Bucks

A while ago, I got the urge to see some Goldie Hawn movies - and one of them, $ (Dollars) (1971), sort of surfaced in the queue, so...

Warren Beatty is a security consultant in Hamburg Germany, upgrading a bank there to make it burglar-proof. Goldie Hawn is a fancy call-girl, with several bad men as her client. Goldie and several of her men all bank at the same bank, using the safety deposit boxes - people with illegal revenue streams may not want to use regular deposit accounts.

So, guess what? Hawn and Beatty are working together, with a plan to rob the bank, transferring the money in the bad guys' boxes to Hawn's. The crooks can't complain to the police, so the bank won't even realize they've been robbed. But the crooks figure it out, and the last 20 minutes of the movie are a long, gruelling chase scene.

This is a comedy heist film, but it isn't entirely funny. Hawn gets to act a little goofy, and then has a sweet monologue about what a loser she feels like. Beatty, on the other hand, is super-serious, the kin of guy you'd trust to secure your bank, or rob one. I feel like a lot of this movie just gets by with putting the charismatic leads in front of the camera.

They get some strong support, especially from Gert Frobe, retired from THRUSH and now the bank president. He plays his part very sweetly, like Cuddles Sakall. Arthur Brauss as a stone-cold killer and drug dealer, on the other hand, is quite chilling. Surprisingly, the champagne bottle full of pure LSD he has plays almost no part in the film - Chekov's acid is just a misfire.

I can't say we loved this, but it was fun (a little long at 2 hours plus). It also has a jaunty little soundtrack, courtesy of Quincy Jones, including a late period funky Little Richard number.

Dead and Buried

Our horror double feature for this week was Roger Corman's The Masque of the Red Death/The Premature Burial (1964/1962).

Masque starts with Prince Vincent Price riding into a village, making trouble for the villagers. He is about to beat or kill peasant girl Jane Asher's fiance and father, and maybe toy with her a little. When he discovers that the Red Death has just killed someone in the town, he changes his plans: He drags the girl, her boyfriend, and her dad to the castle and declares a plague party. He invites all the local dignitaries to hide out in the castle until the plague blows over.

Things at the castle are pretty kinky: Asher is bathed in the Price's wife's bedroom (Hazel Court). There is a dwarf and his midget ballerina wife, who people keep drooling over (since she's played by a child, this is extra skeezy). There is a good deal of wallowing, and some Satan worship.

This is a pretty great Corman/Price combo. Price is at the top of his game, reciting the Poe-inspired dialog with gusto. Jane Asher (Paul McCartney's girlfriend and Peter Asher of Peter and Gordon's sister) does a good job as the innocent ingenue - although she doesn't really come across as "peasant" - maybe she's petty bourgeoisie.

But the best part is the movie's atmosphere - the decadence and rot, the colors and the sickness. It proves that Corman wasn't a terrible director (just cheap) - it doesn't hurt that Nic Roeg was his cinematographer.

Burial is a bit different. For one thing, it stars Ray Milland instead of Vincent Price. He plays a wealthy painter with a morbid fear of being buried alive. He has catatonia, you see, and appears to be dead when a fit is upon him (see also Isle of the Dead). His ex-fiancee, Hazel Court again, shows up at the mansion to try to win him back - he broke up with her because he didn't want to subject her to his neuroses. But while she is coaxing him back to the world of the living, he is building an amazing easy-out crypt, with at least ten ways to escape.

But what if they go on a honeymoon? Somewhere away from the crypt? And he has a catatonic episode? Will his bride be able to save him from... Title of Film!?!? Of course, Milland's firendship with a grave robbing doctor (Alan Napier, Alfred the Butler) keeps him a little on edge - a little recreational grave robbing is fine, but you should let the comic/sinister grave diggers get to you. Even if one of them is Dick Miller.

This one rests mostly on Milland's desperation and sweaty panic. Boy is he good at it. The story is a good one too, but I wasn't entirely pulled in by the sets. The "sticks on a soundstage with dry ice" standing in for a spooky forest was right out of The Undead. Come to think of it, the grave diggers kind of reminded me of mad Digger Smolken.

But, hey, The Undead is actually a pretty good movie, and so are these.

So Help Me Hanna

I watched Hanna (2011) on a plane the first time, and thought Ms. Spenser might enjoy it. I was wrong, but...

It starts with Saoirse Ronan out in the snow, hunting a reindeer with a homemade bow. It turns out that her father (Eric Bana) has been raising her alone in the Finnish outback to become a super-soldier assassin. When she is ready, she can let the CIA know where she is, and kill the agent that killed her mother and wants her dead (Cate Blanchett).

So, Ronan is soon picked up and brought into the belly of the intelligence beast, an underground high-security cell. In a spasm of ultra-violence and cool filming, she escapes. To give you an idea of the coolness, there are people running through a wind tunnel, because it makes a great geometric background. I think this is the point where we get a close-up of Ronan's face spinning around, Batman style. I like this kind of film stylization - or craziness, depending on how you think of it.

Any way, she breaks out and finds that she's in the middle of the Moroccan desert. She scoops up a caftan from a laundry line and meets up with some British tourists, and is introduced to the world of ordinary kids. But it can't last because the CIA is still on her tail.

Ronan is amazing in this role - her hair and eyebrows bleached out like a ghost, her mix of mature strength and viciousness and Caspar-Hauser-like innocence of the world, and of course, the way she rocks the caftan. Blanchett is suitably creepy as a buttoned-down CIA agent, with her stiletto heels and perfect make up. We see her at least twice doing her teeth, scrubbing them until they bleed.

Plus this is a cool one-man army story, with the added benefit that the one man is a beautiful young woman. The action isn't non-stop, but it is top notch. Add in some arty filming, and I think you've got a movie.

But Ms. Spenser felt differently. For one thing, the dead reindeer grossed her out right at the start. Then there's the whole super-soldier serum thing - it turns out SPOILER that Hannah is the result of Forbidden Genetic Experiments to make her stronger and more ruthless. In other words, Jason Bourne's little sister. Once this is revealed, the whole thing becomes a comicbook - it's no longer serious, just fantasy. It's pretty much unnecessary as well - she was raised by an unmodified superspy, and he seems to be as badass as her. Before the revelation, she found the movie excessively nasty, after, just a cheat.

I didn't have quite that reaction, but I did notice on closer inspection that the plot had way more holes than necessary. Fortunately that doesn't bother me.

Black Comedy

Get Out (2017) starts with a black man walking through a leafy suburb, worrying about getting Trayvoned. Before he knows it, a man in an iron helmet has grabbed him and stuffed him into a car. Then the real horror starts.

Jordan Peele is a black man living in New York with a white girlfriend (Allison Williams), and they are getting ready to visit her parents in a leafy suburb. He's nervous, his friend LilRel Howery is nervous for him, but Allison just laughs it off. Her parents are cool about race, even though they can be dorks. And the dorkiness is the real scary thing here. Not just potential in-laws, but white, liberal in-laws.

So after a horror start, this quickly becomes a comedy of manners - although I was cringing and hiding my eyes through a lot of it. But don't worry horror fans, it gets plenty scary before the end.

I don't really have much to say about this movie, and not just because I'm not spoilering. (It's Stepford Wives times Black.) In a lot of ways, it's a perfect movie, every detail in place. Peele is black Everyman, neither street nor bougie. Williams seems just right for the white GF, not a siren, not a wannabe, just regular folks. Kind of post-racial. I kind of wanted her to be more of a vamp - or a Jean Seberg gamine, irresistable to the African-American male. But I think casting a "girl next door" was a better choice. Of course, I haven't seen her in Girls, so I may be missing some subtext.

In conclusion, I guess this means we should watch Keanu?

No Country for Old Man Logan

When we started watching Logan (2017), we flashed on No Country - all that west Texas desert, but also Dusk to Dawn, especially the TV series. When Logan is crossing the border into Mexico, I was wondering if he was heading for the Twister.

It starts with Logan (Hugh Jackman) passed out drunk in the back of a limo - one that he is driving. It's parked behind a highway filling station, and some gangbangers are stealing the tires. When he complains that they are chipping the chrome off the lugnuts, they start to stomp him. You may be thinking, only 3 or 4 thugs vs the Wolverine - they are in for a world of hurt. And they are, but so is Logan. He is hurting, one of his claws won't extend, and it just isn't fun anymore.

So Logan is driving a hack, hustling money for medicine for Prof X, and dreaming about buying a boat to just sail away from it all. He has Prof X (Patrick Stewart) stashed in Mexico, being looked after by Brain Guy Observer Caliban (Stephen Merchant). Prof is old, and his mind is going. When he has a brainwave, everyone around is paralyzed, unable to breath until he comes out of it. The movie doesn't quite spell it out, but an "incident in Westchester" killed at least 7, probably his mutant students. Also, we keep hearing that there aren't any more mutants around. It's dark days.

A Hispanic woman (Elizabeth Rodriguez) tries to hire Logan to drive her and a little girl to North Dakota. He doesn't like the job, but the money would go to the boat, so... When he goes to pick them up, she's killed by a paramilitary force, and the kid is gone. Back in Mexico, he discovers that the kid has stowed away and the paras are on the trail. That's when we find out about the kid's special Wolveroid powers.

So Logan, Prof X and the kid go on a road trip. This part reminded me a little bit of Midnight Special, a recent indie - two adults who need to get a child with special powers to a place by a date. They stay in a casino hotel and the kid watches Shane with Prof X. They meet up with a decent, salt-of-the-earth black family, and Prof X gets to sleep in a nice bed, and, well, you know how this works out. Not as well as in Shane.

A word about the kid, played by Dafne Keen. She is awesome. Keen, the actress, was actually 11 years old when this was made, and full of everything awesome - attitude, badness, and kickassitivity. She is silent for much of the movie, which just adds to her mystique. If she is the future of the X-Men, good for them.

That future is pretty questionable, because we've seen in Days of Future Past and elsewhere, the future's not what it used to be. But this does seem to be the end of the road for Patrick Stewart as Xavier and Jackman as Wolverine.

This entry in the Marvel Universe was different - full of pain and sadness, aging and finality. There aren't a lot of heroes and villains, since most of the mutants are dead. Nobody wears costumes (except the bad guys, who are in full military drag). It's a serious movie, as well as a comic-book action movie. I don't want this in all of my comic-book movies, but we liked it in this one.

Do You Like Good Music?

Sure, we all do! So check out Stax/Volt Revue: Live in Norway 1967 (1967). This is a great little concert film showing what happens when you get a bunch of great R&B singers together with the greatest backup band and horn section around, and send them to Norway.

It starts with a set for backup band Booker T. and the MGs - Al Jackson on drums, Duck Dunn on bass, Steve Cropper on guitar, Booker T. Jones on Hammon B3, including a super tight "Green Onions". Then, the Mar-Keys come out - two tenors and a trumpet - and treat us to a couple, including "Last Night" - you'd recognize it if you heard it.

The first singer is Arthur Conley, who sings "Sweet Soul Music" - shout outs to the five greatest soul acts in "America" (therefore, the whole world), and two of the five are on the tour. Eddie Floyd is up next, with "Raise Your Hand", not his more famous "Knock on Wood".

Then Sam and Dave come out and tear the place up, from the inexpressibly funky "You Don't Know Like I Know" to "Hold On, I'm Coming". They sweat, shout, growl, dance (we get one shot of the Mar-Keys footwork along with Sam and Dave), and banter with Al Jackson.

Nobody wants to follow Sam and Dave, but if anyone could, it's Otis Redding. He does five numbers, including "Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)" and a cover of the Stones' "Satisfaction".

A must for all music lovers.

Truly, a Great Wall

I watched The Great Wall (2017) because Ms. Spenser was out of town and this was something she didn't care to watch. It worked a lot better than the last time.

It starts with a small band of Europeans trekking to China in the 11th Century, hoping to bring back the explosive black powder. They are attacked by both bandits and monsters, until only two are left, Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal. The next day, they come upon the Great Wall, and are taken captive.

The Wall, in this story, was built to keep out armies and raiders, but also monsters. There is a Nameless Order (great name!) that protects it from these monsters, who attack in swarms. The NO has all kinds of cool tricks, like women with spears rope-dancing down the walls. Although the monsters are CGI, they aren't terrible CGI as I had feared - maybe not great...

So our European heroes are accepted by the NO, mostly because Damon is an expert archer. Now, I believe that it is required in these East-meets-West movies for the Westerner to be a bowman (see The Black Rose with Tyrone Power - my god, Orson Wells was in that!), so this is good. He has also fallen in love with the Jin Tian, the leader of the rope dancers. Meanwhile, his buddy and a westerner who has been stuck in China for a while (Willem Dafoe) are still plotting to get the black powder.

This movie didn't become the blockbuster that the producers hoped for, but I liked it. Director Zhang Yimou didn't get as much of his wild, colorful eye candy in here as I might have liked, but he kept it fun. Now I'm thinking I'll make Ms. Spenser watch it with me.