My Viewing Diary - Not

I had planned to give you details of my viewing in the week or so since I last wrote, but evaluating the 24 (yes, that's right: 24) films I saw during this period, there is not a lot to inspire me to do so.  These were made up as follows:

5 films that I've seen before including one good seasonal television movie "Christmas Eve" (1986) -- a late return to the screen for Loretta Young and a nice weepy conclusion.  Of the others only "Sin City" (2005) kept me enthralled on its second viewing; I still find it a tour de force and a visual feast, despite what all the nasty critics think.

5 other television movies all equally forgetable and only watched "because they were there".

3 animated features new to me: the rotoscoped "A Scanner Darkly" (not my bag) plus "Hoodwinked" and Pixar's "Cars".  Of these it is no surprise that I preferred the last, although not as satisfactory a movie as other Pixar efforts.

4 foreign movies including one horrendously-dubbed Jess Franco abortion (of which the less said the better).  Of the others, "Joyeux Noel" (2005) didn't quite meet expectations despite its very moving middle section (too long and too much padding on either side), "The Score 2" (1999) a follow-up to the first Japanese heist movie with the same cast and suitably violent (just about everyone died brutally), and "Taxi 3" from Luc Besson's French franchise which was definitely a case of diminishing returns.

6 recentish movies including "Babel" (2006) -- interesting, but not the masterpiece that it thinks it is, "Ice Princess" (2005) -- far more entertaining than it had cause to be and an unexpected supporting role for 'Save the Cheerleader' for you "Heroes" buffs,  and "The History Boys" (2006) which started slowly but evolved into a totally satisfactory experience -- well-acted and ultimately emotional.  The other three have already descended into the "why did I waste my time" category.

That leaves one golden oldie which I had not viewed previously, "My Dear Secretary" from 1948, a would-be screwball comedy which was absolutely and totally charmless.  The early Kirk Douglas just couldn't play comedy and the latter one only just managed an acceptable tongue-in-cheek.

So that's it for another year.  With best wishes to all for a wonderful 2008...

Tags: Viewing Diary, 24 Movies, Happy New Year

Two very, very odd movies

A recent article in "Sight and Sound" asked 75 film critics from around the world to nominate films which time has forgotten, hidden gems by and large unknown.  "The Mad Fox" (1962) was one of these and when I noticed that the BFI's season dedicated to Japanese director Tomu Uchida included this movie, I was there -- but ever so disappointed.  Perhaps the fable of a fortune-teller driven mad by murder marrying his dead lover's ringer who is actually a fox in human form was just too esoterically presented with its Kabuki wailing to register with my Western sensibilities or perhaps it was just too late in the day to accept the strange artifice on view.  It reminded me of the similar "Princess Raccoon" but without that movie's charm or visual beauty.

A rather more successful National Film Theatre outing was to see "The Saragossa Manuscript" (1965), a film which has been on my "must see" list for years, and I am delighted that I now have done so.  It is an adaptation of part of a massive Polish novel by Count Jan Potocki which was published in 1813 and is nearly beyond description.  A young Belgian captain in 17th Century Spain wanders through a dreamlike barren landscape and stumbles upon a manuscript at a deserted inn which tells of the exploits of an ancestor.  We begin to relive these through the various characters he encounters, but the movie is a series of Chinese boxes as each character begins to tell his tale leading to the characters introduced each wanting to tell their own tales.  And so it rambles on and on until we eventually come back to what may or may not be current reality.  On the way we mix with enchanting Muslim ladies, gaga aristos, rotting hanging corpses, mystics, and cabalists.  Filmed in magnificent wide-screen black and white with a memorable Penderecki score, I felt as if I had been on some sort of magical drug trip without resorting to foreign substances.  I don't normally choose to see films which are over three hours long -- and on one level I wonder why any film needs to be so extended -- but this one was a wondrous ride.

I'll be back some time before the New Year.  In the meantime, have a happy holiday.. Disappeared...again 

Tags: The Mad Fox, The Saragossa Manuscript, film oddities, where's the link?

Movies on TV This Christmas

As in previous years, I offer my advice (for what it's worth) on the films showing on the box this holiday season.  Of the literally hundreds of movies being screened, it is something of a washout from my point of view, since there are all of five premieres on terrestrial TV that I have not seen.  Actually I shall watch all of these since I have high hopes for at least four of them, starting with "Merry Christmas/Joyeux Noel" tomorrow afternoon.  I have heard some good things about this 'time out of war' film.  The other possibilities are "The Ice Princess" (probably blah) and "The History Boys" on the 28th, "Anything Else" -- another ignored Woody Allen movie -- on 2 January, and "Strings", a promising puppet film, on the morning of 4 January.

The satellite selection is not much better since I have already seen all of Sky's "big" offerings and am left with a total of seven movies that I've not viewed previously over the period.  Since two of these are animated and one is in rotoscope (a process I just can not warm to), that leaves pretty much "A Big Nothing" (one of the possible titles).  What I am actually looking forward to most of all is an offering from German satellite, "Der Rosenkavalier" -- a silent opera from 1926.  The thought of silent opera really grabs me!

Assuming that the rest of you are not quite so demented about movies as I am, I would recommend the following as the best terrestrial premieres over the period -- assuming you've not already seen them or have no desire to do so.  I would start with "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" late evening tomorrow, something of an offbeat romp.  Good family viewing on Christmas Eve afternoon on BBCl can be found with "Ella Enchanted" and "Lemony Snicket's..."  For proper adult viewing, don't miss the Korean shocker "Oldboy" on Channel 4 late evening on the 24th.  Back to recommended family viewing on Christmas Day on BBCl again with the double-bill of "Finding Nemo" and "Shrek 2".  The Russian fantasy "Nightwatch" which I saw a few years back is on Channel 4 late on the 27th.  A change of pace is on offer on BBC2 late on the 29th, with the Brazilian revenge drama "The Three Marias".  A number of the Japanese animations are on over the period, but the best is "Princess Mononoke", again on 4, on the afternoon of the 3lst.  Finally, I truly enjoyed "Finding Neverland" with Johnny Depp as J.M. Barrie, showing on BBC2 on New Year's Day.

I feel duty-bound to warn you that there is some real dross amongst the other premiere showings.  I'm thinking here of embarrassing offerings like "Garfield" and "The Cat in the Hat".  Avoid!

I'll probably post at least once more before Christmas since I have National Film Theatre tickets for a couple of real oddities tonight and tomorrow night, but in the meantime may I wish you all a joyful holiday. 

Tags: Christmas films, recommendations, silent opera

The Page Turner (2006)

This slow but chilling French drama from director Denis Dercourt reminded me of the accomplished psychological films of Chabrol and the developing air of menace was nearly tangible.  The story starts with a 10-year old butcher's daughter who is preparing for her first piano examination.  She has incipient talent but the thoughtless behaviour of one of the judges -- a famed pianist who sign's an autograph for a fan during the girl's performance -- puts her off her stride, and she fails.  She goes home and locks the piano, never to play again, but a grudge is slowly burning.

Flash forward some 10 years and the girl Natalie is now sedate but sexy Deborah Francois.  She takes an internship at a law firm and inveigles herself into the senior partner's home as a temporary nanny; his wife, as we must assume Natalie already knew, is the same famous pianist, but one who is having a crisis of confidence after a serious car accident.  Natalie ingratiates herself into the household looking after their piano-prodigy son and helping his mother, played by Catherine Frot, prepare for an important forthcoming concert by acting as her page turner.  After the concert's success, Frot becomes more and more dependent upon her and is also oddly attracted to her, when Natalie makes minor advances.  However the girl's lust for revenge continues to grow and does not manifest itself in the expected ways; she does not, for example, kill the boy's pet hen, when the audience is led to think that she might.  Instead, the net result of her deeds is to lead to the destruction of Frot's career and marriage and to possibly ruin the musical future of the young boy as well.  None of this is actually spelled out, but we have seen enough to know that her revenge will be devastatingly complete.

Tags: Page Turner, revenge

The Holiday (2006)

This romantic comedy is so inoffensively pleasant that it is an easy watch despite any skepticism that the viewer may bring to the table.  Two ladies disappointed in love -- Cameron Diaz, a successful movie trailer exec in L.A., and Kate Winslet, a successful newspaper writer in London -- decide to exchange homes for the Christmas holiday period, hoping that a change of scenery will be the cure for their male-induced blues.  So Diaz ends up in a simple countrified cottage (as Yanks probably assume we all reside in) and Winslet ends up in a high-tech mansion (as of course we believe all Americans possess!) where each in turn finds a new love.  Diaz's is in the handsome form of Jude Law, playing rather less egocentrically than in some of his other roles, and Winslet's in the unlikely chubby and droll form of Jack Black.  Rather more time is devoted to the Diaz-Law duo and their chemistry is believably good, even if their roles are not much of a stretch for either of them.  The growing attraction between Winslet and Black gets less screen time and in fact seems less likely, especially since he has a ditsy girlfriend still in the picture, but both characters are extremely likeable.

The most interesting part of the story is the relationship between Winslet and her new elderly neighbour, Eli Wallach, playing a famous screenwriter of yore, full of tales of Hollywood's golden years.  She encourages him to accept an invitation to a tribute evening which he just could not face without her help.  This part of the movie was very touching and I must confess that the film was generally well-written and the various characters well-rounded.  It still remains something of a chick-flick, but it is none the worse for that and I was surprised to react as positively as I did.  Not all movies are great cinema, but some are pretty good entertainment.

Tags: The Holiday, chick-flicks

Pretty Poison (1968)

What makes a cult movie?  Certainly not just being well-liked or popular, but being less well-known than it deserves to be and being cherishable for probably all the wrong reasons.  This little gem did virtually no business on its minimal release way back when, garnered a smallish following on the box, and only recently has come to DVD.  It's a sharp little tale of fanciful thinking and mayhem and offers perfect roles for its two leads, Tuesday Weld at 25 playing a 17-year old high school senior and Anthony Perkins at 36 -- but looking far, far younger -- playing a young, disturbed man of indeterminate age.  Some eight years after "Psycho", Perkins is back in the role of 'The Nutter' which will haunt him for the rest of his career.

Having recently been released from an institution where he has been for many years after an arson attack as a teenager, he takes work in the small Massachusetts town where lissome Weld catches his eye.  Being something of a fantasist, he suggests to her that he is really an undercover CIA agent and she willingly joins him in his fantasy life.  When he is dismissed from his job at the local lumber mill, he turns to sabotage with her assistance, during which she blithely kills the night watchman and lifts his gun.  She promptly uses it to rid herself of her overbearing mother and assumes that Perkins will arrange the cover-up and will whirl her away into a realm of excitement.  Instead, he is left facing the blame on his own, while Miss Innocence looks for her next bit of male escape.  Perkins may be not quite the model citizen, but she is in fact the incipient psychopath.  It's all rather grippingly done and amongst both actors' best roles.  There was a time when I thought the young Perkins was charismatically gorgeous -- if not quite in the Tyrone Power class -- but I now realise that what I thought to be male beauty was really rather callow youth.  Oh well, some of us grow up eventually, but I still do reckon this film.

Tags: Pretty Poison, Anthony Perkins, Tuesday Weld, cult movies

Two very recent flicks

As luck would have it, I've viewed two very new releases within the past few days -- "Enchanted" and "The Golden Compass", however, it is a 'no contest' to tell you which I preferred.

"Enchanted" as the name would have it is a totally enchanting movie from Disney which draws on the Disney heritage, but with a post-modern spin.  Our cartoon heroine from the old-fashioned, hand-drawn opening section is banished by wicked stepmother Susan Sarandon and finds herself adrift in New York City; as embodied by Amy Adams in a totally inappropriate bouffy dress, her naive and childish approach to life does not prepare her for the real world -- but cope she does, and brilliantly.  This is not just or not even a story for kiddies, but a hip take on fairy tale conventions which should please even the sourest of adults with its clever updatings.  Here she meets cynical lawyer Patrick Dempsey who ultimately finds her as irresistible as the rest of us, while her fairy-tale prince, handsome but extremely dim James Marsen, has followed her to this alternate world to 'save' her.  The film is awash with Disney references for the film buff, but more importantly embodies a truly feel-good aura for the general viewer.  Very, very highly recommended.

I have not read the trilogy on which "The Golden Compass" (the first of the three) is based, although I now think it is incumbent upon me to do so, despite being somewhat disappointed with this first cinema effort.  A lot of money seems to have been thrown at the screen with frankly variable results -- there just doesn't seem to be the air of wonderment appropriate for the tale.  Existing in a parallel world to ours, the young heroine travels afield when one of her playmates is captured by the wicked child grabbers who aim to destroy their daemons (their accompanying animal spirits).  She travels North to the land ruled by CGI bears (they have a wonderful way of galumping along) for a section which sags badly and which seems to go on forever, before the picture grinds to a halt to make way for the next installment.  There is a horrible Darth Vader moment when her true parentage is revealed, but that too seems something of an anti-climax.  With Daniel Craig and Eva Green and Nicole Kidman in attendance, one did hope for something a little better and more involving and definitely something rather more magical   

Tags: Enchanted, The Golden Compass, Disney Magic, Pullman non-Magic

Red Angel (1966)

If you have been paying attention, you will know by now that war movies are just about my least favourite genre.  You know the drill, take a bunch of loveable guys and kill them one at a time.  However, I was completely blown away by this no-holds-barred Japanese film which is one of the most brutal films I've ever seen.  Set in 1939 during the Sino-Japanese war, it follows the story of nurse Sakura Nishi, played by hauntingly beautiful Ayako Wakao, as she moves between an army rehab hospital and a bloody field hospital, and let me tell you  now, this movie is no M*A*S*H.  None of the horrors of war is skimped upon nor the traumas of those involved.  Sakura is raped by patients who consider her no better than a "comfort woman" and a witness to the casual hacking off of arms and legs to purportedly save lives -- all graphically rendered.  She takes pity on an armless patient who is unable to relieve his sexual urges and who, 'though married, knows he will never be allowed to go home, since letting the public see his condition would imply that Japan is losing the battle; her attempt on a single day trip with him away from the hospital to let him regain his self-respect as a man is wincingly graphic.

She also falls in love with an older doctor at the field hospital who relies on morphine as a solace for the abuse of his surgeon's skills and for his own impotency.  Their relationship is amazingly tough, yet tender, as the mutilated bodies pile up and as an outbreak of cholera further decimates the ranks.  Her name translates as 'Cherry Blossom' and he comments that it is impossible to imagine anyone other than  a young woman with such a symbolic name.  Even if she survives the inevitable carnage, she is bound to be an old soul after all that she has experienced.

The director, Yasuzo Masamura, although very prolific, is not one of the Japanese masters well-known in the West.  He was also responsible for the oddball "Blind Beast" that dazzled me a few months back, and after this film, I do feel obliged to seek out more movies from his singular vision.

I shall be away until the end of the week -- but I shall be back before you know it!  See you then...

Tags: Red Angel, Japanese film, war horrors

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006)

I understand that this German-made, English-language film did virtually no business Stateside and more's the pity.  Based on Patrick Suskind's 1985 novel and long considered unfilmable, I think director Tom Tykwer and his crew made a bold attempt to turn the book into cinema.  The major problem was how to convey the sense of smell into visual images without resorting to gimmicks like Odorama or Smell-o-vision.  But if you think about it, the author would have faced the same problem with the written word.

The story concerns one Jean-Baptiste Grenouille born into squalour beneath a fish stall in l8th Century Paris and blessed (or cursed) with an overly developed olfactory sense.  Throughout his miserable early life he mentally catalogs the smell of everything around him and becomes obsessed with being able to capture the transitory sensations into more lasting ones.  He apprentices himself to a master but past-it perfumier, played by Dustin Hoffman (in one of his less objectional incarnations, although still probably a bit OTT), who rapidly becomes aware of Grenouille's amazing talents and who looks to profit from them.  Having learned all he can from Hoffman, he plans to travel to the perfume centre at Grasse and along the way discovers that he himself has no discernible odour.  After a chance encounter with a comely market wench, he strives to bottle the essence of beauty and virtue into one undescribable odour -- hence the killings that follow and the very, very strange ending of the tale.

I think this is one instance where knowledge of the book is advantageous to the viewer (although like all adaptations, much is of necessity omitted).  The movie relies heavily on John Hurt's voiceover narration at the start, although this is far from intrusive, to carry the tale along -- but the images and the music do give one a strange sense of actually being able to smell things as Grenouille does.  Young Ben Whishaw who takes the lead is very, very good at portraying the strange, obsessed anti-hero.  He is nowhere near as hideous as he is described in the novel, but perhaps this is just as well for a character who is almost never off-screen and constantly in our view.  Something of a successful adaptation I think, but one which is obviously struggling to find its audience.

Tags: Perfume, Ben Whishaw, Dustin Hoffman, obsession

Casino Royale (2006)

You probably recall the fuss when it was announced that Daniel Craig would be the next Bond, with opinion veering towards the negative.  Then when the above film proved so successful and Craig was signed for umpteen further outings, the casting decision seems to have been justified.  I am not so sure.  I acknowledge that Craig has proved his acting chops in various roles and he makes a fine action hero here; however I can not bring myself to embrace him as the definitive Bond.  He just seems too much of a ruffian or thug to fit in with previous Bonds; granted that the character is at heart a cold and calculating customer, previous incarnations have overlaid this with a suave exterior.

My other problem with this movie is with its position within the series.  While the moviegoer has accepted the changing lead, I don't think we were ever asked to believe that Bond had only just received his 007 status.  It's been too long since I read the novel on which this is based to remember if it was the first in the series and if in fact Bond had only just become a licensed killer, but the film does not feel like any sort of prequel since the setting appears more or less contemporary.  I think the viewer brings too much baggage to the table to accept a completely different lead personality.

That said, Craig's is certainly a very modern and brutal take on the role and forgoes the usual corny quips.  However the one bit that did make me smile was when he is asked if he would like his martini shaken or stirred and he replies, "do I look as if I care" or words to that effect.  Eva Green made an acceptable heroine and we were allowed to see Bond's inner softy in their relationship.  Very 2006 I'm sure, but not the Bond we all know so well.  Finally I thought that the villain as played by Mads Mikkelsen was one of the least memorable of the series, but perhaps this is all part of giving us a Bond for our times.

Tags: Casino Royale, Daniel Craig, James Bond

Octane (2003)

I saw this film originally at a FrightFest some four years ago and recall not being terribly taken with it.  However, since I am aware that I can suffer from horror-overload on such occasions, I thought it was worth another try.  Sad to say, I was even less impressed this time around.  The makers had some interesting ideas, but seemed incapable of putting these into any semblance of sense or order.

The basic concept is promising: An over-stressed divorced mother played feistily by Madeleine Stowe is driving her 15-year old daughter home from a weekend with her father -- a six hour journey (taken for some reason in what appears to be the dead of the night).  The daughter is played by actress/model/girl-about-town Mischa Barton, so very good in "Lawn Dogs" (1997) when she was only eleven.  After a stroppy argument,  Stowe faces every parent's worst nightmare when Barton storms off at a rest-stop and seems to disappear, even if the mother thinks she has seen her get into an RV with some other young people.  What the director and writer manage to get across is the creepy eerieness of the people who can be found late at night at such places (as if they had nowhere else to go), but they take it too far by having virtually the entire cast involved in a conspiracy to steal bodies for their blood, making Stowe seem like the worst sort of paranoiac when she finally meets a real police officer.  News: the world is not really inhabited only by vampires or followers of a blood cult.  Their charismatic leader is played by ever-so-pretty Jonathan Rhys Meyers, whose fondling of Barton comes across more like child abuse than horror.  In fact, the more I think about this movie, the less sense it all makes and even the "kicker" in the end shot seems stupidly meaningless.

Tags: Octane, FrightFest, Madeleine Stowe, Mischa Barton, Jonathan Rhys Meyers

Rasputin and the Empress (1932)

The Barrymores have been a major theatrical family for generations, but when I think about them, I normally think of siblings John, Ethel, and Lionel.  This is the only film in which they appear together (in fact it was Ethel's screen debut), so more's the pity that it is something of an over-stuffed mess.  (The fact that the print that I was watching was pretty poor didn't help either.)  As my favourite critic, Pauline Kael, wrote, it's as if the three of them were acting in three different rooms.

No need to mention the well-known tale, which follows the Czar's family through their murder.  What is potentially interesting here is the casting.  While normally the showiest of the three, John takes the lesser role as the courtier who is trying to rid the family of the mad monk.  However, in his long film career, John was never less than watchable, even in his final alcoholic years when he was probably reading off cue cards.  The sinister role of Rasputin went to brother Lionel and he shakes it like a dog with a bone, hamming it up with relish.  He was seldom given such meaty parts, especially when he spent the last ten years or so of his career in a wheelchair -- although he is a pretty mean villain in "It's a Wonderful Life".  Sister Ethel is somewhat disposable in the role of the Czarina; some of her later film appearances -- there were not that many -- were more memorable, especially as Cary Grant's Cockney mum in "None by the Lonely Heart" (1944) -- a strange bit of casting for both of them.

Oddly enough I also saw Lionel a few days ago in the silent film "The Bells" (1926) -- based on an old war-horse of a play, where again his was the barn-storming villainous role; getting into financial trouble and wanting to protect his family, he murders a rich travelling merchant, but is then haunted by what he has done -- the sound of bells, which is an interesting touch for a so-called silent.  However in this movie, the more memorable performance was given by Boris Karloff in his pre-horror days as a threatening "mesmerist" who tries to expose murderous Lionel, nearly acting him off the screen.

Tags: Raputin and the Empress, The Barrymores, The Bells

The Guardian (2006)

One of the very first films I reviewed when I started blogging was Kevin Costner's "Open Range" (2003) which from memory I wrote that Costner was nearly very good in a well-thought out movie, since his early appeal has always been something of a mystery to me.  The only one of his films that I truly enjoyed was "Field of Dreams" way back when.  He has always had a touch of the Kirk Douglases about his movie persona with a strong "look at manly me" conceit.  However in this film he was not only at long last playing his age, but his heroics did not seem completely phoney.

He plays a Coast Guard rescue swimmer, past the usual retirement age, who loses a close associate in a disastrous rescue and who is also badly injured.  Refusing to retire, but unable to continue this work in the short term, he agrees to be the chief coach at the l8-week course for new recruits.  His hard-ass approach is unconventional, dismissing some of his charges within the first day, but he whittles the youngsters down to a well-qualified, gung-ho group.  Foremost amongst the trainees is Ashton Kutcher.  Again, as I have written previously, his early appearances in movies left me very cold to say nothing about his Demi Moore attachment, but after "The Butterfly Effect", I realised the boy can act, despite appearing in some disposable garbage in the meantime.  He is very good here as the overly confident ex-champion swimmer whose past holds the secret of why he has chosen his new career.  Between them,the two actors kept me watching what turned out to be an exhausting, overlong action movie, but the growing affection between the two leads made for a memorable climax -- even if it did end up again mythologizing Costner.

Parenthetically here, let me add that I also "saw" Kutcher in his voice-only role in the animation "Open Season" (2006) a few days ago.  While I normally have a soft spot for animated movies, too many of the recent ones try too hard, to the extent that they lose their charm.  In this one Kutcher voiced a one-antlered deer and I can confidentally state that it is the first time I have ever been asked to watch a cartoon animal poop!  Thank you but no thank you.

Tags: The Guardian, Kevin Costner, Ashton Kutcher

Kings and Queen (2004)

OK, I admit it; I do occasionally nod off when watching films.  How else to explain the occasions when I end up seeing a movie where certain plot points and the actors seem vaguely familiar, but where I am convinced that the film is new to me.  Such was the case with this French film which I eventually worked out I had supposedly watched about a year and a half ago.  (Being something of a compulsive, I do keep various lists of what I have viewed -- but these are in more than one category and not necessarily alphabetical -- so I do find myself from time to time in the aforementioned puzzled state.)

So why else did I not remember it?  Probably because it was not overly memorable or gripping.  Like so many French films it was something of a slice of life with two main characters: a single mother who has gone to visit her ailing father and a slightly scatty violinist who has been detained at a mental hospital by the petition of a "third party".  We are halfway through the movie before we are let in on the information that Ishmael was Nora's second "husband".  She has not actually ever been married, having petitioned the courts to "marry" her child's father after his death so that the boy can bear his name.  Now she is about to actually wed a rich man who doesn't connect with the child and she wants Ishmael to adopt him, since they always got along well -- being something of a childish personality himself.

That's about it, apart from the incidental information that Nora was probably responsible for her first lover's "suicide" and the fact that she almost certainly killed her father to ease his suffering.  So she's not a particularly nice person and it was more than a little difficult to empathise with such a selfish soul.  The actress playing the part was Emmanuelle Devos and people kept telling her how gorgeous she was -- which she wasn't to my eyes.  Mathieu Amalric playing Ishmael was by far the more interesting character, but not enough to sustain one's affections or attention.  Catherine Deneuve had a small role as the hospital psychiatrist and added almost nothing to the experience.  I think I'm unlikely to have to face this film a third time.

Tags: Kings and Queens, unmemorable movies

Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959)

This is one movie that certainly bears re-watching, but not too frequently.  An Edinburgh professor, James Mason -- with his distinctive voice which I could listen to reciting the telephone directory -- forms an expedition to follow certain clues and travel to the earth's core (which fortunately is not the ball of fire that it undoubtedly actually is).  His party consists of his student Pat Boone -- there was an unfortunate trend at about this time to cast popular singers in leading roles (and thinking about it, this trend still continues), Arlene Dahl as the comely widow of his murdered rival who insists upon accompanying him in memory of her husband, arguing that she is the only one who can communicate with Icelandic Hunk, Peter Ronson, and the hunk's duck!  Yes, you read that correctly, his pet duck is called Gertrude.

Filled with imaginative design including a selection of prehistoric monsters and graced with a literate script and a magnificent Bernard Herrmann score, this is the kind of family treat which deserves to live on to charm new audiences.  It's probably a little leisurely in its exposition and a little self-indulgent in granting Boone the occasional song ("Jules Verne the Musical"?), but still a fun watch with a truly hissable villain.  Yes, they still do make them like this -- just not often enough.  Certainly the TV remake with Treat Williams in the James Mason role is not really in the same league. 

Tags: Journey to the Center of the Earth, James Mason, Pat Boone

Exiles (2004)

Here's another road movie in French and Arabic, but less involving and more puzzling than "Le Grand Voyage" below.  A pair of free-spirited lovers played by Romain Duris as Zano, the grandson of a French family thrown out of Algeria during a period of political unrest, and Lubna Azabel as Naima, the daughter of an Algerian father who has not passed on his heritage, language, or religion, decide as a whim to travel from France to Algeria.  "Travel" in this instance is not anything as straightforward as booking a flight, but a combination of fare-dodging on trains, stowing away on a ship (which it turns out is headed for Morocco rather than Algeria), and mainly what I call "Shanks Pony", i.e. on foot.  They have neither a map nor sufficient funds, but eventually make their way through Spain -- taking some casual work en route -- and across the closed border between Morocco and Algeria.  I was puzzled by a number of shots which showed them walking against the crowd -- but perhaps this was meant to be symbolic or something.

Naima is a free spirit and is totally unprudish about displaying her body or demanding sex (not always with boyfriend Zano either), and is promptly told off in Algiers for her immodest dress.  Her attempt to cover up demurely lasts about fifteen minutes and the matter is then dropped.  Zano visits his family's old apartment which (very unlikely) is still full of his family's effects and photos and, in the final minutes of the film, his grandfather's grave. Naima who is portrayed as totally rootless is told by an old biddy that she is cursed and that she must ground herself;  she and Zano then take part in what I can only describe as a musical exorcism ceremony where they engage in frantic origastic dancing.  This scene seemed to go on f-o-r-e-v-e-r and I was none the wiser afterwards as to what it represented.  The music, however, was fascinating as were some earlier gypsy and flamenco interlundes, but the film itself didn't convince me that either one of them had found the cure for their malaise.

Tags: Exiles, Algeria

French history lessons

I finally got around to viewing Sofia Coppola's weird "Marie Antoinette (2006) and while it was lovely to look at it was ever-so-slow and overstretched into its two hour running time.  Kirsten Dunst plays Marie as a shopaholic Valley Girl who manages to grow -- we are led to believe -- into a regal role.  I thought she was marginally too old to play the young Dauphine, but then again this casting was a probable improvement on 36-year old Norma Shearer in the classic MGM 1938 version.  (Mind you being married to the studio production chief enabled her to play the youthful Juliet two years earlier).  As her sexually-disinterested husband, Jason Schwartzman (a fine example of nepotistic casting  since he is Coppola's first cousin) was not a patch on Robert Morley in the earlier movie and said his lines as if he was reading from a teleprompter.  In a high profile cast, only Rip Torn as the dissolute old king and Asia Argento as his mistress Madame DuBarry breathed any life into the decorative but somehow tedious proceedings.

Also within the last day or so I rewatched "Conquest" (1937), known in Britain as the less meaningful and more unpronounceable "Marie Walewska" which was the name of Greta Garbo's character, a Polish noblewoman married to an elderly gentleman who is encouraged to sacrifice her honour to Napoleon's lust in a bid to save Poland.  Her husband annuls their marriage and she becomes the Emperor's mistress; when she finds that she is pregnant and about to break the news, he announces that he must marry a royal princess to establish his dynasty.  So Garbo nobly and silently withdraws from the scene for many years.  Napoleon here is played by Charles Boyer or rather he amazingly inhabits the role of the bumptious upstart, prepared to sacrifice everything and anything for his continued (but doomed) conquest of Europe.  This was one of MGM's most prestigious and expensive productions, but frankly it feels overstuffed and airless, and even the gorgeous Garbo seems subdued.  But with a supporting cast numbering (among others) Reginald Owen (see his Scrooge below), Henry Stephenson, Dame May Whitty, and the always memorable Maria Ouspenskaya, I'll take this film over Coppola's ornate romp any time.

Tags: Marie Antoinette, Kirsten Dunst, Norma Shearer, Conquest, Garbo, Charles Boyer

Le Grand Voyage (2004)

This French-Moroccan production is something of an oddity and unlikely to be to all tastes in the current political climate, but it is certainly a strange sort of road movie.  The character only billed as "The Father" is a Moroccan Arab who has lived in France for some thirty years without noticeably assimilating.  His second son Reda, however, feels more French than Arab or Muslim.  When his father decides that he is getting on and must make the pilgrimage to Mecca before he dies, Reda is obliged to put his own life on hold and to drive his father the 3000-odd miles each way, after his elder brother loses his driving license.

That he is reluctant to do so is only the start of the problem since there are so may gaps between the pair -- language, generation, and belief.  The strain between them worsens when Reda discovers that his father has binned his mobile telephone some 200 miles back -- his only link to his non-Muslim girlfriend.  When he asks why his father could not fly to Mecca like everyone else, he gets a philosophical reply that the more difficult the journey, the more meaningful it is.  So we follow the pair across Italy, Croatia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria, and Jordan with no time allowed for any sightseeing en route.  What we do get are scenes of their being lost because the father who can not read maps insists that certain roads be taken, having their back seat occupied by first a peasant woman with whom they can not communicate and then a supposedly helpful Turk who steals their money (or not, as it happens), finding themselves literally snowed in when they spend the night in their car in the mountains, and their hand-to-mouth travels and travails on the road.

At least once Reda storms off in disgust since he is unable to communicate with his father or to understand his dogged insistance that they reach Mecca, but ultimately they do for their eight-night Haj.  When the father does not return at the end of the first day to their campsite outside the city. a frantic Reda goes in search of him among the throngs of pilgrims. (The actual views of the shrine at Mecca and the hordes of believers is quite staggering).  He is unable to find him and becomes more and more hysterical, until security guards take him to a vault full of shrouded corpses...   It's a heartwrenching finale to the reluctant youth's journey into manhood.

Ping ping ping
Tags: Le Grand Voyage, road movie, Mecca, ping problem

The Moon is Down (1943)

During the Second World War, the Hollywood studios produced a number of morale-boosting movies and this is one of the most moving of the "resistance" sub genre.  I also really like "This Land is Mine" of the same year, but that was more of a prestige production, directed by Jean Renoir in exile and with a heavy-hitting cast, led by the superlative Charles Laughton as a coward forced to take a stand.  The film here has rather less exalted credentials, although based on a John Steinbeck novel from the previous year, but it states its case with great aplomb.

A Norwegian village has been taken over by the Nazis because of its strategic coal mine, with the inhabitants unable to put up any meaningful initial resistance.  However this starts a silent war between the resentful townspeople and their invaders.  The two sides are embodied by the ever-so civilized commander, played by Sir Cedric Hardwicke, and the simple yet clever mayor, played by Henry Travers (everyone's favourite angel Clarence from "It's a Wonderful Life").  They maintain a surface politeness, but each knows that the other side will never completely give in.  As acts of sabotage increase and as the Germans retaliate with more and more executions, even the lives of Travers and the town doctor, Lee J. Cobb, are insufficient motivation for their friends to stop their resistance -- and both are prepared to die for what they know will be an ultimate victory.  Part of the film's strength is that most of the actors are little-known, but the belief in their humanity and goodness is visible in each anonymous face.  When they raise their voices as one in a patriotic song, you can tell (through your tears, if you are like me) that they will prevail. 

Ping problem!!! In spades!
Tags: The Moon is Down, Henry Travers, Cedric Hardwicke, come back soon

A Christmas Carol (1938)

This tale has been filmed so many times -- and opinion seems to vary wildly as to who is the definitive Scrooge -- but this is, as far as I know, the first talkie version -- an A-list production by a major Hollywood studio with something of a B-list cast.  Before I go any further I shall stake my claim that Alastair Sim in 1951's "Scrooge" (just to confuse matters, called "A Christmas Carol" in the States) nails the role perfectly, with the right combination of humbug eventually morphing to humanity.  I know that some people feel that George C. Scott in the 1984 production is superior (no way, Jose) and goodness knows there have been all manner of riffs on the subject since -- female Scrooge, black Scrooge, black female Scrooge, musical Scrooge, ad nauseum.

This early black and white production is hardly faithful to the novel with various minor changes, but it is still a totally satisfying endeavour.  Scrooge is played here by character actor Reginal Owen, a frequent face in dozens of 30s movies, but almost never as a lead.  His lean and stooping frame is perfect for the part and he certainly makes a brave effort.  Gene Lockhart in the role of Bob Cratchitt is far too plump to be believable, but he too seems to welcome a meatier role.  The rest of the cast is relatively minor, although there are early parts for Leo G. Carroll as Marley's Ghost and a very young Ann Rutherford also puts in an appearance.  While this movie will never supplant the 1951 version in my affections, it is a totally acceptable contribution to one's Christmas viewing.  Owen's conversion may appear far too abrupt, but the viewer is still left with the necessary seasonal glow.

Ping again!
Tags: A Christmas Carol, Alastair Sim, Reginald Owen, disappearance

The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

Since I had previously read the novel of the same name on which this film was based -- typically disposable light reading -- I didn't come to this movie with particularly great expectations.  The book was written by an erstwhile lackey of  Vogue's fashionista Anna Wintour and the author's venom managed to leak over each page;  her story is of an ambitious and talented young graduate (based of course on herself), who forsees a brilliant intellectual future, having to subject herself to the whims of an autocratic editor of a high-fashion magazine -- the relevant roles taken here by Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep. Now just about any non-anorexic young actress could have played the Hathaway role and I guess she did a reasonable job of the serious soul being seduced by the surface glamour and the demands of the job.  What in fact saved the movie from being totally pedestrian was the casting of Streep, who makes the editor a far less one-dimensional monster than the same character in the book.  As I have written previously, perhaps I am softening with the years; while Streep used to annoy the hell out of me with her "actorly" skills, I now find that I am able to admire her total immersion into a part.  One could read her "monster" here as a woman whose determination hid a core intelligence and a masked, yet tangible, vulnerability.

Some praise is also due to Stanley Tucci playing the magazine's fashion director and Hathaway's quasi-mentor who dominated his every scene with his sly humour.  Also, Emily Blunt in her first major American role as Streep's hungry (in every sense) first assistant did a great job in projecting her neediness and determination.  With all these interesting characters, it's a pity in a way that it was Hathaway's about which we were meant to care most.

Tags: The Devil Wears Prada, Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci, Emily Blunt

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005)

I knew that this German film had been Oscar-nominated (without winning) and  that it was about a student resistance group in Germany during the middle years of World War II, but I was not prepared for the gut-wrenching experience it was as it traced the last six days in the life of a young woman.  Sophie Scholl, vividly brought to life by actress Julia Jentsch, and her brother were members of a group called the White Rose who aimed to foster anti-war sentiments in the hope that this would bring a quicker end to the slaughter.  When they are caught distributing their manifesto at their University, their struggle came to an abrupt end with their arrest, interrogation, kangaroo-court trial, and execution, all within a few days.  The claustrophobic atmosphere was nearly overwhelming. 

At first Sophie denied all involvement in an attempt to protect her brother, but when she was shown his signed confession, she proudly acknowledged what she had done and what she believed, without further implicating any of her friends.  At her so-called trial where she had hoped her beliefs would be heard by the public, the courtroom was filled with Nazi officers and the pompous judge in no way allowed a fair hearing.  She could only counter with the words that he might soon be standing in the same dock.  When convicted, she expected the usual 99 days before the sentence was carried out, but she, her brother, and a married friend with a young family were rushed into a hurried and undignified execution.  What was most moving about this reconstruction of a real-life heroine's attempt to make the world a better place was the clear indication that here was a young woman who really loved life and who deserved so much more.  The scene as she feels the sunlight on her face for the last time as she is dragged to her hasty end was unbearably moving.

Tags: Sophie Scholl, Julia Jentsch

Simon Says (2006)

I watched an interesting documentary a few days ago titled "Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film" which took a semi-serious approach to this horror sub-genre starting with the original "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th" and tracing its development throughout the 80s when every conceivable holiday was milked for an excuse to slaughter more promiscuous teens.  Slasher movies are still very much with us and even the recidivist "Scream" did not kill them off.  Mind you, they haven't improved too much over the years, and the only appeal to a dyed-in-the-wool horror buff like myself is for new and innovative ways of killing to be introduced,  This would possibly explain the popularity of the (progressingly worse) "Saw" series.

The only other thing that can delight me nowadays is having a truly iconic actor in the boogeyman role, which is what one has here with creepy Crispin Glover.  He plays redneck twins who have slaughtered their parents (and eventually the one kills the other) who get their kicks from the usual wheeze of disposing of nubile young ladies, muscular young men, and all potheads.  Glover has been such a noticeable actor since he came to the fore playing Michael J. Fox's dad in the first "Back to the Future" film (he is actually three years younger). In subsequent movies his parts may not have been large, except in the icky remake of "Willard", but his is a face you remember with shivers.  This particular movie is no great shakes with its disposable cast, but it is a somewhat affectionate throwback to earlier movies and does have some inventive deaths by flying pickaxes!  It also proves the convention that a true boogeyman is indestructable when the nominal 'heroine' does not quite manage to kill him and is saved for an amusing coda at the film's end (which I won't reveal here).

So, am I praising this movie?  Not really, but it has its moments and anything featuring Glover is bound to please a horror fan, even if he is probably so far over the top here as could be.  I do love the fact that his full birth name is Crispin Hellion Glover.

Tags: Simon Says, slasher movies, Crispin Glover

East is East (1999)

If there is anything more annoying than having a catchy tune constantly running through one's head, it is hearing such a tune and not having any idea whatsoever what it is or why one knows it.  Recently there was a TV series called 'British Film Forever' and there was one clip from the above movie; the minute I heard the snippet of melody behind the scene, I thought "Oh yes!", but didn't know why.  After plaguing me for weeks, the only answer was to watch the movie again.  To put my mind at rest and to preserve my own sanity, I shall record here that the tune was "The Banner Man" by Blue Mink which forms the background music to the opening titles and very funny first scene.  However I still don't know why I recognized it.

Actually it was no chore watching this movie again.  Set in the north of England in the early seventies, it is the story of a Pakistani immigrant (Om Puri) who has married an Englishwoman (Linda Bassett) -- although it is implied that he already has a wife back home -- and has seven children.  While Puri wants to indoctrinate his family in traditional ways, the kids are sufficiently westernized to want to make their own way of life and their mother just wants them to be happy.  The eldest son is already persona non grata by walking out at his arranged marriage (it turns out he is gay) and the next two sons want nothing to do with meeting their 'chosen brides' (and very ugly they were too); as Jimi Mistry says, "I ain't marrying a Paki".  In frustration Puri uses his fists against his wife and most obedient son who is protecting his brother, until an uneasy truce is reached.  If this makes the movie sound grim, it really isn't.  What we have mainly are various scenes of the family's inbuilt culture clash -- some of which are wickedly funny -- and a probably fairly realistic look at a whole new generation.

Tags: East is East, niggling tunes

Hannibal Rising (2007)

I refuse to argue whether Anthony Hopkins or Brian Cox made the better Hannibal Lector, but I have some respect for both interpretations and have been more or less a fan of the series since I first read the original novel.  In the last book there was some indication of Lector's backstory and this film develops it into a full and generally satisfying prequel.  Since it was written by the original author, Thomas Harris, one can't quibble too much that the picture is not faithful to his vision.  Generally the information we have had previously is fleshed out and we are led to understand how he became the "monster" that he did.  Surprisingly, the viewer is even left with some sympathy for his character, given the horrific unfolding of events.  Without giving away too much, one already knew that his sister had been eaten by starving soldiers during World War II; here we discover how the human part of him was destroyed at the same time and how he swore to take his revenge.  That this subsequently developed into a taste for human flesh is not at issue here.

If I have any quibbles with this movie, it is with the casting.  A relatively unknown (which is OK) French actor, Gaspard Ulliel, plays the teenaged Lector and a pretty convincing job he makes of it.  However there is no way on earth that he could have grown up to be either Hopkins or Cox for that matter.  I admit this may be  nit-picking.  The next problem I have is with the choice of Gong Li to play his uncle's widow in France, Lady Murasaki; not that she isn't a fine actress, but why in the world does her character have to be Japanese when she is Chinese.  (I know, the viewer is not supposed to notice such small discrepancies!)  However my final problem with the 'name' cast is finding Rhys Ifans as the big, bad, sadistic main villain; he carries too much baggage as a feckless, slightly goony creature to be the least bit believable here.  However, all that apart, I see no reason why this entry will not generally please Lector's fans.

Tags: Hannibal Rising, Hannibal Lector, Gaspard Ulliel, Gong Li, Rhys Ifans

Fay Grim (2006)

This was my final selection from the just-ended London Film Festival and I'm afraid I found it something of a parson's egg.  I used to be very keen on the films of indie director Hal Hartley with their smart deadpan dialogue and off-beat characters, but he has done very little of late and the last movie of his that I watched (at a previous LFF) "The Girl from Monday" was absolute twaddle.  I must admit here that I have not seen "No Such Thing" from 2001 which has joined those missing pictures under the floorboards.

Anyhow his last remarkable movie was "Henry Fool" back in 1997 and when I heard that he had re-united the main cast for a sequel, I was ready to welcome this with open arms.  Back are Thomas Jay Ryan as the enigmatic Henry Fool -- who may or may not be dead since he disappeared at the end of the earlier movie, Indie-Queen Parker Posey in the title role as his estranged wife, and James Urbaniak as her garbageman-cum-avant garde poet from Queens brother, Simon.  Joining the mix is CIA spook Jeff Goldblum.  For the first hour or so my reaction was "Hartley's back" as the sharp scripting, spot-on acting, and growingly absurd situations caught my fancy; however increasingly I felt that he had lost  both the plot and his way by a trying to be ever-so-clever and switching the storyline to one about terrorists.  It seems that Henry may have been a double or triple agent back in his earlier years and everyone is dead keen to get their hands on his notebooks which previously had been dismissed as hopeless literary drivel.

To make matters worse the characters were no longer consistent with their previous incarnations, and when Hartley set up the action for a possible third installment (in another nine years?) my reaction was 'God help us'.  However to give credit where credit is due, Posey was magnificent in the lead role and one can only hope that Hartley can tame his dubious instincts to give the viewer a contemporary political story and stick to the off-beat approach which has served him well in the past.  I can't even excuse this lapse by arguing that he was really presenting a tongue-in-cheek satire -- I just don't buy that.

P.S. (as 6 Nov): This post has disappeared from technorati -- UPDATE please!!!
Tags: Fay Grim, Hal Hartley, Parker Posey, technical problem

Mata Hari (1931)

As a biopic of the infamous World War I spy forget about historical exactitude;  for a romanticized look at the legend and some indication as to why Greta Garbo remains an icon, sit back and enjoy the mush on display here. The MGM version of history has it that the deadly spy sacrificed everything for the love of Ramon Novarro's Russian aviator.  I'd watched him in the silent "The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg" a few days ago and thought then how incredibly shallow he seemed.  Pitched against Garbo, although some six years older, he seems so immature and puppyish that the viewer can only sit back in disbelief.

As for Garbo, the story has it that when she arrived in Hollywood, she was made to slim down to conform with U.S. standards of glamour.  Seeing her here with her slightly flat chest and boyish hips, she still looks ever so womanly in comparison with today's size zero standards.  However, she is postively gorgeous and one can see just how much the camera loved her.  Fortunately her dance sequence is mercifully brief or we would wonder just what it was about Mata Hari that made men her slaves and ready to face the firing squad, but as Garbo struts about for her Russian paramour, Lionel Barrymore before he was confined to wheelchair roles, and her spymaster, normally benevolent Lewis Stone, she is magnetic.  OK this is hokum of the first order, but so lovingly done.  

Please reappear...
Tags: Greta Garbo, Mata Hari, Ramon Novarro, technorati repairs

Lease of Life (1954)

I do not consider my role as a blogging film buff to post a review for every contemporary blockbuster or would-be blockbuster, but to alternate the occasional reaction to some current movies with re-visits to the classics, leavened with the obscurities that I seek out.  (On this score, I should really be writing about the recently viewed "Phantom", a Murnau German silent from 1922 -- the contemporary Variety review panned it mercilessly, but I found it quite interesting in a weird sort of way).  However, today I want to say a few words about the above largely-forgotten British film.

The first surprise is that it was produced by Ealing Film Studio which today is mainly associated with classic British comedies and the second is that the screenplay is by thriller writer Eric Ambler.  The surprise here is that this movie is neither a comedy nor a thriller, but a sincere look at village life through the eyes of the local vicar who has just been advised that he has but a short while to live.  He uses this time to re-evaluate his view of religion, preaching that it should be a question of free choice within the general guidelines; this results in his being portrayed as a dangerous radical by the sensation-seeking press.  However, neither this storyline nor the one involving his talented pianist daughter who has won a scholarship and who is wondering how to finance the necessary London stay to accept it is the main point of watching this film.  The saving grace for what could have been a totally forgettable outing comes in the form of the lead player, Robert Donat, who brings the goodness and decency of the main character to vivid life.

When one thinks about the best English actors of the 30s and 40s, one remembers Ronald Colman, Cary Grant, David Niven, and my own favourite Charles Laughton, however all of these "went Hollywood" to leave their mark.  Donat had the briefest of sojourns in California before deciding this was not the life for him and his subsequent outings in American-financed films were actually shot in Britain -- amongst these such classics as the original "39 Steps" and "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" for which Donat took the best actor Oscar in the magical movie year of 1939.  Equally at home on the stage, Donat made only twenty films before dying of chronic asthma at the early age of 53.  This was his penultimate film and a poignantreminder of a shining talent too rarely preserved for us. 

Technorati: please repair
Tags: Robert Donat, Lease of Life, problem

EXTE -- hair extensions (2007)

Please remind me not to return to Japan in the immediate future.  We know now from recent J-horror movies that it is unsafe to watch videos or TV or to use a cell phone and that one must avoid wells and water, but now we are asked to fear the above beauty-parlour products as well!  The story runs that weirdie morgue attendant Ren Osugi has been stripping corpses of their luxuriant hair, but when he finds one whose hair continues to grow after death (and more copiously than you would believe), he steals the body for his home hair extension factory.  The trouble is that the corpse in question is so angry at the indignities done to her before her death (stealing organs and one of her eyes) that her hair is expressing her murderous rage and goes on a rampage whenever let loose.  This includes the unlucky wearers having hair grow across their eyeballs and on their tongue, before strangling others by its sheer volume.  I tell you, the Japanese lady sitting to my right had her eyes behind her hands for much of the film.  Truly a hair-raising experience!

Another trifle from my London Film Festival viewing was a French confection called "I always Wanted to be a Gangster" (2006) which tells five occasionally intersecting stories of would-be criminals and has-been hard men.  It was all terribly good-natured, amusing, and surreal, and was certainly a little different from your run-of-the-mill crime movie, especially since no major crimes actually took place amongst our feckless protagonists.

For any of you following my LFF viewing on Technorati, the entry I posted on October 20th covering "Eastern Promises" and Takeshi Kitano's "Glory to the Filmmaker" has disappeared completely after being indexed (and to add insult to injury none of my tags are working).  So if you want to see what should have been listed, please go through to my blog.

Tags: J-horror, murderous hair, would-be gangsters

Lust, Caution (2007) vs. Blind Husbands (1919)

The Taiwanese-born, American-based director Ang Lee has shown great versatility since his first small-scale Chinese-American dramas, turning his hand to heritage, U.S. suburbia, western, martial arts, super-hero, and gay themes, with generally great critical acclaim.  He has, however, had his failures, particularly with his version of "The Hulk".  Here with "Lust, Caution" he is attempting to add an erotic tale to his palette, and while I am sure this film will be generally admired, I think this is another misjudged movie.

Set in Shanghai during the Japanese occupation during World War II, Wei Tang is a regular at the mah jong table of Joan Chen (again), the wife of arch collaborator Tony Leung.  Flash back to Hong Kong four years before where Wei Tang is the youngest member of a university drama group who fancy themselves as revolutionaries and who decide that she should seduce Leung so that they can assassinate him.  However first she must lose her virginity to one of their number so that she can successfully pose as an experienced married woman.  However before she can establish any sexual relationship with Leung, he is posted back to the Mainland, and their plan is only resurrected some three years later.  This takes up the first half of a very long and meandering movie; the second half, when they eventually reconnect consists of some very graphic sexual encounters -- semi-porn for the art-house set -- all of which ends badly for at least one of them.  While nicely filmed and beautifully set, the relationship which starts with a violent rape is never totally believable and the movie does seem to go on forever.

In the opposite corner I give you another London Film Festival goodie -- a rediscovered print of Erich von Stroheim's 1919 melodrama before it was cut to ribbons for its subsequent release five years later. Widely known as "the man you love to hate", von Stroheim was an undisciplined yet imaginative director, constantly battling with the studios to get his grandiose visions on the screen; as an actor (and he appears in a number of his own silents -- to say nothing of his subsequent roles in others' talkies), he is unforgettable.  In this movie he is in his favourite role as a seducer -- all comic military costume, monocle and duelling scar -- trying to have it away with the ignored wife of an American doctor on holiday in the Tyrol.  The doctor is the blind husband in much the same way that Joan Chen was the blind wife in Ang Lee's tale, but fortunately we are spared any graphic sex in the earlier film.  Instead we can be delighted by von Stroheim's silly wooing of the wife, the serving wench, the village lass, and anything else in skirts.  And of course he gets his comeuppance.

Guess which movie I thought was more fun! 

Tags: Lust Caution, Ang Lee, Blind Husbands, Erich von Stroheim

Two more Chinese films

As mentioned two entries below, FilmFour recently screened five contemporary Chinese films -- in the middle of the night, since the strange schedulers there seem to think that film buffs will only accept Hollywood pap as the choice for peak-time viewing (wrong, wrong, wrong).  So it behooves me to make a few comments on the remaining two, now that I have finally watched them:

Sunflower (2005): This was probably the more watchable film, and it was so well-meaning, that it is a little petulant to criticise it.  It's the story of a village family between 1967 when their son is born and 1997 and beyond when he is a young man about to finally welcome his own child -- two abortions later!  The father was a promising artist, but after spending six years in a labour camp where his hands were deliberately smashed, he can only express his artistic needs by driving his son to practice his drawing at the expense of other childhood pleasure.  That the son does become a talented painter is only the bare frame on which the director shows how the fabric of Chinese life has changed over the thirty year period and how people's values have changed with it.  The film holds additional interest for the Western viewer with the casting of Joan Chen as his mother; although Chinese-born she is best-known to us for her roles in English-language movies and TV.

The World (2004): This one was a pretty hard slog, although it started off well.  Tao works as a dancer at a pretty crappy theme park in the Beijing suburbs where world landmarks are built in reduced scale so that locals can "See the world without ever leaving Beijing" as its slogan has it.  Unfortunately this is something of a metaphor for the fact that most Chinese folk never will see the  real world.   We follow Tao and her security-guard boyfriend through a number of undeveloped situations in drab rooms, and soon come to realise that theirs will be a dead-end existence, quite literally if my understanding of the ending is correct.  With numerous other sketchy characters and some pointless animated interludes, it was hard to stay awake for the very long running time.

If I had to choose a single word to describe these two movies, it would be "dour" and I think the reason I was so taken with "Devils on the Doorstep" is that it told its in fact serious story with a light touchand humour.  "Little Red Flowers" was also told with affection.  For my money these are the best ways to connect with a modern audience, rather than with the po-faced seriousness of the two above films. 

Tags: Chinese films, Sunflower, The World

Eastern Promises (2007)

Maybe now is the time to write something about the first two films seen at this year's London Film Festival.  I shall start with "Glory to the Filmmaker!" (2007) from ppp favourite Takeshi Kitano.  Unfortunately this was a major disappointment.  It's his first feature-length offering since the very peculiar "Takeshis" which I saw at the festival two years ago and which could only really appeal to his die-hard fans.  This one was more of the same, only more self-indulgent and I hope it does not mark the end of a brilliant career.  In the previous movie, he played himself and a doppelganger to send up his career; in this one his alter-ego is a blow-up doll in his image and neither of them betray any emotion.  The gist of the film is that while it may be time for him to try some new genres, the pastiche movies he envisions range here from bad to awful, with only the very occasional laugh.  I shall keep my fingers crossed for his film-making future, since previously anything he turned his hand to had a great deal to offer as great entertainment and imaginative cinema.

Now to the above movie from director David Cronenberg which was the kick-off film and probably one of his most commercial.  In a way this is something of a pity, since one of the things that differentiated Cronenberg was the quirkiness of his subject matter and his approach.  Despite the exoticism of having a film about the Russian Mafia in London, this movie was about as mainstream as any thoughtful modern film and despite its technical virtues, something of a potboiler.  After their brilliant cooperation on "A History of Violence",  I somehow expected something more from the director's second film outing with Viggo Mortensen; however while the actor is very able in his role as a gofer for Armin Mueller-Stahl's big boss, something just did not quite click.  I understand that Mortensen researched the role in some depth to play this very violent lead, but I came away feeling both exhausted and empty.

Maybe the idea of having a Danish-American, a German, and a Frenchman (Vincent Cassel as Stahl's psychotic son) playing three hard Russians just didn't really work.  Throw an Australian, Naomi Watts as a hospital midwife, into the mix and one was left with something of a dog's dinner accent-wise.  None of this is to say that I didn't like the film at all or that I didn't think it was a worthy effort from Cronenberg.  What I am trying to get across is that I was hoping for so much more.

Tags: Takeshi Kitano, Eastern Promises, David Cronenberg, Viggo Mortensen

Devils on the Doorstep (2000)

I probably should have mentioned earlier this week that the London Film Festival was imminent (it kicked off last night) and I have now seen the first two of the seven movies I have prebooked (a very conservative number for me).   I shall probably comment on these on my next entry, but for now I feel the need to review some of the recent Chinese movies that Film Four scheduled last week in the wee hours -- all of which I set and three of which I have now seen.

As I have said before I have gone off Film Four since it stopped being a subscription film channel and went commercial on Freeview -- my main complaint (apart from the annoyance of ads) being that they have shown very little that I have not viewed previously elsewhere and seem to be majoring in safe rather than adventurous programming.  So five new (to me) Chinese films was something of a treat.  The first that I viewed was "Little Red Flowers" (2006) which was a sweet but slight story of a five-year old rebel at a state nursery school shortly after the Revolution.  I suppose it was some sort of allegory about the futility of nonconformity in modern Chinese society and ultimately inconclusive.  The second film was the oldest of the five, "Beijing Bastards" from 1993.  I had heard of this one, but it was actually pretty weak in its story of rebel musicians imitating the ennui of Western bands; it could just as easily have been set in Berlin or Budapest.

However the above film was something of a surprise, especially since I do not usually like war films, although there are various movies that I do like which, as this one, take war as the setting for a story of human nature.  This one was set in Northern China in 1945 where the Japanese are the occupying enemy.  Two captured soldiers -- a fierce Japanese and a Chinese interpreter -- are dumped on a peasant village by an unknown captor, who says he will return for them in five days.  The five days stretch into six months and the hapless villagers having attempted to kill them (but quite unable to do so) find themselves nurturing their unwanted guests.  This section is actually quite humourous as the Jap wants to insult his captors and goad them into ending his life (so that he can die heroically), but the interpreter actually teaches him good and complimentary phrases to prolong their existence.  Eventually the prisoners (both now quite tame) and the villagers settle on a plan to return the captives to the Japanese troops and to benefit the village with supplies of grain.  However I had a nagging feeling that things would end in tears, and despite the amusing business before the denouement, that was unfortunately the case. 

This movie was nominated for the Golden Palm in Cannes and did win the Jury Prize, but was subsequently suppressed by the Chinese government on the grounds that it presented the Japanese in too good a light and the Chinese in too poor a one.  Despite its length, it was very involving and for most of its running time, it was very good-humoured.  The dark turn at the end, however, only reinforces my wariness about war movies in general.  At heart, I'm a very peaceful soul!!! 

Tags: Chinese films, Devils on the Doorstep, war movies

Stage Door (1937)

I've already added this entry once, but it seems to have disappeared.  (Thank you AOL!)  I finally got around to seeing "The Departed" (2006) and may or may not return to it in due course.  Suffice to say for the moment that much to my surprise I preferred it to the Hong Kong original (less confusing) and that, along with other film buffs, I am pleased that Martin Scorsese finally received an Oscar for it.  It's just a shame that it is somewhat lesser Scorsese.

However since I normally gain most pleasure from revisiting semi-classic movies, I shall concentrate on the above charmer today.  Based on a stage play by Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman, it made so successful a transition to film that it was nominated for best picture and best director -- neither of which it won.  The nominal leads were powerhouse actresses Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers, but it was supporting player Andrea Leeds who received an Oscar nod.  She didn't win either and retired from movies in 1940, and both she and her strong performance are little-remembered today.

The action takes place at a theatrical boarding house for would-be actresses and the young hopefuls spend their days trying to see producers and indulging in good-natured bitching.  Amongst their number are early roles for Lucille Ball, Ann Miller, and Eve Arden and a latter-day role for character actress Constance Collier as a has-been ham and would-be coach.  Leeds plays a talented actress who attracted attention in a role a year earlier, but she has been unable to get any work subsequently.  Into the mix comes society heiress Hepburn who fancies being on the stage and she is in her youthful attractive and feisty mode.  The part that Leeds covets is given to newcomer Hepburn when her father anonymously bankrolls the production, in the hope that she will fail and return home.  And Hepburn is in fact bloody awful (good acting here) during rehearsals.  Leeds kills herself in despair on the opening night.

The blase and cold producer who carelessly toys with the young actresses and callously ignores their problems is played by Adolphe Menjou, an actor I can never quite take seriously since he looks like a character out of a French farce; his butler is played by the incomparable Franklin Pangborn, who always brings a smile to my lips with even the smallest roles.  Rogers also gives a strong performance as the wise-cracking chorine who begins an affair with Menjou, only to spite older diva Gail Patrick.  She did a far better job here than in some of her later so-called dramatic roles.

As an ensemble piece, this movie has a lot to offer.  It is not quite in the same category as "The Women" made two years on with its all female cast, but it is still exciting to find so many young and able actresses graced with a highly literate script.

Tags: Stage Door, Katharine Hepburn, Andrea Leeds, Adolphe Menjou, Ginger Rogers

Stage Door (1937)

I finally got around to viewing "The Departed" (2006) which I may or may not discuss again in due course.  Suffice to say for the moment that I actually preferred it to the Hong Kong original (less confusing) and that, like many film buffs, I am of course pleased that Martin Scorsese finally won an Oscar.  It's just a shame that this movie wasn't quite top-notch Scorsese to merit it.

However since I am usually at my happiest revisiting old movies, today's comments are reserved for the above semi-classic pic.  Based on a stage play by Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman, its transition to the screen was masterful and it was indeed nominated both for best picture and best director -- neither of which it won.  The nominal female leads in a large cast were Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers, but it was supporting player Anthea Leeds who was Oscar-nominated.  She didn't win and actually retired from films three years later and is probably little-remembered today for her brave performance.

The action takes place in a theatrical boarding house for young women, where hopefuls await their big break and spend their time bitching at life in a somewhat good-natured way.  It was fun to see early appearances from Ann Miller, Lucille Ball, and Eve Arden amongst them, as well as a late appearance from character actress Constance Collier as a washed-up ham turned coach.  Leeds plays an actress with one successful role behind her, who is unable to find more work, and when the role she covets is virtually given to Hepburn's newcomer, she gives up all hope.  Hepburn, looking remarkably fresh and feisty, plays an heiress with a yen for the stage and has only been given the part when her father anonymously backs the production in the hope that she will fail.  She is indeed pretty pathetic (good acting here) during the rehearsals.

The unthinking producer who holds so many fates in his careless hands is played by Adolphe Menjou, who I have some difficulty taking seriously with his French-farce looks, and his butler is played by the inimitable Franklin Pangborn who always leaves me smiling, even in the smallest of roles.  Rogers also gives a stellar performance as the wise-cracking chorine who rooms with Hepburn and who takes up with Menjou only to spite slightly older Gail Patrick; she is far better than she was in some of her later so-called "dramatic" roles.  While this film is not quite in the same class as "The Women" two years on (which had a completely all female cast), the ensemble playing of so many fresh-faced actresses is something of a treat here, aided by a more than literate script.

19 Oct: Don't ask me where this entry reappeared from -- it's been AWOL for some days now!!!

Tags: Stage Door, Katharine Hepburn, Andrea Leeds, Ginger Rogers, Adolphe Menjou

Stardust (2007)

I absolutely loved this film which doesn't mean that the rest of the world will -- I have in fact already seen some lacklustre reviews -- but I found it a magical fairy tale pitched squarely at adults.  Then again I also went into raptures over "MirrorMask" which was also based on a Neil Gaiman novel and that one hardly made a dent in the viewing public.  This film directed by Matthew Vaughn has had a lot more money thrown at it and is, if anything, a little overpowering in its fantasy vision, but that's not a bad thing.  Working with a largely British cast including little-known lead Charlie Cox, the budget has stretched to some Hollywood muscle amongst the cast which in this instance is all to the good.

Cox is in love with shallow village lass Sienna Miller who is set to accept a proposal from his rival and he promises to bring back a fallen star within seven days if she will wait.  The star in question is embodied in Claire Danes' strange-looking but striking form, and he is not the only one after her.  Hot in pursuit is ancient hag Michelle Pfeiffer (I never thought I could write that combination of words) who needs the heart of a star to regain her and her two crone sisters' youthful beauty.  Pfeiffer is obviously having a ball in a role that mocks her own stunning looks and the make-up is brilliantly conceived as her briefly fresh beauty begins to rapidly deteriorate.  Also on the hunt are the remaining sons of dying king Peter O'Toole; he had seven sons -- three already murdered by their siblings when the film begins -- and they all will do anything to sieze power and find the jewel which Danes now has.  As the sons are in turn dispatched, we are shown their slightly comic and grotesque spectral ghosts who act as a kind of Greek chorus to the action.

Best of all the Hollywood imports (much to my amazement) is Robert De Niro who plays the tough-as-nails captain of a pirate ship in the sky who has captured Danes and Cox.  It turns out that he is really a closet queen and his every appearance is a delight.  I was frankly afraid that he might hijack the movie with an over-the-top performance per his recent comic roles, but in fact he steals every scene in which he appears with his good-natured turn.  The same can not alas be said of Ricky Gervais who seems to be an obligatory presence at the moment.  Fortunately his role was brief and he is rapidly first silenced and then disposed of.  As I have written before I shall look forward to the time when we see no more of this pompous, self-important creature.

That apart I can not recommend this movie too highly, but if fantasy doesn't float your boat, it may not be the film for you.  However for a clever, uplifting, slightly dark, humourous two hours, more full of action than whimsy, this movie is a definite winner.

Tags: Stardust, Neil Gaiman, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert De Niro

A Song is Born (1948)

Nowadays unnecessary remakes of popular (and even minor) movies seem to be the norm -- for example, I fail to see what Denzel Washington can bring to the droll Walter Matthau role in "Pelham 123" -- but the concept is far from new.  The above film is a musical remake of 1941's "Ball of Fire" and both surprisingly were directed by Howard Hawks.

Granted Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo are not Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck in the roles of the stuffy music professor and the showgirl who takes refuge in the house he shares with other fogeys compiling the ultimate music encyclopedia, but they are fine for this light-hearted riff on the original.  It seems that the professors have just discovered modern popular music and jazz, which allows for major roles for Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra, Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, and other now largely forgotten musicians from the period.  We even have Benny Goodman heavily made-up to appear as one of the nerdish academics.  There is a lovely bit when his character watches one of the groups and asks where their music is written down; he is taken aback when told that even Benny Goodman didn't use sheet music! 

So not all remakes are a bad thing, especially when a true re-interpretation.  Look at "The Philadelphia Story" and "High Society" as a good example.  And very, very occasionally later versions do actually manage to outshine the original.  While that is not quite the case here, especially since Kaye is given little opportunity for his trademark patter songs, Hawks did have a good go.

Tags: Remakes, Howard Hawks, Danny Kaye, Benny Goodman

London to Brighton (2006)

Although the number of movies that I manage to watch most days has not decreased, the ones that I actually want to write about seem to be diminishing -- a good case in point being my recent viewing of "Talledega Nights".  I just couldn't decide whether this Will Ferrell starrer (and I believe a big hit) was meant to be an unfunny comedy or an undramatic moral lesson, but either way it left me in a state of despair at modern tastes.

The above gritty British flick was well received at festival showings and won its writer-director Paul Andrew Williams a BAFTA award for most promising newcomer.  With its no-name cast he managed to structure a marginally involving tale of a scruffy whore on the run from her pimp with an 11-year old in tow.  By backflashes we were given the full story of how she was forced to recruit a runaway for an aging gangster paedophile and how the encounter turned to violence as her nobler instincts kicked in.  However I kept asking myself if this was the sort of story I really wanted to see.  One knows the world is full of ugliness, but that to me is not sufficient reason to celebrate it.  There were one or two interesting twists as Mr. Big's nasty son leant on the pimp and his sidekick to find the two females and how he planned to extract his revenge for the insult to the father that he quite obviously hated.  However, like life, there was no tidy ending for the surrogate mother-and-child.  The kid could possibly look forward to something more in the future, but the tart-with-a-heart seemed to believe that her only place was back on the streets.

As a slice of unsavoury underlife, it was probably reasonably well put together on a small budget and the two female leads were more than adequate for the job.  However whether a subteen actress should have been subjected to the nastiness of the story (thankfully not pictured at any length) is a very moot point.  And please don't remind me about Jodie Foster in "Taxi Driver"!

Tags: London to Brighton, paedophiles