The Corpse Bride (2005)

I have a definite soft spot for director Tim Burton (if one ignores the exception that proves the rule with his "re-imagining" of 'Planet of the Apes' ) since I usually appreciate his gothic sensibilities.  I found this, his most recent stop-motion puppet film, a full-scale treat, although the thought did pass through my mind that it was hardly a suitable movie for children, which led me to wonder exactly who his proposed audience might be, since not all adults have a high tolerance for whimsy.  The film to a great extent not only celebrates death but drives home the message that it comes to all of us, as the hapless hero, voiced by Johnny Depp, inadvertently betroths himself to a dead Helena Bonham Carter.  The interesting riff is that the world of the dead is a colourful and musical place, whilst the upper world of the living is grisaille.  Apart from Depp who nowadays is an honorary European, the entire voice cast is British, and they all appear to be enjoying this slight diversion.  It's comforts me to know that in this increasingly uniform world that creative sparks still flourish.

Agitator (2001)

The Japanese director Takashi Miike is a true maverick and a prolific one at that.  Since coming on the scene in the early 90s, he has made dozens of feature films and television movies and taken a number of cameo roles in both his and other's films.  Perhaps best known here for the nerve-racking "Audition", he has also made a number of truly weird and outrageous films like "The Happiness of the Katakuris", "Ichi the Killer", and "Gozu".  He is also something of a specialist in Yakuza films and this two and a half hour effort is one of his best, if you can take the relatively slow pace and escalating violence.  The plot concerns the tit-for-tat warfare amongst rival gangs, as the killing of a gang boss unleashes a crescendo of  revenge and counter-revenge.  Seen largely through the eyes of a junior thug whose mentor is eventually murdered, the film examines the concepts of honour (however misbegotten) and duty, wherever these may take one.  While I probably do prefer the director's more OTT offerings, films like this one prove that he is a master of his craft.

The Shanghai Gesture (1941)

I've only seen this film once before -- a long time ago -- and I had fond memories of a baroque folly.  Although it does boast one of the most unusual casts ever assembled and although it is a late hurrah from director Josef von Sternberg (Marlene Dietrich's favourite and the brain behind the amazing "Scarlet Empress"), it was in fact something of a disappointment the second time around.  What we are presented with is a highly stylized and unreal Shanghai filled with larger than life characters who come and go at the gambling den run by Mother Gin Sling.  In the play on which the film was based, it was a brothel and the character's name was Mother Goddam.  She in turn is played by Ona Munson (who was also a madam in "Gone with the Wind") who looks not at all Chinese, but definitely is a most exotic creation.  Others in evidence are Walter Huston, Victor Mature in an early role as an Arab doctor, burly Mike Mazurki as a coolie (!), Eric Blore on crutches,  a silent Maria Ouspenskaya, Albert Basserman, and the positively gorgeous Gene Tierney as the main protagonist -- I finally realised that the poor dear was actually a terrible actress, but my gracious she looked great.  All their dramas are played out on elaborate sets framed by mighty murals which were painted by the Chinese actor Keye Luke (Charlie Chan's Number One Son).  Put all of this together and a curiosity remains, but frankly not a particularly great movie.

Fools' Parade (1971)

Well, we all have our favourite actors (and I possibly have more than most), but James Stewart is right up there in my personal top ten.  I have never known him to be bad in a film even when the film itself is definitely so-so (some drivel with Brigitte Bardot immediately springs to mind) and he certainly had more strings to his bow than his slow-speaking persona implied.  This is one of his later roles and probably not that well-known, but I find it a real charmer.  Stewart has just been freed from jail after serving forty years and with a cheque for his accumulated wages of some 25,000 dollars in his pocket.  Along with his sidekicks, the grizzled character actor Strother Martin and an incredibly young Kurt Russell, he plans to start a new life.  Oh, and he has one glass eye, brown and twice the size of his blue one.  However a venal prison warder, an unlikely part for the usually genial George Kennedy, and his lowlife associates want Stewart's stash.  So there begins a game of chase and cat and mouse until the good guys prevail.  The original UK title for this movie was the mouthful "Dynamite Man from Glory Jail" which will give you some clue as to how dear old Jimmy wins.  Maybe this wasn't one of Stewart's greatest roles, but it sure is a memorable one.

The Wedding Date

I never cease to wonder why certain movies get green-lit despite the idiocy of the central conceit, and this is a good example.  Intended as a break-out role for television sitcom actress Debra Messing, I can't see that this will have furthered her career on the big screen.  OK, it's probably a perfectly acceptable chick-flick for not-too-fussy viewers, but the central concept was completely absurd.  Airline executive Messing must attend her snooty half-sister's wedding in London where her own ex-fiance (who dumped her) is to be best man.  So she hires a very expensive male escort (Dermot Mulroney) to accompany her, to pose as her new true love, and to make the old flame jealous.  As one does!  Of course Mulroney is the creme de la creme of men for hire, not that I would fancy him, and of course despite the odds they fall in love.  Maybe she should have reminded herself that he was a self-described "hooker"; oh well, if the concept can work in reverse for Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman", the people behind these shennanigans probably thought it would play out again.  Perhaps it does for people with short memories or for those not too bothered by dubious screen chemistry. 

Multiple Maniacs (1971)

It's hard to believe that it is now 35 years since director John Waters unleashed his own anarchic brand of sleaze upon the world in this his first film.  Shot in unglorious black and white in his home town of Baltimore with a cast made up of his equally outcast friends (now unfortunately mostly gone through drugs, AIDS, and natural causes), this is hardly great movie-making and feels largely like a home movie gone bad, but I'm sure Waters and his mates had a ball making it.  This film introduced the world to the 300-pound-plus transvestite Divine, literally a larger than life actor, and you ain't seen nothing yet until you see her/him being raped by a twenty-foot lobster!  Divine's presence was crucial in most of the director's mid-period movies and his death, when he was on the verge of succeeding as a straight actor, saddened many film buffs.  Waters has said that this is his favourite amongst his movies, but I suspect this is only because it reminds him of happier times and of friends now no longer available.

Les Espions (1957)

The French director Henri-Georges Clouzot made some classic movies such as "Wages of Fear" and Les Diaboliques" and I therefore had high hopes for this one, expecially after I noted the very international cast which included Peter Ustinov, Curt Jurgens, Sam Jaffe, and Martita Hunt.  The title translates as "Spies" and the plot concerns the director of a run-down clinic who is approached by an American agent to harbour an important scientist for a few days; he agrees to do so, tempted by the huge amount of money proffered, but the word is out and half the spies of Europe descend on the scene.  The fact that the "patient" is but a decoy doesn't end of nonsense of chasing across Europe to protect the real target, but it all ends up back at the clinic with the paranoid feeling that even sane men are insane in the modern world.  I kept watching, hoping for something special, but it was not to be.

What a mixed bunch!

Well that's more accurate than saying what a load of rubbish because it wasn't, but yesterday's viewing was rather weird:

Sergei Eisenstein: I spent much of the day transferring minor works of the great Russian director from VHS to DVD.  He went to Mexico in 1930 to shoot an epic portrait of the country, but the American funds ran out and a Hollywood studio appropriated the footage.  Part of it was used as background material in B-movies until 1940 when parts were edited into an hour-long narrated film called "A Time in the Sun" which is full of brilliant images -- full stop.  In the 1970s the footage was finally returned to Russia and a former colleage edited it into an approximation of Eisenstein's vision called "Que Viva Mexico"  - very much like the shorter film, only longer!  I also looked at what remains of a film the director made in the mid-thirties called "Bezhin Meadow" which he withdrew to re-edit and which was then destroyed completely during World War II.  Now all that is left is a half-hour compilation of stills giving an idea of what might have been.  With so many excellent completed Eisenstein films still available, today's exercise felt very much like the obsessions of a completist!

For very light relief, I then watched three modern efforts which I will touch on very briefly.  First off was "Racing Stripes" (2005) which I guess is one for the kiddies.  It's about a zebra who thinks that he is a racehorse until he learns the truth.  It was full of talking animals, but believe me, it was no "Babe", although it was harmless fun.  This was followed by "Unleashed" (2005) also known as "Danny the Dog" which I'd seen before as an inflight movie; for anyone who likes the speed and agility of Jet Li, it was an invigorating watch, but ultimately marred by his desire to be a great actor as well ,and not just a little on the soppy side as he escapes the cruel treatment of Bob Hoskins for the loving tenderness of blind Morgan Freeman.  Finally I tackled "Seed of Chucky" (2004) the fifth film in the "Child's Play" franchise.  The first three were more or less straight horror movies with diminishing returns, but the fourth "Bride of Chucky" was a hoot and the latest is in the same vein of horror comedy.  Jennifer Tilly returns to the role of voicing the murderous female doll, but also plays an aging actress called Jennifer Tilly.  She may not be the world's greatest player, but she is good value and not afraid to take the mickey, even at her own expense.  And with director John Waters in a cameo role, this was a fine way to end the day back on earth.

A Home at the End of the World (2004)

The very little bit I know about the actor Colin Farrell is that he is a something of a lad and this has been underlined by the roles he has previously played.  Therefore his sensitive characterization in this film came as a revelation: the boy can act!  Based on a novel by a Pulitizer-Prize winning writer, this movie follows twelve years in a young man's life from the late 60s to the early 80s -- probably from about age nine or ten to his early twenties.  Bobby suffers a series of bereavements starting with the accidental death of his beloved elder brother.  After his parents also die, he finds a surrogate family with a high school friend (with whom exploratory sexual encounters begin) and especially with the boy's mother, played by Sissy Spacek.  Eventually he joins his pal in New York where the latter is living with an older hippy woman -- a rather worn-looking Robin Wright Penn (doing another remarkable acting job) and something of a menage a trois begins to form.  At this stage Farrell is playing a virgin which given his image is completely against type -- but totally believably done.  When she becomes pregnant (not that we are sure which of the two are the father) they move to the country and find a meaningful life together, although it is quite clear that Farrell is bisexual and that his friend otherwise inclined.  Further developments include her leaving with the child without knowing when and if she will return, the boys dealing with the death of the friend's father, and the intimation of AIDS on the horizon.  All in all a thoughtful and sensitively done film but in the end more sad than uplifting.

Forgotten Silver (1995)

Long before Peter Jackson wowed the world with his "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and his pet remake of "King Kong", he made this short movie for New Zealand television, back in the days when he was still shooting splatter horror.  It tells the sad story of Kiwi film pioneer Colin McKenzie, who amongst other achievements invented the tracking shot, the close-up, sound movies, and colour photography; he even filmed the first flight some nine months before the Wright Brothers.  The only trouble with this story which is told with a completely straight face and supported by talking heads such as Harvey Weinstein, Leonard Maltin, and Sam Neill, is that it is all a figment of Jackson's warped imagination.  This mockumentary also includes the finding of McKenzie's lost hidden city in the jungle and the discovering of the reels of his major saga, "Salome".  That film was finally edited and restored by the New Zealand Film Commission and screened to an appreciative audience some sixty years later.  Not one word of this is true, but the tale of this genius' lost life and talent is so engaging, that the viewer really wants to believe the fabrications on display.

The Spirit of the Beehive (1973)

This is the third time I have watched this Spanish film which so many people claim to be a masterpiece with deep political undertones.  I am not convinced.  What I will say is that it is a majestically photographed landscape and an eerie insight into a child's imagination, but it is not to my mind any sort of searing indictment of Franco's Spain after the Civil War.  We have an amazing child actress in Ana Torrent (the adult Ana is the lead in the more modern "Tesis"). The story -- such as it is -- is set in the l940s when a travelling cinema brings a showing of "Frankenstein" to the local village.  Ana is fascinated by the Monster and believing her sister's lies, thinks that his spirit lives and can be approached at a nearby farm.  Cue the arrival of an army deserter, and the youngster feels she must provide him with clothes and food -- very reminiscent this of "Whistle Down the Wind".  When he is killed, she can not accept the destruction of her dream world.  And that more or less is it -- beautifully done, but very, very slow.  As for her father's beehives being some sort of metaphor, I think this is reading into the film a message that just doesn't come across.

The Jacket (2005)

The only other John Maybury film I have seen is "Love is the Devil" (in fact I think it might be the director's only other feature film) and I was not overly taken with that Francis Bacon biopic.  I therefore came to this movie with lowered expectations, especially since the reviews I'd read on its release were very definitely so-so; but I found a complex tale which more than held my interest.  It doesn't bear thinking about the logic too hard, but to accept the time-travelling premise and the concept that it is possible to change the future.  The hero is that intense actor Adrien Brody, who is pronounced dead during the first Gulf War, but who has miraculously returned to life, but with big gaps in his memory.  Accused of a crime he did not commit, he is sent to a psychiatric hospital where doctor Kris Kristofferson is trying out some very unorthodox therapy.  This involves putting the subject in a straightjacket and confining him to a morgue cabinet for varying amounts of time.  While incarcerated there, Brody finds that his mind (and body?) is transported to 2007 (fifteen years in the future) where he meets Keira Knightley, whom he had previously met when she was a child, and where he learns of his own imminent death.  Returning to 1992 with the knowledge of things to come, he is able to alter events and may or may not have been able to escape his second death.  This bit is left vague and it is up to the viewer to resolve the possibilities.  A very apt use of music too in this last scene....

Monster-in-law (2005)

Some films probably seem high-concept in the planning stages, but in truth would be better off never having been made.  This, unfortunately, is one of them.  While I know that it is giving away my age (which I'm told ladies never do - ha!), let me admit that I was at school with Jane Fonda and I had a definite interest in seeing her return to the screen after so many years.  Big mistake on her part; perhaps she just should have waited for a better script.  Here she plays a high-powered television executive who has been given the boot for a younger model and she looks forward to finally spending some time with her son.  The son, however (an insipid Michael Vartan) has fallen for the somewhat dubious charms of Jennifer Lopez and purposes -- to Mummy's horror.  So Fonda does all that she can to break them up, just falling short of poisoning her prospective daughter-in-law (she conveniently has food allergies).  It's not that Fonda is bad so much as the fact that she is unable to overcome such an unsympathetic role, expecially since J-Lo is playing all gooey sweet. Moreover there is virtually no chemistry between the two lovers.  Frankly, it's an embarrassment all round, with only Fonda's black sidekick coming across as a likeable and recognizable human being.

Dragons Forever (1988)

Superstar Jackie Chan trained at the Chinese Opera School and his contemporaries there were Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao (the former slightly older, the latter slightly younger); collectively they were known as the Three Brothers and this is the last film that they made together.  It is also one of the best martial arts films ever in terms of the fights -- both those between the three main characters and those between them and the major baddies.  The storyline is perhaps a little on the silly side with Chan playing a lawyer who falls for a witness for the other side and Sammo also falling in love with her aunt; but forget about the contrived plot and focus on the humour and the action.  We all know that Jackie is the master of comic fights but watching him go head to head with American-born Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez, an undefeated karate champion who has appeared in a number of Easterns (if you are not a kung-fu fan think back to the paid killer in "Grosse Pointe Blank"), is a classic.  Worth noting too are the amazing acrobatic agility of Biao and fat Sammo's speed and grace.  All of them are a fine watch on their own, but together: wow! 

The Secret Life of an American Wife (1968)

Walter Matthau is one of those actors that I am happy to watch until the cows come home and even then.  This movie is perhaps one of his lesser known ones, but still good value.  He plays a spoiled and proportedly lascivious movie star, Patrick O'Neal is his press agent, and Anne Jackson plays O'Neals wife who thinks that she is no longer sexually desirable at 34.  Frankly this is the sort of film that they really don't make any longer since today's younger audiences would probably not be enchanted by middle-aged angst (Matthau is playing 5l but claiming 49).  Learning that Matthau pays for a hooker every afternoon, Jackson inveigles herself into his hotel bedroom in the attempt to establish her own appeal.  What transpires thereafter is not necessarily what is expected, but is so charmingly played by her and Matthau that one is sorry not to have more time in their company.

I thought I'd try a new type face, but think better of the old one now.

I'll Sleep When I'm Dead (2003)

Once upon a time director Mike Hodges made a classic British film ("Get Carter") which was concerned with a gangster avenging his brother's death.  Perhaps Hodges was hoping for similar success with this film on the same theme, but one can't always return to past triumphs.  For a start it would take a lot to convince me that Clive Owen, who also starred in Hodges' "Croupier" (a kinda interesting flick) is more than a very wooden presence with his non-charismatic zen-like demeanor and scruffy looks.  Here he plays the elder brother (now retired from criminal life) of petty crook, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who has committed suicide after being raped by Malcolm McDowell.  Ho hum, I'm bored already.  We don't get much in the way of explanations other than that married McDowell didn't like the way Meyers carried himself, and in fact the movie is full of loose ends and unnecessary characters.  The two females in the cast, Charlotte Rampling and Sylvia Sims, have thankless roles, and I never did work out if Rampling was a sister, a mother or an ex-girlfriend of Owen.  The actor who best acquitted himself was Jamie Foreman -- not a name that I know well -- who interestingly is the son of a notorious 60s' gangster.  It felt as if everyone concerned got bored with making this film or perhaps the money just ran out before they could wrap things up.

Cosi Ridevano (1998)

I gather that the title of this Italian film, a winner of the Golden Lion at Venice, translates to "how we laughed", which must be ironic since it is not really a happy tale.  I think the director is getting at the fact that the past is a different place and that our memories of it are coloured to seem better than the facts should allow.  In what is basically a two-hander, this film covers the period between 1958 and 1964 in the lives of two brothers who have come to Turin from Sicily to seek their fortune.  The substantially younger brother has arrived first, since his elder brother wants to ensure that he receives schooling and becomes a teacher.  When the latter eventually follows, it is clear that he is uneducated and unskilled, but that he will do whatever he can to ensure his brother's future.  The movie is frustrating at times since it is in four sections with a sizeable time lag between each of them, and the viewer must work out for himself what has happened in the interim.  For example, after his sixteenth birthday, we learn that the younger one has disappeared off the radar for some six months and it is not until much later that first we and then his brother discover where he has been. The irony is that although the brothers seem to have very little in common and although the younger treats the elder (who against the odds is becoming successful helping other emigrants find work) with some disdain, there is indeed a deep fraternal bond between them which only becomes truly apparent after a murder.  What happens next can only be understood in terms of brotherly love, but believe you me, it is no laughing matter.

Into the Mirror (2003)

Now this Korean film is one very creepy, scary story, unless the idea of your mirror image having a murderous life of its own doesn't frighten you.  The story concerns an ex-cop who has left the force after bringing about his partner's death by shooting the villain's mirror image, who is now head of security at a fashion department store, run by his uncle, which is about to re-open after a fatal fire.  In the days prior, a number of strange deaths occur, all related to mirrors, of employees from before the fire.  Another rival cop begins to investigate, convinced that a serial killer is afoot, but rumour has it that a ghost is the more likely culprit.  While not 100% logical (are horror films ever completely logical), the Korean belief that the mirror image you see may well be another person, expecially if one is killed within a mirror, leads to a truly eerie conclusion.  The movie is stylishly framed which helps a lot towards overlooking the occasional bits that don't really make a lot of sense (unless of course you are Korean).

The Dirty Dozen (1967)

I've written previously how much I dislike most war movies, but I don't think I've ever explained myself.  Apart from the sheer futility and waste of war, most of these films start off by taking a bunch of good guys, the more ethnically diverse the better, and procede to slaughter them one by one.  So what makes this largely watchable movie any better?  Well, for a start you don't have a bunch of "good" guys, but rather a bunch of criminals ranging the the casual to the psychopathic that Lee Marvin must train and turn into a fighting force for a major mission.  Even this premise is not unique since there have been other films with more or less the same theme.  This one succeeds, however, and remains memorable for its well-crafted script, firm direction (even if the movie is way too long), and leavening of humour.  One still has a completely mixed bag of characters -- all that's missing is a one-eyed Chinaman -- but it is the viewer's guess as to which ones (if any) will survive and how hardened criminals will react to this new challenge to obtain amnesty.  In the background we have interesting turns from military brass Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine, and in particular George Kennedy.  If a non-comedic war movie can be something of a romp, this one comes close.

The Fly (1986)

David Cronenberg's remake of the 1958 movie with Vincent Price is one of those rare instances where the original has been improved upon.  Mind you that's if you are able to tolerate the extreme body horror, a theme that has always fascinated the director from his earliest films and which reaches new levels of revulsion for the less stout-hearted here.  As for your scribe, as mentioned previously, I have a high tolerance for the horrors on display as scientist Jeff Goldblum's form begins to change after he accidentally teleports himself in the same pod as a housefly -- one can't be too careful when teleporting! I well remember my first viewing of this movie and was suitably impressed, especially when pregnant girlfriend Geena Davis dreams of giving birth to a huge slug-like creature.  If that sort of thing turns you off, as well it may do, then stick to the original film.  At any rate don't bother at all with the sequels to either movie.

Guess Who (2005)

The hot weather must be frying my brain!  How else to explain the fact that this movie was in no way as dire as I expected; it even had some watchable and mildly amusing bits, mixed in amongst the no-nos.  Apart from the nod in the title, this thankfully was not a remake of the Spencer Tracy/Katharine Hepburn starrer "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" which is just as well since that film has one of the most moving expressions of love (Spencer looking at Hepburn) ever brought to the screen.  What we have here is a reversal of the older film's premise: black family faces the "problem" of their daughter bringing home a white beau, but it is largely played for laughs.  Ashton Kutcher was not quite as stupid as in his usual screen persona ("Butterfly Effect" apart) and Bernie Mac, as the father of the family, is something of an improvement on Cedric the (so-called) Entertainer, but certainly no Tracy.  Whether I would have been as tolerant on a cold wintry day remains to be seen.

Shall We Dance (2004)

Having watched a DVD of the original Japanese film from 1996 not that long ago (it was yet another instance of a film having disappeared into the woodwork on these shores) and having enjoyed it enormously, I didn't hold out much hope for the American re-make with Richard Gere, Jennifer Lopez, and Susan Sarandon in the leads, especially since the first two stars have their annoying moments.  Well I was wrong and it is a more than adequate watch.  It sticks closely to the original without too much soppy sentimentalizing that one might have expected, and is in fact quite good fun.  Much of this is down to comic characters; foremost of these is Stanley Tucci, who is not afraid to make an ass of himself as a drab lawyer who becomes a flamboyant dancer when he wears his wig, but Bobby Cannavale and Omar Miller as Gere's fellow new dance students are good value too.  Gere also manages to prove that he can be a very able actor -- too often he seems to walk through his films -- and even Lopez is in fine fettle here.  That will teach me not to pre-judge remakes before I have seen them, although usually expecting the worst is unfortunately justified.

Way Down East (1920)

It's been a long time since I last viewed this silent classic from director D. W Griffith and I had forgotten just how much comedy light relief was included, with country bumpkins and hick dialect.  At 145 minutes the film would have been a more moving masterpiece (not that it's still not moving) without these scenes, but perhaps audiences of the time needed some respite from the tragedy being played out.  However, since the film was based on a theatrical warhorse, an extravaganza with barnyard frolics, Griffith might have felt the necessity to include these regardless.  The story is well known with our naive heroine played by Lillian Gish (the epitome of silent stars with her soulful eyes and wee rosebud mouth) trapped into a make-believe marriage with the dastardly Lowell Sherman.  He gets bored and leaves her, and the baby that she is carrying dies.  Thrown out of her lodgings because she has no husband, she finds work with a bible-fearing family, and despite the proximity of cad Sherman, she is accepted by them and their son, Richard Barthelmess, who comes to love her.  However local gossips ensure that her past catches up with her and she is driven out into a raging snowstorm.  The final climax of Gish on a breaking ice floe being chased over the ice by Barthelmess is one of the all-time greats and an inspiration for similar scenes in Russian films.  Not for Griffith any studio make-believes (or what nowadays would be handled by CGI) and the cast really played out the scene on a freezing river.  I've seen Gish tell how she lay for hours with her hair in frozen water until Griffith was satisfied with the image.  You wouldn't get that sort of dedication from a star nowadays. 

Valley of the Dolls (1967)

This movie has a really bad reputation, but believe me, it is in fact quite watchable and in its way at times irresistible.  Based on an incredibly popular but trashy novel by Jacqueline Susann, it's a pretty good showcase for its female leads.  (The males in the cast are all largely anonymous).  Barbara Parkins is the classy New Englander who gets involved with a show-biz agent who doesn't believe in marriage.  The lovely but doomed Sharon Tate plays a showgirl who descends to making porn pictures (all very carefully staged) to support her terminally ill husband and Lee Grant plays his bossy sister.  Patty Duke who one associates nowadays with mumsy roles in a thousand television movies has the showiest and most OTT role as a talented singer who becomes her own worse enemy.  Finally we have Susan Haywood (in a role originally intended for Judy Garland) as the aging bitch diva.  Approached with an open mind, it is no less entertaining than other soapy flicks of the period.

Incidentally Ross Meyer's "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" from 1970 is in no way a sequel, but certainly has its own memorable camp charms.

The Devil's Rejects (2005)

Having seen rocker-composer Rob Zombie's directorial debut, "House of 1000 Corpses" a few years back and having thought it a thoroughly amateurish effort to shock, I was very surprised to read the many favourable reviews for the above flick when it was released.  Since I like gore movies as much as the next sicko, I thought I'd better find out what I was missing.  The answer: not a lot.  While possibly Mr. Zombie (I love the sound of that) has learned a little bit about movie-making and scripting, I can only say that while even more repulsive than his first movie, this one doesn't show much improvement.  The story follows on from the first, with the remaining members of the murderous tribe on the run after a police shoot-out and being pursued by an equally brutal sheriff.  The lead villains have no redeeming qualities as they slay and brutalise anyone who crosses their path, but there are no heroes either.  What the film does have going for it to endear it to genre buffs is the appearance of a number of cult actors: as the patriarch of the killers we have Sid Haig out of "Spider Baby" (and his character name like many of the others is lifted from Groucho Marx -- don't ask me what that's about); we also have major roles for Ken Foree from the original "Dawn of the Dead" and Michael Berryman from the original "The Hills Have Eyes". And that is just the start of the amusing cameo roles.  Mr. Zombie is self-evidently a horror afficionado; it's just a shame that he doesn't know how to make a film that does more than horrify. 

13 Rue Madeleine (1947)

In the great tradition of calling a spade a spade and not a bloody shovel, let me say up front that this so-called classic movie is actually pretty boring.  Produced by Louis de Rochemont who specialised in quasi-documentary fiction, it extols the exploits of the O.S.S. in France during the war and focuses on their training under one James Cagney.  Now he is always a delight even in unlikely roles, but there is just not enough of him on screen.  The main focus is in routing out the Nazi spy in their midst, but there is no real suspense here since it is made obvious from nearly square one who the baddie is.  Directed by Henry Hathaway in plodding mode, it is finally Cagney himself who must make the ultimate sacrifice and he goes out with a smile on his lips.  Not exactly rousing stuff.  Blink and you'll miss early appearances from E.G. Marshall, Karl Malden and Red Buttons.  Please don't say "Who?"

The Consequences of Love (2004)

This Italian film had me hooked from the start as I just couldn't see where it was going or why the cold and grey main character exerted such a pull on my curiosity.  The lead  is Toni Servillo, pushing fifty himself, and a relatively recent entry to the rank of actors.  I don't know what he did previously but he could well have been a colourless accountant; here he plays a drab broker who lost a fortune for his bosses, but not by criminal intent, and who has been consigned ever since (for some eight years now) to an elegant hotel where he is effectively a bagman for the mob, taking a weekly suitcase of cash to the bank.  He seems to have no life of his own -- separated from his wife, estranged from his children, having nothing in common with his much younger brother, and surly and uncommunicative with the hotel staff. He passes his time observing the guests and the staff, but backing away from any minimal intimacy until he is challenged by the young barmaid, Olivia Magnani (grand-daughter of the great Anna).  Suddenly everything begins to change for him, but not necessarily for the better, and a final disappointment brings him to the shocking and totally unforseen ending.  What a cool guy this little grey man turned out to be!

Kuroneko (1968)

The Japanese director Kaneto Shindo was born in 1912 and is still active, although probably not that well-known outside his country.  He did, however, in the 1960s make two classic ghost stories, "Onibaba" and this elegant feature.  A mother and her daughter-in-law are raped and murdered by pillaging samurais; they make a pact with evil spirits and turn into vampire black cats sworn to suck the blood of soldiers which they do by night when they can assume human form and seduce wayfarers. Enter the son/husband of the pair who was conscripted three years before and who is now a great warrior encharged with destroying the murderous spirits.  He falls in love with his wife all over again and she dooms herself to hell by returning his love, whilst his mother maintains her pledge to destroy every samurai.  All of this is played out in sparkling black and white cinematography where each frame is beautiful to behold.  At the same time the film does not skimp on its horror elements which are brief but chilling.  This movie is a worthy precursor of the current J-horror boom, but at the same time an arthouse gem worth seeking out.

Return to Glennascaul (1951)

I seldom comment on short films but I am prepared to do so for this Orson Welles curiosity.  Whilst in Ireland making his version of "Othello" which with stopping and starting took him four years (!), Welles agreed to appear in this short feature which was produced by two of his Shakespearian colleagues.  He appears as himself in the bookends of this tale as a driver on a dark and stormy night giving a lift to a motorist whose car has broken down.  The man procedes to tell him about another dark and stormy night when he too had given a ride to two stranded women.  As you may have twigged, this is a ghost story; Glennascaul means valley of the shadows and is the name of the house where he took his passengers and where he had a drink.  When he returned to retrieve his cigarette case, he found the premises uninhabited and derelict, but the case was on the mantle where he left it.  It's a slight and spooky story, well acted and nicely photographed, but it would probably no longer be known were it not for Welles' brief and slightly campy presence.  It was apparently Oscar-nominated as best short feature, but frankly it may well have been a pretty thin year.

A Lady Takes a Chance (1943)

Were it not for the star pairing of John Wayne and Jean Arthur, there would be little to say about this very slender love story, but their chemistry is such that we are left with a totally enjoyable eighty-odd minutes.  She plays a New Yorker on a bus trip out west (all in for $137.50!) partly to see the country and partly to get a break from her three suffocating and unsuitable suitors.  At a rodeo she meets cowboy Wayne who literally falls on top of her -- but she falls too.  The fact that he is something of a lady's man and a specialist in one-night stands doesn't make him any less attractive to her, against her better judgment, and she resolves to get her man despite nearly killing his horse by borrowing its blanket and despite feeding Wayne lamb chops which he doesn't like because he has never tasted them!  It's all kind of on that level, but so nicely played that we accept the unlikelihood of anything ultimately coming between these two charmers.  (Even an obnoxious tour guide played by Sid Silvers -- fortunately briefly -- can't kill the magic of the movies.)

A Cottage on Dartmoor (1930)

It is a rare enough event for a silent to be shown on UK television (and especially one that I have not seen previously) that I mustn't quibble too much, but be thankful for small mercies.  This British silent is either from 1930 or 1929 (depending which reference material you believe) and was apparently originally made as a part-talkie, although the sound discs have now been lost -- so we're back to a silent.  It is an early directorial effort from the vintage UK director, Anthony Asquith, who made one or two classics in his long career (in particular "Way to the Stars") and while possibly under-rated, did make fairly workman-like movies.  I was however impressed with the sophistication of the film techniques on display here, starting with a smooth transition into a flashback, flashbacks in flashbacks, close-ups, and imagined scenarios and conversations.  The story concerns a manicurist wooed by one of her co-workers and one of her clients, and the former's growing jealousy as she becomes fonder of the latter, until he tries to cut her now fiance's throat while shaving him.  He escapes from prison and makes his way to her cottage, her baby and her husband.  What happens thereafter may not make a lot of sense in terms of how people behave, but it was all nicely done.  However there was meant to be a red flash at the denouement (which Hitchcock used in "Spellbound" some fifteen years later), but it was missing on this print, although oddly enough included on the clip from this film shown as part of the "Silent Britain" documentary; weird that.

The other interesting part of this movie was a section that did seem to go on interminably of our heroine on a date at the "talkies", with shots of the orchestra accompanying the silent short before the main feature, women refusing to remove their hats, and the whole business of how feature films can amuse, thrill or scare their audience. On many levels Asquith showed more imagination and film flair here than he did in a number of his subsequent and better-known pictures.

The most recent films

I had one of my typical days yesterday and literally watched a whole bunch of films, but was insufficiently impressed with any of them to discuss them in depth.  So let's do a brief summary:

Mondo Cane (1963): The first of the so-called Mondo films roughly translated as a Dog's Life and claiming to depict various instances of man's inhumanity  I saw it first a lifetime ago and perhaps once a decade subsequently and it gets worse with every viewing, so that it is no longer possible to understand why it was such a world-wide sensation on its release (especially when you realise that much of the footage is either staged or faked).  Its theme song "More" which most people would recognize without knowing its source even had an Oscar nomination. Pretty sleazy stuff.

Crazy Moon (1987): A strange and rather sweet Canadian movie of an ever-so-young Kiefer Sutherland -- a rich eccentric -- falling in love with a deaf young lady.  It's never been broadcast in Britain to the best of my knowledge, but there are far worse flicks out there.

Sky High (2003):  Not the Disney-produced movie from last year but a long and rather leisurely Japanese film from the director of "Versus" and "Azumi".  We have a cop looking for a serial killer who rips out his victims' hearts while they are still alive and the search becomes personal when his fiancee staggers down the aisle heartless on their wedding day.  The movie then gets very metaphysical with murder victims going to the gates of redemption to choose if they want to be reborn in paradise, haunt the world as a ghost, or seek revenge and go to Hell.  There's a lot of business about guardians of the gate, some pretty violent sword fights and the main villain looking to unleash the powers of darkness.  Quite stylish but just a little too slow and muddled, although probably well worth a look.

Team America: World Police (2004):  Finally this tasteless but often hilarious puppet movie from the brains behind "South Park" which I sort of saw on an airplane a while back; if you know the movie, you can just imagine how much it was cut for in-flight viewing. It takes swipes at American imperialism and so-called liberal thinkers and is about as politically incorrect as can be, but unless you are a first-class prig, it is really hard to take offence.  I particularly love the bit where our puppet heroes are attacked by vicious panthers played by black pussycats.  Yeah!

Man of the House (2005)

There are certain intense actors that one is tempted to advise to loosen up and Tommy Lee Jones is one of these, although he did a fine job loosening in the two "Men in Black" flicks.  Maybe he thought this would be another test of his droll comic skills, but he has no one else to blame for this idiotic farce, since he was one of the producers.  The story line is that he is a Texas Ranger who moves in with five nubile cheerleaders who have witnessed a murder and whom he must protect.  Cue a stone-faced Jones coping with teeny-bopper life.  Guess what, he not only learns to unwind a little, but with their help he gets the culprit and manages to reconcile with his own estranged teen-aged daughter and to romance one of their teachers, Anne Archer looking a little too cosmetic surgery enhanced.  Okay it may be harmless fun, but a totally disposable endeavour.  Incidentally, can anyone tell me what is meant to be so funny about Cedric the Entertainer (so-called)?