Friday 29 June 2007

The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933)

It's been a good ten years since I last saw this film and, since I do like Myrna Loy, I decided it was time for another look, despite my not being over-the-moon about boxing movies.  Loy despite being as all-American as could be started her career playing exotics and this was one of her first big roles before her breakthrough in the Thin Man series.  She plays a nightclub singer (she even has two numbers) being kept by club owner and mob boss Otto Kruger.  Then she meets a force of nature, played by real-life boxer Max Baer in his film debut, and marries him.  Although they seem to really love each other, he can't stop himself from catting around as his boxing career takes off, and after numerous deceptions, she eventually leaves him and goes back to the club and Kruger.  Naturally after the big bout which ends this film, boy and girl get together again which is no big surprise.

What is surprising about this movie is how magnetic Baer is in his role -- he acts believably and even sings and dances in a big production number with noticeable skill.  A number of other boxers of the period and of the past also appear as themselves and in the final fight he squares off against Primo Carnera whom he in fact knocked out a year later to take the heavyweight title of the world for just under a year.  He could really have made it as a leading man in Hollywood, but when he eventually resumed his film career after his boxing career had faltered, it was strictly in B-movies and lower.  It's something of a shame.  Another favourite of mine, Walter Huston (father of John and grandfather of Angelika) also appears here as the trainer that discovers Baer, but it's not really one of his better roles, although I'm always pleased to see him. 

Wednesday 27 June 2007

The White Countess (2005)

This film is the last ever from the producer-director team of Merchant-Ivory, since Ismail Merchant died before its completion.  In the field of "heritage movies" they are unequalled, with an impressive body of work; given their films' literary nature, they are not to everyone's taste -- but there are some real gems amongst them.  I had heard that this movie was not up to their usual high standards and was therefore surprised that I responded so favourably; even at a leisurely 138 minutes the film did not seem to drag, despite a minimal amount of action.

Part of its success is down to the acting.  Set in 1936 Shanghai, Ralph Fiennes plays a recently blinded and bereaved ex-diplomat who dreams of opening the perfect nightclub.  Although Fiennes has always seemed something of a cold fish in his roles, there is no denying his acting strengths, and even with a cod American accent, one becomes involved in his dreams and optimism.  The female lead is Natasha Richardson playing a Russian emigree who supports her aristocratic and snobbish in-laws (which include her mother Vanessa and aunt Lynn Redgrave) by working as a hostess, and by implication, part-time whore; they gladly take her earnings, but when the opportunity arises for the family to flee to Hong Kong to escape the imminent Japanese invasion and to resume their place in society, they have every intention of taking her daughter but leaving her behind as a potential embarrassment.  Honestly, one wishes that one could reach in and slap screen characters.

The period detail was excellent and the cinematography by master Christopher Doyle every bit as good as one would expect.  I also thought the Japanese businessman who may prefigure the city's doom, but with whom Fiennes strikes a friendship, played by Hiroyuki Sanada (a familiar face from Japanese films) was a striking performance.  So all in all, it was not any sort of anticlimax to a superb partnership. 

Tuesday 26 June 2007

Monster House (2006)

Although this movie was nominated for best animated film at the last Academy Awards, it did not win and I am not surprised, even if I thought it was a happy watch.  I would not however have thought it was overly suitable for very young children, although kids nowadays seem to be not terribly worried by horrible possibilities, and I guess plenty of fairy tales have their very dark side.  This one is about two early-teenaged nerdy friends (the geek and the fat kid) who are joined by a smart-ass girl.  The house across the street from the geek's is one of those spooky-looking places that even the best neighbourhoods seem to boast and the old guy who lives there scares the bejeesus out of the local kids.  Any toys that land on his lawn disappear into the abyss.

When the kid thinks he has killed the old man by causing him to have a heart attack, he and his friends become aware that the house is alive -- haunted they think by his ghost -- and about to devour anyone or anything that comes near it.  It is here that the film becomes scary with the shingles morphing into jagged teeth and a carpet rolling out as a seeking tongue; having seen it eat up two local cops and a little dog, our intrepid trio know they must stop its rampage.  All of the characters are well-developed, but the celebrity voice cast is somewhat wasted, especially Kathleen Turner who has at best three or four lines as the old guy's dead, fat wife.  The animation is of the motion-capture variety which is far less naturalistic looking than some digital work, but one gets used to characters with plastic-looking hair rather than the fine detail of the best Pixar productions.  Finally, adults everywhere should be thankful that this film is not directed solely at kiddies as some of the best lines and gags probably would pass over their heads. 

Sunday 24 June 2007

Super Sucker/Daft as a Brush (2002)

I was going on about so-called "high concept" movies a few days ago and here is one that stinks even higher than "Envy" -- or to use the American version of its title, one that definitely sucks.  Now Jeff Daniels may not be one of the greatest of Hollywood actors, but he has certainly appeared in a number of very acceptable films and he was even funnier than Jim Carrey in "Dumb and Dumber", so when the DVD cover claimed that this movie was his funniest one since then, I was tempted.  Big mistake!  He plays the team leader of a group of door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesmen whose team is being outsold by the rival team led by Harve Presnell.  When Daniels discovers the use that his wife has been making of their own vacuum at home, he finds the key to a successful sales campaign.  To put no finer point upon it, he designs an attachment for frustrated housewives (and nuns!) to pleasure themselves...until the American Association for Abuse of Household Appliances puts a stop to his pitch.  My God, I thought to myself, he must have been desperate to do this film.  Then I saw the end credits: Written by Jeff Daniels, Directed by Jeff Daniels.  So now you know!

Friday 22 June 2007

Dead and Buried (1981)

This little horror classic dates from the video nasties era, although I don't think it was actually ever banned, just available with major cuts (like not showing a hypodermic needle through the eyeball!).  Anyhow it's now on disc uncut and is probably quite tame by modern standards, although it does have the occasional moment of inventive gore.  From the writers of the original Alien franchise comes the tale of a sleepy New England town which seems to have found the solution to its population crisis.  Local sheriff James Farentino can't quite understand how a horribly burnt corpse turns up later on as the new smiley gas- station attendant.  It seems that the local mortician, character actor Jack Albertson in one of his very last roles, has been doing some unauthorised experiments on the cadavers in his care, and most of the townsfolk also seem to be in on the action, taking great glee in attacking and mutilating all newcomers and tourists.  The twist comes when Farentino must work out how both he and his beloved wife fit into the scheme of things, which any horror afficionado could guess without too much difficulty.  Despite some very dark lensing -- one of my big film bete noires -- this movie holds up pretty well in the horror canon.

Wednesday 20 June 2007

Envy (2004); The Ice Harvest (2005)

I don't know that either of these deserves much review space, although the latter has far more to recommend.  So let me deal with "Envy" first.  Some so-called high-concept movies are so "high" that they reek by the time they reach the screen -- and my goodness, this is a stinker.  Director Barry Levinson has made some fine films, but he comes across as a rank (appropriate word) amateur here.  Best friends Ben Stiller and Jack Black find their relationship at risk when the latter becomes a squillionaire after inventing a spray that vaporizes dog poo.  The refrain throughout the movie is "Where has the shit gone" and the answer is that most of it is on view.  Black remains both naive and full of bonhomie, even after Stiller admits that he killed his beautiful white horse, and just about survives this outing.  However Stiller and poor old Christopher Walken doing one of his bizarre roles suffer badly.  Even Rachel Weisz as Stiller's wife probably wished in retrospect that she had been somewhere else.

As for "The Ice Harvest", this is an unlikely production from director Harold Ramis, who is best known for comedies.  While there is a small streak of black humour in evidence, there is not a lot to laugh about in this neo-noir, apart from a scene-stealing Oliver Platt playing a hopeless drunk.  The story focuses on John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton as unlikely allies who have just ripped a load of cash off the mob, their relationship with strip-club owner Connie Nielsen, and their run-ins with various mob enforcers.  Without spoiling the film too much, most of the characters do end up dead -- and it might have been even better if they all had, which seemed to be a possible ending at one stage, before the director went on to a weaker one.  I have a lot of time for Cusack when he is playing a likeable rogue (shades of Grosse Pointe Blank), but I am less enamoured of Thornton who is a reasonable enough actor but a rather trying screen presence (to me).  However, next to "Envy", this was a masterpiece.

Monday 18 June 2007

The Da Vinci Code (2006)

A while back I succumbed to the media hype and read Dan Brown's novel of the same name which was something of a satisfying page-turner; it was far from anyone's idea of great literature, but a more than rattling tale.  And now I have finally watched the movie, which, while relatively faithful to the book, did feel rather bloated.  I have always thought of Ron Howard as something of a journeyman director, and perhaps a sharper eye could have tightened up the nearly two and a half hours running time.  It was nicely photographed with some pretty nifty location work including the interior of the Louvre, but it lacked both pace and excitement.  The religious content of the plot are not under discussion here, since both novel and film are works of fiction and therefore should not really be the focus of criticism (some people apparently hated the movie on these grounds).

If one is to be critical at all, one might start with Tom Hanks in the lead where America's "Everyman" came across as a long-winded bore in the role of the master codebreaker.  He had little in the way of fizz with his co-star Audrey Tautou who is attractive enough to look at but who brought little to the table (other than of necessity being French).  Such acting honours that were evident belong to Paul Bettany as the homicidal, albino monk (as I said before, he makes a fine villain), Ian McKellen as the crippled fanatic who brought the only measure of lightheartedness to the proceedings, and Jean Reno who didn't need much of a stretch to portray the dogged police inspector in pursuit. Juergen Prochnow's and Alfred Molina's roles could have been played by just about any able actor and only added to the europudding feel of this overstuffed American production.

Saturday 16 June 2007

She Married Her Boss (1935)

This movie is one of oh-so-many early screwball comedies now more or less forgotten, but what a pleasure has been lost.  Directed by Gregory La Cava (also not much remembered nowadays, but the source of all sorts of alcoholic mayhem), it stars Claudette Colbert and Melvyn Douglas as the ever-so-efficient secretary and the boss.  Like the title says, she marries him, having been secretly in love with him for yonks; he marries her, rather than risk losing an essential member of his business life.  She immediately reorganises his disfunctional home with its cheating servants, aloof sister who hasn't a sensible bone in her body (her reaction to just about everything is to faint), and his spoiled and bratty daughter -- a brilliant turn by young Edith Fellows, who also was eclipsed by better-looking child stars of the period.

This film has so much going for it, but perhaps it is not better-known because of the cast, which is not as shiny and starry as some of the period.  Colbert is an adept light comedienne, who never quite received her due; I must admit that I find her head ever so slightly too big for her body, but what's that got to do with anything?  Douglas, who had an incredibly long career, plays his usual debonair role with the requisite stuffiness here.  The third lead was one Michael Barrett who was absolutely charming as the rival for Colbert's affections, but he only made two films after this one, although he lived to 1978; I would love to know why he left the screen and cinema just that little bit poorer.  Raymond Walburn has a splendid turn as the new butler, especially when he and teetotal Douglas go on a bender, but again his film roles were usually less showy.  At least there is a very small part for Franklin Pangborn (one of those faces that are immediately recognizable) without whom screwball would never have bounced so merrily.  

Friday 15 June 2007

Wizards (1977)

I don't suppose that many people realise that "The Lord of the Rings" had been tackled long before Peter Jackson gave us the definitive version.  The earlier one was by legendary animator Ralph Bakshi back in 1978.  He only got as far as Part One, and since his low-budget attempt flopped, Part Two and more never happened.  However Bakshi is a truly amazing talent who should be better-known, particularly for this film which is probably his masterpiece.  His earlier "Heavy Traffic" (1973) and "Fritz the Cat" have their own fan clubs; however neither of these are the least bit suitable for children, since Bakshi's streetwise characters and sexual mockery are very much for adults.

"Wizards" would be just about OK for kids, despite the would-be Queen of the Fairies having voluptuous cleavage and prominent nipples.  In a post apocalyptic universe the remains of the human race are mutants and the disciples of twin brothers fall into the good and evil camps, the former inhabited by fairies and elves, the latter by ogres and worse.  Once the evil wizard has managed to harness images of Hitler's rallies to mobilize his troops to greater effort, the rather laid-back and elderly good wizard must set forth to rid the world (again) of such evil.  The story is in many ways less important that the marvels of animation on view, from beautifully-drawn tableaux with voiceover narration, through traditional animation through modernistic rotoscoping -- it's a wonderful demonstration of the animator's art before the rush into computer-generated imagery.  It's really a thoroughly satisfying example of artistic vision and skill.

Wednesday 13 June 2007

The Whales of August (1987)

This is a very slight story based on an equally slight play, but the wealth of acting talent on display represents a mini-history of screen performance.  For a start we have 79-year old Bette Davis and 95-year old Lillian Gish -- each in their last full film roles -- playing a pair of sisters summering on an island off the Maine coast.  Gish has been caring for Davis who is both nearly blind and cantankerous, but the relationship is basically a loving one.  This is one of Davis' rare roles after her stroke, and while her face is contorted and her body frail, the talent is undiminished. The other three main characters are a neighbour and childhood friend, 78-year old Ann Sothern -- a wisecracking sidekick from comedies of the 30s and 40s (also in her last screen role), 76-year old Vincent Price playing a courtly but impoverished Russian emigre, and the baby of the cast 66-year old Harry Carey, Jr -- a stalwart from the films of John Ford -- playing the local handyman.  The film is a meditation on love, friendship, and how the world has changed, but whereas Davis' character seems obsessed by death, the vibrant and radiant Gish still finds life worth living.  The whales that the ladies awaited in their youth might come no more, but hope and beauty live on.

Monday 11 June 2007

Sixty Six (2006)

I must confess that I was rather looking forward to seeing this film, ever since my hairdresser told me about spending several days on set as an extra (the writer-director Paul Weiland is her cousin) -- and no I didn't spot her and can't be bothered to look again.  Why not?  Well because the movie was something of a downer.  I thought the concept of a young lad's (supposedly based on Weiland's own experience) finding that his bar mitzvah coincided datewise with England playing in the World Cup final had great potential and I expected a jolly look back on Jewish life in England forty years ago.

I am sorry to say that it was a sour little movie and despite a relatively heart-warming final scene where the boy manages to bond with his distracted Dad, anything but a feelgood experience.  The boy has dreams of a splendid function where he will be showered with gifts, but gradually sees this slipping away, not only because England are surprisingly headed towards victory which will overshadow anything else on his important day, but also because his family are feeling a financial pinch as his father's business collapses and his under-the-bed savings are destroyed in a house fire (caused, let me add, by a rogue firework rocket let off by a neighbour to celebrate a football win en route to the Cup.)  Add to this a fairly unattractive cast including a stereotypical blind Rabbi straight out of the Ron Moody school of acting; the only "names" to speak of were Helena Bonham Carter playing against type as the boy's mother (maybe she took the role as a favour) and Stephen Rea in his usual hangdog mode as a local doctor whose wife is cheating on him.  Period detail was, I think, well thought out, but a great shame that nostalgia here proved such a disappointment.


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Saturday 9 June 2007

Black Moon (1975)

There are some very weird movies out there, and even if I live to be 100, I probably will not discover them all -- I certainly knew nothing about this very strange confection from French director Louis Malle, whose films would normally be described as accessible.  Where to start?  Well we are in some country where there is an ongoing war between men and women -- not like there is in reality, but one in which they are killing each other.  Our young heroine played by Cathryn Harrison, Rex's grand-daughter when she was about 15, stumbles upon a country mansion, where naked children frolic in the grounds chasing an enormous pig.  Inside she finds a bedridden hag, the last role of German refugee Therese Giehse, who is busy talking "rat" to her pet rodent.  There are also a pair of adult twins (both called Lily) played by Joe Dallesando of Andy Warhol fame in a non-speaking role (although he is heard in the distance singing German lieder) and a similarly silent Alexandra Stewart, who despite her name is French (Canadian).  Part of Stewart's role in life is to breast-feed the old hag and to cook for the youngsters who appear and disappear.  It's an Alice-in-Wonderland type world that the youngster explores, full of a number of ringing alarm clocks which can only be silenced by throwing them out of the window and a talking unicorn that wanders through the grounds.  Now most unicorns, legend would have it, are white and graceful; this one for some reason is dark grey and squat, a cross between a pony and an oversized dog.

You get the idea, we are back on Planet Weird and I very much doubt that much of it is meant to mean anything in particular.  It's almost as if Malle is saying to the viewer, 'Look at how clever I am and how confusing I can be'.  Still it is lovingly lensed by the master Scandinavian cinematographer Sven Nyquist.  Just don't try to figure out what either "Black" or "Moon" have to do with the story.  I suppose there IS something black about the tale, and they do say that the moon makes you mad -- but I somehow doubt that is what Malle had in mind.

Thursday 7 June 2007

The Godless Girl (1929)

This was the last silent movie from legendary director/producer Cecil B. DeMille and a very strange choice of subject matter indeed.  It was Warner Brothers in the 1930s who bragged that their stories were "ripped from the headlines", but the same claim could have been made for this film were the subject matter not quite so outlandish.  At a high school, one girl is the popular student  who acts as a propagandist for atheism, but the dishy object of her desire is a believer.  When the school cracks down on the pamphlets she has been distributing, the lad, as president of the student council, volunteers to deal with the non-believers in his own way; however when he and his gang break up a meeting of hers and her followers, violence ensues, and a fellow-student dies.  As a result both of them are packed off to reformatory, along with another chap who is also blamed for what was actually an accident.

This is where DeMille can indulge his taste for the salacious, as one watches the various degradations that all three, but the girl in particular, must endure.  However considering the fact that I watched this film on a sparkling new print just restored from DeMille's own copy, the old 'women in prison' standby of nudity in the shower had been removed, although it was certainly there at one stage.  Anyhow, after presenting the viewer with all manner of hardships endured by our trio, halfway through DeMille self-righteously inserts a title card which says that not all reformatories are as horrible as the one depicted.  Thank you for that, Mr. DeMille.

It goes on in this vein through the two leads' escape and recapture and the heroine's narrow escape when she is chained in solitary during a fire, and of course allows for her spiritual conversion; her experiences (and lurve) have made her see the light.  None of the leads had notable subsequent careers, although they kept appearing in films, but apart from looking a wee bit too old for the roles, they suffered convincingly.  The best-known name in the cast was Noah Beery, half-brother of Wallace and father of the actor who played James Garner's screen father in "The Rockford Files", playing the sadistic prison guard.  The best of the lot, I thought was Marie Prevost playing a tough cookie who befriends our heroine inside; I understand she died tragically young, so if nothing else, this film is a fine homage to her unfulfilled potential.  However, when all is said and done, this exploitive potboiler hardly numbers amongst DeMille's best, although I was impressed with the loving care that went into its restoration,

Tuesday 5 June 2007

L'Enfant (2005)

I have just about given up predicting which film is likely to win the Palme d'or at Cannes each year, since the jury can range between selecting a popular and potentially commercial choice and a film guaranteed to leave the viewer depressed.  It is therefore remarkable to me that the Belgian Dardenne brothers have won twice, first in 1999 for "Rosetta", a downer about an unemployed young woman living with her alcoholic mother, and more recently with the above slice of life.  Why is it that 'slice of life' films always seem to focus on the more unsavoury slices?

"L'enfant" is the tale of 20-year old Bruno who has never worked an honest job (those are for wimps) and who lives off his 18-year old girlfriend Sonia's state benefits and the odd bit of larceny.  When she leaves hospital with their new-born son, Bruno gets the wheeze that there is a good market for selling infants which he proceeds to do, thinking that the money will please her and that, oh well, they can always make another kid.  Unfortunately not only does she collapse when he tells her what he has done, but when he manages to retrieve the baby for her, he finds himself in debt to a group of hard men who expect him to repay the profit they would have made.  Things go from bad to worse when Sonia reports Bruno to the police and also (quite rightly) refuses to have any more to do with him.  Although their original relationship was loving by its own peculiar standards, in fact Bruno was also some kind of child, never thinking about the outcome of his actions.  In the end when he ends up in jail after admitting his guilt in a robbery where his 14-year old accomplice was arrested, Sonia comes to see him and they wind up in tears together.  Perhaps the viewer was meant to take this as some sort of redemption, but to me it was just the very juvenile Bruno feeling sorry for himself like the big baby he is. 

Sunday 3 June 2007

Satan's Rhapsody (1917)

Before I get on to this fragment from early Italian cinema, let me sound off for a minute about the new shape of the Sky film channels.  It's all very well showing five new flicks a week on the Premiere Channel, but screening these at the same time daily means a lot of time-shifting to find something new to watch during peak hours.  I've complained, but to no avail.  To make matters worse, the choice of movies each week is weird to say the least.  For example, this week they showed "Silent Hill" (2006) and "The Dark" (2005) as a pair, and even now I am having difficulty remembering them as two separate movies, since both involved a somewhat neurotic mother (Radha Mitchell/Maria Bello) losing her daughter -- not as in death but as in disappearance -- and entering a kind of underworld to find her, at the sacifice of her own existence and bringing back a child possessed by past spirits.  To make matters worse, the father of both families was played by Sean Bean in totally wooden mode.  OK the one was set in an abandoned Pennsylvania mining village and the other in Welsh Wales with suicidal sheep, but they are beginning to merge in my mind.  I did have rather high hopes (now dashed) for both, since "Silent Hill" was the first movie for French director Christophe Gans since his remarkable "Brotherhood of the Wolf" back in 2001 and "The Dark" was a film from the Canadian director John Fawcett who wrote the imaginative "Ginger Snaps".  And while the Gans movie had some genuinely creepy atmosphere, in the end the two were just too thematically similar to prove successful.

Anyhow to get back to the matter at hand, this Italian silent was the last film by one Nino Oxilia who was killed during World War I.  It only ran 45 minutes and I gather that about two minutes has been lost before its restoration earlier this year.  It's yet another version of the Faust legend transferred to the body of a wealthy dowager who sells her soul to Mephisto for another go at youth and love.  While it was lovingly restored with beautiful tinted colour, it really wasn't overly exciting, and its main claim to fame now can only be its rarity value.  Still I'm all for preserving any and all silents that come to light since all too many have been lost to us forever.

Friday 1 June 2007

Powwow Highway (1989)

Some movies are so good-natured that they stick in the memory and bring a smile to even the most jaded lips.  It's been a few years since I last watched this indie, and on the surface, the road trip of a pair of Native Americans (to use the PC term) from Montana to Santa Fe may not sound like promising stuff.  Buddy Red Bow played by A. Martinez is a reservation activist and when he opposes a land-grab operation, his sister in Santa Fe is jailed on trumped-up charges.  Parenthetically here, I have seen Martinez, not overly striking, in other films and have wondered why he always uses the initial letter only; turns out his given name is Adolph -- so now we know!

He is part Indian on both sides of his family, but the memorable star of this film is a full-blooded one called Gary Farmer, a mountain of a man, who beautifully played an Indian named "Nobody" in the Johnny Depp starrer "Dead Man".  Farmer was brutally teased as a kid by the other children, apart from Red Bow's jailed sister, and jumps at the chance to save her.  Since he has just purchased a 1964 Buick rust-bucket (which he refers to as his warrior pony), Red Bow and he begin their journey; to Farmer it is also a chance to embrace his Cheyenne heritage and to visit the many sites on route which affirm who he is.  There's not much more to the tale, but the pair's small adventures -- contrasting Red Bow's firecracker temper and Farmer's slow sweetness -- are both satisfying and entertaining.