Asylum (2005)

What a melodramatic farrago the film version of this novel turned out to be.  I am not sure who of the normally able cast was the most embarrassing, but I think top honours must go to Sir Gandalf -- I mean Ian McKellan.  Cold fish Hugh Bonneville and his repressed wife, Natasha Richardson, take a posting to a posh mental asylum where Sir Ian hopes to succeed administrator Joss Ackland.  You can tell its a posh place since there is a annual black-tie ball for the staff and the inmates.  It is here that Richardson develops her lust for pet patient Marton Csokas (a wife-murderer) with whom she has been cavorting while he has been on work detail in her garden.  Their relationship seems to be one of sexual obsession rather than of love on both sides and when he escapes the asylum, she leaves her husband and son to join him on the lam.  (What they are living on is anyone's guess.)  After the police find their love nest, she is arrested and reluctantly rejoins the family, while her vicious lover is still on the loose.  Having lost his job (to McKellan's delight), Bonneville takes a posting in North Wales, but Csokas pursues his obsession and is finally arrested, causing Richardson to become so distracted that a tragedy follows which results in her being incarcerated in the same asylum (where of course McKellan is keeping Csokas in solitary confinement).  Even further irrational behaviour follows, but I can say no more without competely giving the game away, just in case you still might want to see it.  One thing which really annoyed me about this film is that it is obviously meant to be a period piece set in the grey Britain of the 1950s, but Richardson with her push-up bra looks as if she has wandered in off the set of another movie.

The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934)

I seem to be mired in 1934 at the moment, which is not at all a bad place to be.  This film might be nothing to remember were it not for the magnificent Charles Laughton.  He plays the tyrannical father of Elizabeth Barrett (later Browning) whom he has treated as an invalid in the fond hope of keeping her with him at home forever (there may have been a Hays Code back then, but the incestuous glint in his eye is unmistakeable and she is well aware of it). In fact he wants none of his children to wed or to find happiness; he is the ultimate control freak.  Elizabeth is played by Norma Shearer in one of her best performances; being Mrs. Irving Thalberg always gave her a leg up to the best roles, but she is excellent here with richly-textured playing.  Her lover, the poet Robert Browning, is played by Fredric March who could be a bit wooden at times, but his romanticism is just about winning in this film.  But it is the monster Laughton who captures the viewer -- what he can achieve with just a slight shift of expression is remarkable, and when he discovers that Elizabeth has eloped, his fury is chilling.  In the 1957 remake the Laughton role was taken by John Gielgud which is a more than acceptable choice, but the balance of the players were just not up to the task.  If you want to see this old warhorse of a movie, the 1934 version is the one to seek; I can forgive all the staginess and histrionics for just a few seconds of Laughton's barnstorming.

One More River (1934)

Having forced myself to suppress the yawns while watching two big-budget movies over the weekend ("The Exorcism of Emily Rose" and "The Producers" -- more on that one below), I thought I'd write about another obscurity from my collection instead.  Directed by James Whale (always good value), this is based on a novel by John Galsworthy and given the casting and the stiff upper lips, one would never believe this film to be a Hollywood production. One forgets that Hollywood in the '30s was broadly populated by dozens of useful British actors and one could have easily cast another dozen or so stories without going further afield.  In this one our heroine Diana Wynyard leaves her abusive husband and finds innocent romance with a young man met on shipboard; but the husband sues for divorce and damages.  The courtroom scenes are involving and the outcome is not what one might have suspected were this a later movie.  True it's all a bit stodgy and dated, but I enjoyed my revisit.

I said above that I would comment briefly on "The Producers" (2005).  The truth is that I am probably too fond of the original non-musical version to give it a fair trial -- but adding songs only really puffs out the running time.  Since this is the film of the show of the film for which Mel Brooks wrote both the music and lyrics, there is no one else to blame.  That apart, I thought Matthew Broderick was very good (I have no particular axe to grind for Gene Wilder) with a surprisingly pleasant singing voice, but the rest of the cast only reminded me how much I prefer the original players.

Playmates (1941)

The only American Barrymore known to most of today's movie-goers is Drew, but it is to her grandfather, John Barrymore, that today's entry is dedicated.  Like her, he was the product of a theatrical dynasty, and he was -- in his day -- an unsurpassed star of stage and screen.  Simply put, I love his performances -- far more than brother Lionel's or sister Ethel's, memorable as many of theirs were.  This picture was his last film and in common with others of his late career, a dissolute life and alcoholism had taken their toll.  He may look wasted and on his last legs, but all of these performances still radiate the Barrymore magic.  In this movie, he is really in support of Kay Kyser and his band, a popular cornball radio personality of the day; he plays himself, as a washed-up dramatic "ham" (for want of a better word), who needs to earn some quick bucks to keep the tax inspector at bay -- so his agent spreads the story that he will be coaching Kyser in Shakespearian drama for a joint performance.  Even if Barrymore may have been doing no more than reading cue cards, the memory of a great actor radiates from every word.  This is also true of all his late 1930's roles -- they may be small, but my goodness, they are each memorable.  I do not buy the opinion that he was demeaning himself in accepting these parts; he plays them with relish and seems to be enjoying himself hugely, despite his fall from higher theatrical grace.  God bless him!

Rice Rhapsody (2004)

This film was announced by Sky some many months ago but only landed in their schedules in a late night slot a few days back.  It's a strangely mixed concoction as a joint Hong Kong/Singapore production (Jackie Chan is for some reason the executive producer), with a Taiwanese lead actress, and the dialogue in Mandarin, (somewhat broken) English, and French.  Set in Singapore it is the story of a single mother who runs a restaurant and her three grown sons, two of whom are already in gay relationships.  Hoping to "save" her youngest son from the same sorry fate (in her eyes) and to ensure that she will one day have grandchildren, she tries to tempt him by taking in a French exchange student.  Despite his tentative sexual adventures with the young lady, all it takes is his best friend's leaving Singapore for Taipei to make him aware of his true sexuality.  Mummy is very unhappy...until she finally learns to accept her sons for what they are.  As a side note, this is meant as a "foodie" movie since the mother is being courted by a rival restaurateur and the climax of the film involves a cookery contest; however unlike movies like "Babette's Feast" or "Eat Drink Man Woman", there is little here to attract the jaded palette.

A pair of golden oldies

As I have written before, I know of no better way of charging my batteries than to watch a couple of old favourites, far removed from the ways of modern film-making.  The first of these is "Hold Back the Dawn" from 1941, a glossy romancer starring that old smoothie Charles Boyer as an emigrant Romanian waiting at the border between Mexico and the USA for his quota entry to materialise, along with a jetsam and flotsam of other refugees from war-torn Europe. He meets slutty Paulette Goddard who advises him that the fastest way to gain entry is to marry an American.  So he approaches every likely tourist until he meets goofy and naive Olivia de Havilland (one of the few 30s stars still alive and kicking).  She immediately falls for his suave sophistication and becomes his unwitting stooge, since he has every intention of dumping her once he is safely across, but suspicious immigration officer, Walter Abel, is on his trail.  Needless to say, he eventually becomes fond of his new bride, but not before spiteful Goddard lets loose the cat among the pigeons,causing de Havilland to do a runner and nearly die in a car crash.  No prizes for working out that there is an ultimately happy ending, since that -- of course -- is one of the main reason for watching these ancient gems.

The second film yesterday was "It Happened Tomorrow" from 1944, one of four movies that French director, Rene Clair, made in America during his war sojourn.  This one stars Dick Powell in his second non-musical role as an ambitious reporter in turn-of-the-century New York, who is given the next evening's newspaper some 24 hours before it is printed three days running, and who thereby becomes privy to the news to come, winning horses, and unfortunately the report of his own death.  His leading lady is Linda Darnell whom I can usually take or leave, but she is charming and attractive here.  The balance of the cast are mainly B-list supporting actors, but it is always pleasant for me to see their friendly familiar faces.  How you may ask can Clair achieve the necessary happy ending if Powell is to be shot dead?  Well, I won't give the game away but all is satisfactorily and morally resolved (he may have used his knowledge to win a packet at the races, but the money is gone before the end credits.)

It doesn't take much to keep me happy!

Willard (2003)

I haven't changed my mind about remakes in general, but I was in fact quite keen to view this recent version of the 1971 movie of the same name, because I was curious what that very quirky actor Crispin Glover would bring to the role.  You may not know the name but you would probably recognize the face, going back to memorable and normally supporting parts in 1980s films.  The remake is virtually a repeat of the earlier movie with middle-aged loner Willard, stuck looking after his invalid mother and in a dead-end job, finding the only friends he can make are the rats that infest his basement.  In the previous movie his horrible boss was played by Ernest Borgnine; here it is R. Lee Ermey -- and it was satisfying to see each of them devoured by rats in both films (not that one actually sees the gory details in either).  If this makes it sound as if this film is definitely one for acquired tastes only, you might be right, although Glover brings such intensity and even black humour to his role that this in itself is worth the price of admission.  As a nod to the earlier movie, Bruce Davison (its lead) appears here in portraits of Willard's dead father.

Tony Takitani (2004)

I was rather looking forward to this Japanese film without really knowing much about it.  However it was so slight, sketchy and minimalist that I was reminded of some Taiwanese movies that drive me up the spout.  Based on a short story (published in the New Yorker a few years back), it is basically a tale of loneliness.  Our hero (although that is hardly the right word here) has been given his "American" name by his jazz-playing father who escaped Japan during the war and who returned under a cloud.  Tony has always more or less looked after himself -- and the transition from child to mature adult is staggeringly swift in terms of plot development.  He makes a good living as a technical illustrator but suddenly realises that something is missing from his life when he meets and woos a much younger girl.  Their marriage is happy, but  overshadowed by her compulsive shopping; when he suggests that she might curb this compulsion, she becomes so distracted that she dies in a car crash.  He then advertises for someone of the same size to come to work for him and to wear the racks and racks of unworn designer clothing.  The girl he settles upon (played by the same actress) is so overwhelmed by the richness of the garments that she dissolves in unstoppable tears.  Tony realises that his plan is untenable and sells off the clothing, in the same way that he later sells off the few mementos left to him by his father.  He is again alone, although he can't quite forget the tears of the ringer girl.

The Libertine (2004)

It is sheer coincidence that this film was on Sky late last night as I have been meaning to get around to the DVD for some time now.  Like much of the rest of the world, I am enchanted by Johnny Depp's versatility, and indeed were it not for him, this might be an unrewarding movie.  Set in the l7th Century, he plays the dissolute poet the Earl of Rochester who moves in and out of favour with King Charles II (a nearly unrecognizable John Malkovich).  In his monologue at the start, Depp says "You will not like me" and the rest of the film continues to show him as foul-mouthed and self-destructive.  Yet it is impossible not to like his performance which is brilliant, despite the horribly murky filmic style and the fact that you have never seen our Johnny look so horribly unhealthy and wasted -- and that is before his syphilitic turn towards the end when his nose is about to fall off!  Samantha Morton as an actress under his tutelage also gives a wonderful performance, but unless one is a Depp fan, I can understand many viewers hating this film for its look and its language.   It would be little compensation for them to be told that Johnny Vegas plays a mooning aristo -- now that is a strange piece of casting.

Bad News Bears (2005)

Here I go again  about unnecessary remakes.  This Billy Bob Thornton vehicle is a fairly straight recreation of the 1976 Walter Matthau movie, adapting the original script and even using the same music from "Carmen" to comedic effect.  So why is it so rotten?  Well for starters Thornton whom I do not dislike as such -- he was memorable in "The Man who Wasn't There" and "A Simple Plan -- is just too scruffy and unlikeable here to carry the day.  Matthau was nearly as foul-mouthed in the original, but there was always something about his curmudgeonly manner to win the audience.  The only minor changes here are to make the Tatum O'Neill role into Billy Bob's estranged daughter and to add a kid in a wheelchair and some cheerleaders from Hooters.  Apart from anything else there have been so many movies about loveable and not-so-lovable kids' losing teams in the intervening thirty years -- not just baseball, but think of all the Mighty Ducks rubbish as well -- that the world is not exactly panting for more.  All in all it seems a weird choice for director Richard Linklater who has made some influential and experimental films over the last ten years or so, such as "Waking Life" and "A Scanner Darkly".  His only other comedy has been "School of Rock", but at least that brought something new to the screen with infectious humour which this movie sadly lacks.  People will still be watching the Matthau movie long after this one is deservedly forgotten.

Venus (2006)

I was tempted to book this film at last year's London Film Festival because of the appealing teaming of Peter O'Toole (always a favourite) and Leslie Phillips as two aging actors, but I reckoned that it would quickly get a cinema release.  Well, quickly in this instance morphed into three months, but I finally attended a preview showing.  There is a lot of pressure afoot to award O'Toole an Oscar for his performance; he's been oft-nominated but never won, and it would certainly be a sentimental choice, but as good as he is here, he has been better, and I somehow don't see him overtaking actors in showier roles this year.

The role he takes could easily be based on his own career, an erstwhile beauty who rages at the dimming of the light signalled by his fragile body and disappearing libido.  Strangely attracted to Phillips' young niece played by newcomer Jodie Whittaker, he takes her under his wing with more than a small hope of romantic repercussions.  He nicknames her Venus after the Rokeby Venus in the National Gallery (oddly enough I had just been to the Velazquez Exhibition there before seeing this movie and that painting is the absolute highlight amongst a group of over-rated court portraits).  Being young, she treats him shabbily until it is just about too late, and I found their relationship a little short of acceptable.  However, O'Toole is in fact a sight to see and his playing, without too much vanity, a tour de force.  His scenes with Phillips are also a delight, and in a few brief scenes with Vanessa Redgrave who plays his ex-wife, we are reminded of just how fine an actor she too is.

Gambling Man (1995)

I seem to have an increasingly-encroaching heap of unwatched DVDs which came uninvited as newspaper or other giveaways, and occasionally I choose one at random to provide a change of pace.  This British TV production -- I assume it must have been a mini-series by its two and a half hours length -- is based on a book by Catherine Cookson -- a romance novelist whom I have never read; add to these factors the l9th Century setting and the regional accents, and I had little in the way of expectations.   While it started slowly, it soon became increasingly involving, once I accepted the extraordinarily melodramatic plot.  Robson Green who was previously only a "name" to me plays a working-class rent collector with a passion for gambling which gets his best friend put in jail and his being nearly beaten to death by the henchmen of villainous Bernard Hill; and despite his marriage to his spitfire girlfriend, he catches the eye of a rich spinster who has befriended him and encouraged his personal progress without realising that he has a wife (since despite the class barrier between them, she quite fancies him.)  The wife is soon disposed of in a catastrophe at sea to clear the way for his new relationship -- until she comes back from the dead!  This description can only provide a taste of the ins and outs of the convoluted story, but it was all well-done with good period detail, and if the ending was in fact somewhat downbeat, at least it held my attention.

Notes on a Scandal (2006)

I went to a preview of this soon-to-be-released and certain-to-be-talked about film and came away with mixed feelings.  It is without a doubt brilliantly acted and involving, but by the end it left something of a bad taste and was certainly by no means entertaining.  Now I can admire stupendous performances as much as the next guy, but for my money that is insufficient reason to warm to a film.  What we have here is Judi Dench playing a bitter and unfulfilled schoolteacher on the verge of retirement with hints of unhappy lesbian overtones.  Onto the scene comes the new art teacher in the luminous form of Cate Blanchett and Dench's life assumes new meaning as she begins to insinuate herself into Blanchett's friendship and life.  The latter is married to the older (and very good) Bill Nighy with a bolshie teenaged daughter and a Down Syndrome son, but she is also about to embark on a sexual spree with one of her fifteen-year-old students.  Dench gets wind of this and tries to manipulate her knowledge to further ingratiate herself to Blanchett, until the fury of a woman scorned unleashes the inevitable retribution.  Dench's characterization is a full-blooded one loaded with a mix of self-deprecating humour, a large dose of self-pity, and a fairly heavy strand of venom; she is a dangerous predator.  But finally, it is a movie to admire rather than to enjoy. 

Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story (2005)

Were it not for the heavyweight casting, I would have expected this horsey movie to have been made for TV.  But with three generations of horse lovers played by Kris Kristofferson, Kurt Russell (again), and Dakota Fanning and with Elizabeth Shue, David Morse, Luis Guzman, and Freddy Rodriguez in support, you can be certain that it was intended as a full-blown feature film.  It's a story we've seen before as injured horse recovers to become the underdog (underhorse?) in a big race.  I think it was called "Seabiscuit" most recently!  Yet it was completely watchable despite its predictability, largely due to the uncanny Miss Fanning -- I sometimes think she must be a very small adult in the guise of a child.  Talking about young female actresses stealing the glory from all other players, I also saw "Bee Season" (2005) yesterday which was so pretentious that it barely needs mentioning, except to say that the ll-year daughter of the family, played by Flora Cross was exceptional.  Watch out for the competition Dakota.

The Killing of Sister George (1968)

The weird thing about this "British" movie starring Beryl Reid, Susannah York, and Coral Browne (who was actually born in Australia) is that it is an American film, produced and directed by Robert Aldrich.  Based on a play of the period and set in London, it is the tale of butch lesbian Reid, a supposedly beloved character in a TV soap, and her childish lover played by a gormless York, and the ups and downs in their relationship as Reid's character is killed off by the Corporation suits.  Browne, a purportedly straight BBC executive, is enchanted by York and in a fairly explicit scene for the time contrives to win her for her own.  All three actresses are riveting, with special praise for Reid who plays a monstrous, controlling gargoyle with no vanity.  As a relatively early mainstream example of gay cinema, this film wins a place in movie history, but I doubt that it won many friends at the time of its release. 

No Orchids for Miss Blandish (1948)

I was going on yesterday about the injustice of classic films being missing in action on disc and really bad movies being available, and this is a fine case in point.  This film is among the all-time stinkers of British film-making, yet there it is on its shiny DVD.  Part of the reason it smells bad is that it may be a British movie, based on the notorious novel by James Hadley Chase, but all of the cast (apart from the imported male lead, Jack LaRue) are pretending to be Americans, with the worst assortment of accents imaginable.  The violence of the book has been toned down, but the film still received really horrid reviews at the time, being described as 'something out of a sewer'.  A kidnapped heiress falls for the dubious charms of the gangster and instead of her being brutally treated, we are asked to believe a story of doomed love -- padded out with excrutiatingly bad variety numbers from a so-called night club.  The book had been regarded as unfilmable, so the awfulness of this first effort is no surprise; however it was in fact re-made in Hollywood in 1971 as "The Grissom Gang" and is a rare example of a re-make being the more watchable movie.  Incidentally, British actress Linden Travers in the lead role here never made another film nor did the hopeless director.  Carry-on regular Sid James has a bit part as a Chicago bartender.  Unbelievable!

The Notorious Landlady (1962)

One of these days someone will explain to me why really crap films are available on DVD (and I'm not thinking of only recent ones) and why certain studio classics have just disappeared from public view.  So in my down time -- such as it is -- I burn my own DVD copies from my elderly beta tapes, so at least I have some sort of resource to fall back upon.  Not that I can claim that this is one of the great comedies of all time, but it is certainly a superior one, co-written by Blake Edwards, with Jack Lemmon in his third picture with Kim Novak and with Fred Astaire (in a non-musical role) in great support.  While it is set in London and feels pretty authentic, it was completely filmed in California and tells the story of recent-appointee to the US Embassy Lemmon finding digs with Novak who both her neighbours and Scotland Yard think has murdered her husband.  One of these busybodies is Estelle Winwood who just about holds the record for the longest career in motion pictures; she was 79 here and went on for another 18 years.  Both Astaire and Lemmon fall for Novak's charms -- she was never a great actress but always a highly attractive screen presence -- and are determined to prove her innocence.  This pleasant movie also makes great use of popular music to frame its action and I particularly liked the chase at the denouement where the background was 'The Gang's All Here'.  So where's the DVD?

Sky High (2005)

After my relative disappointment with the film reviewed below, I am beginning to think that it occasionally pays off to approach a movie without any expectations and to hope for a pleasant surprise. That, more or less, applies to the above flick about kids with "powers" of various strengths attending a high school for superheroes (where the principal appropriately is Wonder Woman, Linda Carter).  On arrival the intake are judged on their abilities and relegated to either the hero or sidekick stream -- kind of like the popular jocks and nerds in other U.S. school movies.  Our hero's abilities had not yet manifested themselves, despite his being the son of two of the greatest, and he is initially dumped with the other outcasts, whose skills range from being able to glow or to turn into a puddle or a very small hamster.  Apart from his parents, played by Kurt Russell and Kelly Preston (and horrified that he may not be able to follow in the family tradition), it is a no-name cast but a very appealing one.  Full of imaginative effects and ever good-natured, our hero learns the Disney lesson that everyone has worthwhile qualities -- except of course the obvious villainess who finally receives her just desserts.  Apart from Russell being somewhat obnoxious in his self-esteem and his expectations, it was by and large a wholesome and recommendable view for all the family.

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005)

I must confess to being sorely disappointed with this film which I approached with great expectation, since not only have the reviews been excellent, but Tommy Lee Jones, who also directed it, won a best actor award at Cannes, where it also won a best screenplay award for Guillermo Arriaga.  So what was the problem?  It certainly wasn't the fine cinematography or the fact that the film alternated betwee English and Spanish or even the fairly thin story.  Jones plays a Texas rancher who befriends an illegal Mexican labourer and when the latter is accidentally killed by a careless and brutal border guard (Barry Pepper), he not only decides to take justice into his own hands (since the local police don't give a damn), but also decides to honour his friend's request that he be buried in his home town.  So he abducts Pepper and forces him to dig up his friend from his second grave (the first having been a short-term matter of expediency) and to accompany him and the rapidly decaying corpse over the Border with Pepper's fellow border guards in lacksadaisical pursuit.  They eventually discover that neither Estrada's supposed family nor home town are real, but Jones feels at last that he has honoured his friendship.

Part of the problem I had with this movie was its very slow exposition, although I was not overly alienated by the to-ing and fro-ing of the time frame.  The main problem, I felt, was Jones himself who was just a tad laid-back from being a hero with whom one could identify or completely understand.  If anything, Pepper's was the better performance, especially since one came to believe that despite his cruel streak and Jones' abrupt treatment that he truly regretted Estrada's death.  The fact that the film just stopped after the third burial with Jones riding off and Pepper left in the middle of nowhere did not achieve the necessary closure.  An interesting but, I think, somewhat flawed attempt to make a classic Western.

Where There's a Will (2006)

I very briefly considered reviewing "Revolver" (2005) which I sort of watched last night, but while this Guy Ritchie effort shows some much valued maturity in comparison to his earlier 'diamond geezer' gangster films, it was so convoluted and flashy that I quickly lost the plot.  Yet another anti-hero from Jason Statham, but despite Luc Besson's writing credentials and a weird turn from Ray Liotta as Statham's adversary, I was really past caring or even trying to make head or tail of the farrago.  So I'll tell you instead about the above Hallmark TV Movie which I was tempted to set since Sky described it as "drifter Keith Carradine goes to look after his wealthy grandmother".  Well, as is often the case, Sky got it wrong and Carradine plays the local sheriff -- but I'm not sorry to have viewed it.  The curmudgeonly grandma was played by Marion Ross (Richie Cunningham's mom from Happy Days) and the drifter was played by Frank Whaley, who was so very, very good in "Swimming with Sharks" (1994); anyone who manages to give Kevin Spacey his comeuppance gets my vote.  Of course having gone to his grandmother's Texas home for purely monetary ends, he learns the meaning of responsibility and love -- and that's what Hallmark movies are all about -- more or less.

Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (2005)

Not that he was ever a great personal favourite, but I can recall when Steve Martin's "crazy guy" persona was vaguely amusing and not a trying-too-hard embarrassment as it is in this movie.  This sequel came about because of the relative success of the 2003 movie which was theoretically sweet in a kind of sickening way; what it wasn't was a remake of the original 1950 film of the same title which had an acerbic Clifton Webb as the paterfamilias (and even there it was far from my favourite Webb role).  In this unnecessary follow-up, Martin wants to bring his large family to a favourite vacation home one last time before the older kids go their separate ways.  Here he resurrects a long-standing rivalry with Eugene Levy who has only eight high-achieving kids and I'm uncertain whether Levy or Martin demeans himself more in the empty pursuit for laughs.  At least I think (and pray) that we will all be spared "Cheaper by the Dozen 3".

The Tomb of Ligeia (1964)

Director-Producer Roger Corman may have been a master of churning out cheap yet profitable flicks, but the cycle of eight Edgar Allen Poe films that he unleashed in the '60s are nothing short of remarkable.  While my personal favourite has always been "The Masque of the Red Death", this -- his last -- is considered by many to be the best of the bunch.  As always the film benefits by having the ever-watchable Vincent Price in the lead, but the less well-known actors taking the remaining roles are uniformly fine, especially Elizabeth Shepherd in the dual role of his late wife Ligeia and his new wife Rowena.  As the Poe quote at the end of the film would have it: "The boundaries that divide life and death are at best shadowy and vague.  Who shall say where one ends and the other begins".  Perhaps Ligeia is not really dead or perhaps she is embodied in the castle's vicious black cat (or perhaps it is just a nasty cat) or perhaps her spirit is taking over the new wife.  The screenwriter Robert Towne -- later a prizewinner for his "Chinatown" script -- leaves the "facts" of reality to the viewer's imagination, while immersing one in the contrasts between the green English countryside surrounding the ruined abbey (some brilliant location scouting) and the eerie images within.

How I Killed My Father (2001)

The title of this French film is more than a little misleading since no one is physically murdered and there is only very, very limited violence.  The killing in question is more of a metaphorical one as a cold and calculating gerontologist, played by Charles Berling at his iciest, copes with the return from Africa of his doctor father who had abandoned the family when he was a child.  The father is an amazingly sympathetic character played by Michel Bouqet -- so very, very good as the eponymous late president in "The Last Mitterrand" which I viewed recently but did not review.  Like a lot of French movies, not much happens, but we are presented with an acting master-class, not just by the two leads, but also by the actors playing Berling's isolated wife and his younger brother.  Part of the film's appeal is the contrast between the feckless good Samaritan father who is not afraid of death and the overly controlled son who panders to his rich clientele with ways of avoiding aging.  Berling has even convinced his complacent wife that she is barren, largely because he is traumatised by the whole father-child business.  As a wealthy man, he believes that offering money to his father will rid him of this intrusion into his tidy life, but the other characters are able to move ahead, even if he is not.

Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)

The project of filming this best-selling book has been floating around Hollywood for what seems like ages and for a long time it was described as the "next" Steven Spielberg film.  In the end it was entrusted to Rob Marshall after his success with "Chicago", with Spielberg producing.  It was a rich and generally rewarding viewing experience without being totally absorbing and I don't know that it would have been any better had Spielberg taken over the reins, since it is somewhat different from his usual interests.  The bare bones of the story concerns the history of a young girl, sold together with her sister from whom she is soon separated, into bondage, and of her eventual training and success as a geisha.  The film is careful to avoid confusing the artistic side of a geisha with the sexual, and indeed there is virtually no explicit sex shown.  However, one is well aware that a geisha's life shares a great deal with a prostitute's and that it is one lifestyle that disallows any personal pursuit of the romantic ideal.  Not having read the novel, I don't know if the ending has been "Hollywoodized", but it somehow did ring false.

The positive virtues of the film include the gorgeous cinematography. costumes and art design and the three leading actresses -- Gong Li, Michelle Yeoh, and Zhang Ziyi -- are all excellent.  However it remains something of a mystery why these leads were taken by well-known Chinese actresses rather than Japanese ones, especially since the main male leads were all played by Japanese actors.  Perhaps as Westerners we are not meant to notice this anomaly.  The other peculiarity is that the movie, being a prestige Hollywood production, was made, of course, totally in English; the actors' variable comfort with the spoken language made it something of a struggle to understand all of the dialogue (English subtitles on the DVD did help), but the film must have suffered mightily with its cinema audience and this probaby accounts for its relative failure.

Hoppity Goes to Town (1941)

Every time I manage to cross off a title on my ever-expanding list of films that I would like to see, I get a real frisson of pleasure, since so many of these have proved elusive over the years.  This family animation was the last joint project of the Fleischer Brothers -- Max and Dave -- now two nearly forgotten pioneers lost in the Disney shadow.  And while I would be hard-pressed to insist that this film is some sort of lost masterpiece, it is at least masterly done and deserving greater recognition.  As later well-known releases like "Antz" and "A Bug's Life", this handsomely-drawn story follows the ups and downs of an insect community, living in the cracks and wasteground of a cityscape and their struggle to survive amongst humans.  We are offered well-defined characters, a love story, hissable villains, and some excellent songs from Hoagy Carmichael and Frank Loesser.  It also boasts some very inventitive animated sequences.  What else could you want in a family treat?

Keeping Mum (2005)

Sometimes there's nothing as good as a dose of jet black comedy to counteract the saccharine world, and this British flick made a good stab at it.  Rowan Atkinson (who usually makes me gag) is just about acceptable as a country vicar obsessed with perfecting his sermons and thus ignoring his wife, played by Kristin Scott Thomas, who is tempted to begin an affair with her American golf instructor -- former heartthrob Patrick Swayze looking more and more grotesque as he ages.  Into this melange comes the new housekeeper played by the wonderful Maggie Smith who is even more of a "national treasure" than Dame Judi.  The opening sequences showed a heavily pregnant young woman jailed for murder some 43 years previously and wouldn't you know it, she just happens to be Scott Thomas' mum.  On arrival Maggie does her best to recreate a happy household for her daughter by bumping off any characters who seem to be in the way of her game plan -- and guess what, the murderous impulse seems to be hereditary!  Not the greatest of movies, but a happy nod back to a macabre tradition in British film-making.