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.

Something of a holiday from Holiday viewing

I did say upfront that there was little to tempt me over the holiday period, and my daily average has been well down since I last wrote nine days ago,  This is not to say that Pretty Pink saw no movies (for who would believe that?), but there wasn't a lot to write home about.  Here, such as they may be, are the highlights (to use the word very loosely):

Battlecreek Brawl (1981): Jackie Chan is usually good value, and I had only previously seen this early attempt to break into the US market in a German dub.  Well this was not the movie to do it, but Jackie's action prowess is always an amusing watch.  Which is more than can be said of his appearance in "Cannonball Run" (1981) where he was lost in a large eclectic cast.  I don't quite know how I managed never to have seen this one before, but it was appallingly awful.  Needless to say, it made a wagonload of money back then, so there's no accounting for taste.

When the Levees Broke (2006):  I have seen this Spike Lee documentary on the aftermath of Hurricaine Katrina described as his "masterpiece", but I don't agree.  Running over five hours, this polemic would have the viewer believe that the slow response of the Federal government to the tragedy was triggered by the fact that many of the victims were poor and black.  Spike, baby, we get the message and don't need to have our noses rubbed into the mess; shorter might have been more effective -- that's what editing rooms are for.

The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992): A seasonal viewing for the young 'uns with an able Michael Caine as Scrooge supported by the usual Muppet suspects.  Mind you singing is not his forte and for my money Alastair Sim is the one true Scrooge, but still good, colourful fun.

Aeon Flux (2005): Don't expect me to tell you much about this Sci Fi nonsense.  However I will ask why Oscar-winning actresses next feel obliged to try something completely different, pace Halle Berry in the abysmal "Catwoman" and Charlize Theron here as a futuristic assassin.  She did however look very tasty in the skimpy costumes!

Oliver Twist (2005): This is director Roman Polanski's take on the classic tale, but he brought little new to the table.  Competently mounted but relatively slow and pedestrian in is execution, wanting to make a movie that his children could watch seems insufficient reason for obtaining the funding.  Stick with the classic black and white David Lean version or even the musical.

Santa Baby (2006): Some seasonal fluff unleashed on cable television with Santa's daughter (Jenny McCarthy) as a high-flying executive having to fill in for the old man when he has a heart attack.  Some people have a weird idea of suitable holiday fare!

Transporter 2 (2005) and Doom (2005):  Designed as vehicles for their action stars, neither of these are likely to remain in the memory.  The former was slightly preferable as Jason Statham reprised his role from the earlier (unlikely) hit; at least he plays a rounded anti-hero and the action pyrotechnics divert.  In contrast, The Rock, in a film too obviously derived from yet another video game, may turn bad as the sergeant in charge of containing a zombie infestastion at a remote scientific outpost, but he still has only the one reactive expression  -- glaring straight at the camera -- the same one he uses when he is the good guy.

Maybe the time has come to make a New Year's resolution to watch less dross, which means watching fewer movies -- but realistically, probably not.  Anyhow I close for now with best wishes to all for a peaceful, happy and healthy 2007.

Fantastic Voyage (1966)

This will probably be my last chance to post any comments before the holiday deluge and I also want to take this opportunity to send my best wishes for the season to any and all readers.  Since this is the time of year when there are largely repeats on the box (I covered the not-so-many good premieres below), I thought I'd have another look at an old perennial favourite.  This is the one where a diplomat has been shot and his life can only be saved by miniaturizing a medical team and their submarine in order to inject them into his bloodstream on a journey to the clot in his brain.  Once one accepts the preposterous premise, the film is good fun, even if some of the special effects are a little primitive; however, on balance, they are colourfully well-done and give a good indication of what it might be like to cruise through the human body.  The crew consists of Stephen Boyd (a woodentop of his day), Raquel Welch in one of her non-sexpot roles as the assistant to doctor Arthur Kennedy, Donald Pleasence in his usual hysterical mode as another doctor, and William Redfield as the navigator.  The boffins on the ground are Edmund O'Brien and Arthur O'Connell who lend gravitas to the proceedings.  Of course nothing goes according to plan and the team must overcome various problems including having a fifth columnist on board who wants the mission to fail.  It is quite satisfying to watch him being gobbled up by a huge white cell!

Talking about strange deaths, I forgot to write when I reviewed "Frostbite" below that this is the first time I have ever seen a vampire staked to death by a garden gnome through the heart.  Ho, ho, ho, folks.

 

Carandiru (2003)

If you thought "City of God" was a strong, worthwhile film, then here is another Brazilian movie for your consideration.  Directed by veteran legend Hector Babenco, it is a prison film based on a book by a doctor who worked at the prison in the '80s to try to educate the inmates about AIDS.  Now there have been numerous prison movies over the years of varying quality, but this one ranks among the very best -- realistic, painful, yet in its way, full of hope.  Carandiru was a notorious gaol near Sao Paolo with over 7000 prisoners in a building meant for half that number.  Babenco not only gives us an idea of the awful conditions in which they lived, but also fleshes out their backstories in a way that we begin to care about these people, however villainous they may have been.  The beginning of the end was a notorious prison riot which could have been quickly settled by the thoughtful warden, but politicians stuck their noses into the situation and innumerable prisoners died needlessly.  Eventually the prison was demolished but not before leaving a web of tragedy and redemption as seen through the doctor's eyes.

Fun with Dick and Jane (2005)

The original film of this title was a mid-70s flick co-starring George Segal and Jane Fonda as the hard-up rich couple who take to larceny to fund their life style when hubby loses his job.  The film was pleasant enough, as the two leads shared excellent screen comedy, but if ever a movie was screaming for a remake or an updating, this was not the one.  So just why Jim Carrey, who also produced the film, decided that this would be the perfect vehicle for his talents is quite frankly beyond me.  He is an actor who was amusing enough when he first came to one's notice in "The Mask" and "Dumb and Dumber", but his subsequent roles have been a little hard to take in anything but small dollops.  Here he is paired with Tea Leoni as his wife and partner in crime.  Now, she is someone who I really liked in her early television roles and someone for whom I still have a soft spot, but her subsequent movie roles have not really worked to her advantage.  This film too will do little for her career.  The slapstick plot really made me cringe and even the supposed feel-good ending where Carrey brings big baddie Alex Baldwin his comeuppance and achieves justice for all of Baldwin's erstwhile employees didn't sit that well, keeping in mind the crimes that the hapless couple had perpetrated before this frankly stupid denouement.

The Conversation (1974)

This movie is considered one of the seminal films of the 1970s, but although I had seen it previously, I never really "got" it before my most recent viewing.  Gene Hackman is definitely the whole show and carries the movie as the surveillance expert who makes the mistake of getting involved with the objects of his team's snooping, a young couple played by Frederic Forrest and Cindy Williams.  He begins to fear for their safety after an earlier incident back in his New York days left several innocent dead.  The film is redolent with Hackman's paranoia and the terrific plot twist results in a powerful and truly frightening conclusion.  Francis Ford Coppola wrote, produced and directed the film and in its way it is every bit as good as his Godfather movies, albeit on a much smaller scale.  It is also rather amusing to see Harrison Ford in a minor role which makes one wonder how he actually managed to have the amazing career that has followed.

Flags of our Fathers (2006)

 One of these days I suppose that Martin Scorsese will get the Oscar that everyone thinks he deserves, but I really now believe that Clint Eastwood is the greater director with the more interesting body of work.  I attended a preview of the above film today and the audience seemed so moved by its brilliance that virtually no one stood up or tried to walk out during the end credits; that is unusual nowadays.  I've written previously that war movies are my least favourite film genre, but Eastwood has created a war movie here with no false heroics and no attempts at personal glory.  The fighting men portrayed are doing the best they can, not just for their country but for each other in their attempt to survive.

The story is inspired by the famous photograph of six men raising the American flag during the battle for Iwo Jima.  The top brass decide to use the three survivors as patriotic propaganda tools to raise cash for the war effort in Stateside bond drives.  The first man is a vain opportunist who saw virtually no action and who is certainly no hero.  The second is a sailor played by Ryan Phillippe with surprising maturity, leaving far behind his usual lightweight persona.  The third is a Puma Indian called Ira Hayes, brilliantly played by Native America actor Adam Beach, who hates being used and who wants to return to the Front.  One has seen Ira Hayes' tragic story before in the 1961 movie "The Outsider" where the role was taken, believe it or not, by Tony Curtis -- but fair dos, he did a super job.  I have no idea if Beach will get an Oscar nod for his performance, but goodness knows his moving turn deserves one.

Eastwood films the battle scenes in muted colours which adds to the realistic feel of the true horrors of war.  Even when the three heroes are getting folk to buy bonds at fancy receptions, their memories keep returning to the grim battlefield and the true heroes who have fallen there.  Eastwood has also composed the moving musical score for this film; talk about Renaissance Men!  Finally, he has finished a companion piece for this film called "Letters from Iwo Jima" which will not be released here until Febrary but which is already winning kudos in the States.  That picture will tell the Iwo Jima story from the Japanese point of view; I can't see Scorsese doing something so strikingly original.

Frostbite (2006)

By rights I should have seen this Swedish film at FrightFest a few months back, but it was one of their late-night showings (past my bedtime!).  So I finally caught up with it some four months later and apart from the fact that I can now say that I have seen the one and only Swedish vampire flick ever produced in that country, I can't say a great deal more.  A hospital lab technician and her daughter move to the North which is still in the throes of Arctic night and fall in with a nest of vampires.  Well at least the chief doctor has been one since a World War II experience and has been hiding out with a child vampire for the past sixty years studying how to perfect his species and take over the world -- as one does.  Unfortunately one of his medical students steals the controlling blood pills and they find their way to a teenage rave as the drug of choice with the expected bloody results.  Poorly paced and something of a riff on vampire legends -- I never knew that afflicted people had dogs address them! -- the movie was played more for laughs than for chills, and on this level, it was a pleasant enough diversion -- but I doubt that other horrormeisters need fear the competition here. 

It's a Wonderful World (1939)

If I tell you that this film stars James Stewart and if you look at the title quickly, you might think I am about to review "It's a Wonderful Life" which is one of the all-time great American movies and one of my and a lot of other people's favourites.  This is a horse of a different colour, as they say, but still an amusing example of the screwball genre.  Its credentials are impeccable: written by Ben Hecht and Herman J. Mankiewicz, directed by W.S. Van Dyke.  It's the story of fearless private eye Stewart who attempts to prevent his client being falsely convicted of murder and who is sentenced to jail on a trumped-up charge.  En route to pokey he escapes and aided by a scatty poetess, he eventually proves his and his client's innocence.  So why isn't this picture better known?  Well for a start Stewart's co-star here is Claudette Colbert, who has proved herself an able comedienne in other movies, but with whom he has virtually no chemistry.  (Very parenthetically, it always strikes me that her head is far too big for her body!)  Secondly the supporting cast while able only includes Guy Kibbee as the sort of character actor guaranteed to enliven his scenes, while the remainder -- mainly playing dumb cops -- are definitely second-tier.  Yet it is always a pleasure seeing the young Stewart and his turn as a misogynistic, money-grabber is an amusing alternative to his usual persona.

The United States of Leland (2003)

I was curious to see this film which was made in 2003, but not released I think until 2004, since I had read so many conflicting reviews -- ranging from drab and depressing to brilliant.  Of course it was something in the middle, worth a watch for the depth of the acting by a very able cast, but ultimately the polar opposite of a feel-good movie.  Told in a non-linear fashion casually moving back and forth from the past to the present with disturbing frequency, it tells of a 15-year old boy played by Ryan Gosling, from a broken family and distressed by being dumped by his love interest (Jena Malone), who is arrested for murdering her sweet mentally-handicapped young brother.  A teacher at Juvenile Hall played by the always professional Don Cheadle senses the makings of a best-selling book and tries to shed light on Gosling's motives which are never made particularly clear.  He begins to feel close to the articulate youth and perhaps really wishes to help him despite the fact that an act, however evil, can never be satisfactorily undone.  The cast is fleshed out by Kevin Spacey and Lena Olin as his strange and estranged parents, Martin Donovan as the murdered boy's father, Michelle Williams as another daughter of his family, and Chris Klein as her boyfriend who is living with them after his own mother's death.   Despite the high standard of acting from all of the cast, it was more than a little difficult to accept the then 23-year old Gosling and the then 24-year old Klein as believable juveniles, which -- as it happens -- was essential for the film's sad, sad outcome.  

Films on TV this Christmas

Being angry is hardly a good start, but of the films premiering this year, there is hardly anything that I have not already seen.  Probably it's just as well, since with a houseful of company, my viewing hours will be numbered anyhow, although it would be nice to be able to look forward to something that I really, really want to see when the debris clears.  So my recommendations are for less obsessive viewers and I shall concentrate on the premiere showings, although an unfortunate number of these are not worth your time and chances are that you have already seen the better ones at the cinema or on DVD.

Starting with terrestrial TV, my picks would be "Calendar Girls" (BBC on the 24th), "Monsters Inc." (BBC on the 25th), "Pirates of the Caribbean" (BBC on the 26th), the devastating Brazilian movie "City of God" (Channel 4 on the 27th), the best of the lot: "Spirited Away" (BBC2 on the 30th), and the clever "Adaptation" (Channel 5 on the 31st).  Also-ran choices would include "Holes" (BBC on the 28th) -- an offbeat children's tale, "Mrs. Henderson Presents" (BBC on the 29th) -- worth seeing for the Dench/Hoskins interplay, and if you would like to see what all the fuss is about "High School Musical" (BBC on the 29th).  If you're looking for older films that haven't been shown umpteen times in  recent years, you will look in vain, although it is worth noting that the B-series of Falcon movies can be found on BBC2 in the late, late hours daily.

The choice on satellite is even more limited, since Sky seem to think that all their new customers will be happy with the same selection they have been showing all year and that they can be fobbed off with limited premieres.  The best of these are "The Chronicles of Narnia" on Christmas Day, "Tim Burton's Corpse Bride" on New Years Eve, and the Peter Jackson "King Kong" on New Year's Day.   The best things in the Sky schedules can in fact be found on Cinema 1 and Cinema 2 this coming weekend (16-18 Dec.) when they are showing a selection of Harold Lloyd shorts and features, all worth seeking out.  Further afield, keep on eye on the Discovery Channel which has scheduled a number of showings for the recently-released Herzog documentary "Grizzly Man".  You are better served finding classic movies on satellite if you check out the schedules on Sky Cinema, TCM, and to a lesser extent FilmFour.  The best Christmas classic showing is the original "Miracle on 34th Street" (Sky Cinema on the 24th) and worth 90 minutes of anyone's time to put you in the Christmas mood.

For once the schedules are light on compilation programmes this year; last year we were inundated with them.  But one of the few things I am looking forward to is the AFI's "100 Years, 100 Cheers" on Channel 4 on Christmas Eve.

Have a merry one everybody and if you would like my opinion on anything else that is showing (film-wise that is), please feel free to e-mail me.