, one asks the other why the monster killed the girl. The older sister tells her that it's all fake, it's just a movie, the monster is really a spirit, and he lives in a deserted farmhouse not too far away. This is the start of the young girl's obsession with Frankenstein's monster.

Others in the house have other obsessions. The father, an older intellectual type, keeps bees, and seems to be writing about their social organization as a metaphor for... The mother, younger and beautiful, is engaged in a correspondence with ... someone. She pretends to be asleep when her husband comes to bed, although we don't know why.

What we do know is how it is filmed, in a long close-up on her face while we only hear someone in the background, and see some shadows on the wall - you only guess that she is pretending to be asleep while her husband is getting into bed. Spirit doesn't really tell you what is going on or why. This is probably why I thought it was pointless when I first saw it.

The movie is full of scenes like this, and scenes where even less happens. A long take of a street, or the Spanish plains, or one of the sisters looking at the other. I guess this is the kind of thing they were going for in Uncle Boonmee, although I found it more successful here. It really is beautiful, and very Spanish.

I wonder if del Toro took some of his themes from this movie, or if they are just part of the Spanish character. The older man with the more glamorous wife in the old mansion, the watch, the wide open empty plains, and the children.

The little girls in this are amazing, both beautiful, expressive and mysterious. It was a little strange to see them in lipstick, but I assume that was film makeup that wasn't as subtle as it was supposed to be. But so much of this movie is just gazing at these opaque little creatures, you notice things like that.

I feel like I should mention some of the subtle things the movie says about, for example, the Civil War: do the two girls represent the Loyalists and Falange? Or about the mother's secret, if it is indeed a secret from anyone but we the viewers. And what is the symbolism of the bees?

But I don't know about any of that. I just know what I saw. It's a beautiful movie, full of light and space and people. Watch it for that.

Clockwork Wasp

Guillermo del Toro's Cronos (1993) is kind of a precursor to his brother/sister films Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth. It is not set in the Spanish Civil War, but there is a little girl...

Federico Luppi plays Jesus Gris, an older antique dealer in a Mexican city. His glamorous wife teaches tango, while he takes care of his young granddaughter at the shop. One day, he gets a visit from a genial thug played by Ron Perlman, and he figures out which artifact the bad guys are looking for: a clockwork insect that drives a stinger deep within his palm.

The next discovery he makes is that the sting of this machine rejuvenates him, and gives him a curious thirst for blood. It is pretty clear why the thugs want this gizmo. Perlman's father, a sick industrialist and occultist played by Claudio Brook, thinks it is the key to eternal life.

We get a number of del Toro's signature touches, like clockwork and insects, mirrors and clocks, and monsters with amazing makeup (his effects company, Necropia, provides this). The aged protagonist with a glamorous wife in a dilapidated mansion as in Devil's Backbone. But most especially, children. There are many great things about this movie, but little Tamara Shanath as the granddaughter is one of the best. She is nearly silent, often somber, but always sees clearly and lovingly.

I enjoyed this entry as much as the other two (I consider them to be a set), although Ms. Spenser could see that it was something of a first attempt (it was del Toro's first feature as director). Now that we've seen this trilogy, I think we're ready for Spirit of the Beehive.

Groundhog Troopers

If you don't recognize Edge of Tomorrow (2014) from its extremely generic title, maybe you'll recognize the tagline: Live. Die. Repeat.

If you're still a little vague, let me put it like this: It's Tom Cruise in Starship Troopers meets Groundhog Day. Aliens have attacked Earth and basically occupied Europe. Earth is fighting back with Heinleinesque power armor, and getting ready for a big counter-attack. Cruise is a PR officer with political connections who doesn't intend to get anywhere near the fighting. This offends a gung-ho general who shanghais him, busts him in rank and puts him into a mobile infantry squad scheduled to hit the beach the next day.

So cowardly Tom Cruise puts on power armor he doesn't know how to use, hits the beach with a squad who hates his guts, and meets the enemy, who are these cool tumbleweed-chainsaw-cthuloids. He doesn't last long.

But after he is killed, he wakes up back at the infantry intake. Time has reset and he has to do it all again. But this time, he has a little more of a clue. He gets just as killed, of course. And resets again. Just like in Groundhog Day, he gets a little smarter each time. Eventually, he meets Emily Blunt (Looper, Adjustment Bureau) who lets him know what's going on. She is a lot more of a hardass than him, which is fun.

In conclusion, we've got hard Emily Blunt, comically lame Tom Cruise, and the power armor that should have been in Starship Troopers, plus an oddball time travel gimmick. What's not to like?

Radio Free Dick

Now, for something right out of left field: Radio Free Albemuth (2014). I know I've mentioned that I am a Philip K. Dick fan. Since Bladerunner, lots of his science fiction stories have been made into movies. But he really has three periods (not counting his attempts at straight fiction):

• Pulps: His early output is mainly slight, sometimes goofy, sci-fi, like The Zap Gun.
• The Good Stuff: Later, and mixed in with this are some fine literary science fiction novels like The Man in the High Castle and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
• Speculative Autobiography: His last 3-6 novels were just as weird or weirder than his most surreal novels, but based on real events that really happened to him - or so he thinks - like Valis or Radio Free Albemuth

Only true Dickheads are even aware of the last type. You see, for many years, Dick believed that a vast intelligent machine was beaming ideas into his head from orbit with a pink laserbeam. Ideas like, time had stopped during the late Roman Empire, and contemporary reality was an illusion. It sounds crazy, but he did suddenly start speaking colloquial Vulgate Latin, without studying.

In the novel, he attributes these experiences to a friend, Nicholas Brady. Brady is played by Jonathan Scarfe, while Dick is played by Shea Whigham. Yes, Dick is a character in his own novel, but he's really both characters, since Brady is just his alter-ego. But Whigham is basically amazing here, totally Dickish. It really makes the movie for me, to see one of my literary heroes so well portrayed.

Of course, this isn't much of a movie. There is kind of a plot, especially towards the end when Alanis Morisette (!) shows up as a folk singer with the same delusions insights as Brady. But mostly it is a lightly fictionalized record of Dick's real-life experiences. There is drama, insight, psychedelic special-effect weirdness, and none of it really seems to go anywhere, like the sweet scene where Brady secretly baptizes his son. It isn't explained and it doesn't go anywhere - but it is something Dick really did, and it means something to him.

Will it mean anything to you? Unless you've read one of Dick's later works, probably not. I can't really imagine coming into this cold, but if I had to guess, you wouldn't make it to the end (and it's under 2 hours). But if there are any brave Dick neophytes who are willing to try, please report.

TV Bleg

Well, we've run through the first 2 seasons of Arrow and the first season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. We enjoyed Agents a lot. Like everyone, we really bonded with Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) - so sweet and unassuming, so cool. Even better is Agent May, Ming-Na Wen. She gets so much out of that one pissed-off expression.

 But until the new season is on Netflix, or Arrow or Flash or Dr. Who, we are without a regular TV series to watch (with our TV dinners, natch). We are looking for something with a lot of action, quirky with a sense of humor, and a certain something. We tried Warehouse 13 - it looks good on paper and it does have Saul Rubinek from Nero Wolfe (review to come) and Leverage. But it isn't hacking it. We had the same problem with Chuck, and Burn Notice jumped the shark in the third season or so.

So if anyone has any recommendations, let me know. I'll probably ignore them, because our tastes are odd and whimsical. But you never know.

Speaking of Warehouse 13, it's about a secret agency that stores dangerous and mystical artifacts (like the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark). There was a series of movies (made for TV?) starring Noah Wylie called The Librarian. Well, it looks like John Rogers of Leverage is making a series based on these movies called The Librarians - and Christian Kane, also from Leverage, is in it. Not on Netflix yet, though.

Not Guilty

We'd seen The Innocents (1961) a few times before - I think the first time was when we lived in New Hampshire. We drove for about an hour to some nothing cafe or community center in a tiny town to watch it, because that's what you do in New Hampshire. You get your culture where you can.

The Innocents is certainly cultural, being based on Henry James' Turn of the Screw. A naive young woman, Deborah Kerr, is hired to be the governess for a pair of young children, alone in a secluded mansion with only the cook for adult company. Only the cook and an uneasy presence, which might be related to the previous governess, who was no longer around. Or the handsome roguish valet, likewise absent, but not undetected.

Aside from the psychological suspense and the great acting, this movie looks beautiful. I'm not familar with director Jack Clayton, but we've seen a bit of DP Freddie Francis, including The Deadly Bees. It seems he directed some pretty schlocky stuff, but was a very stylish cinematographer.

This is not a violent movie, but a pretty intense one. I'd gladly drive all over New Hampshire or even Vermont to watch it again.

Whatever a Spider Can?

I don't know why I wanted to watch The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014). I didn't particularly care for the first ASM. I kind of thought Andrew Garfield looked like the old Mike Ditko Peter Parker in the first one, but now he looks more like a young Sean Penn or not-so-smarmy Seth Green - not very Parkerish, in my opinion.

Also, the focus is on Spidey-Girlfriend Gwen Stacey. Emma Stone does a great job playing her, but her part as written is to be cute, then spunky, then dead. We know she's going to get dead, that's what Gwen does. No point in getting attached.

Oh well, when you come right down to it, I'm not much of a fan of Spider-man. I realize that it was the first strip with emotional depth for the teen set (based on Stan Lee's experience with romance strips, in one telling). But I always thought he was a little too whiny when he wasn't webslinging.

BUT! In this movie, like the Raimi trilogy, the webslinging experience, swinging from skyscaper to skyscraper, diving though the steel canyons of New York, swooping into intersections to save somebody from a runaway truck, that's pretty sweet. This movie totally gets it, including Spidey's wise-ass cracks. That part is a joy to watch. Now I want to re-watch the Raimi movies to see how he handles it.

Which is weird, because I don't even like Spider-man.