Movie-Viewing Experiences 4/8/18 - 24/8/18
A+ = Adored Masterwork A = Excellent A- = Very Good B+ = Good B = Nice Try B- = Passable
C = Significantly Flawed D = Pretty Bad E = Truly Dreadful: Looking Into the Void F = Vile & Repugnant: The Void
THE INNOCENTS (1961)
A- SECOND VIEWING
d: Jack Clayton
CAST: Deborah Kerr; Martin Stephens; Pamela Franklin; Peter Wyngarde; Megs Jenkins
> the first time I came across Henry James' The Turn of the Screw was as an audio book, playing while I was driving home one night from Bendigo...it was hardly an ideal companion, creeping me out as I watched for roos in the headlights; this film version is beautifully crafted (deep focus + great use of shadow + classy dissolves), necessarily reducing the children's debauchery and, in compensation, fleshing out the governess' dread of sex; the ghosts are shown without fancy SFX or soundtrack heralding (they just appear), which means you never know when they'll turn up next; not the usual horror...but as unsettling as an empty grave
Award-Worthy Performance
Deborah Kerr
THE UNTOUCHABLES (1987)
A- THIRD VIEWING RE-EVALUATION Original Grade: B+
d: Brian De Palma
CAST: Kevin Costner; Sean Connery; Robert De Niro; Andy Garcia; Charles Martin Smith
> I was never much of a fan of the vintage TV series (I enjoyed the stories but thought that Robert Stack as Eliot Ness was as wooden as a bench), but this film is American myth-making-hoopla at its finest...the Yanks love a parade, and that's this movie...watch the good honest cops bring in the big bad guys, as scene after exciting scene go by...now, cheer!; the sequence set in the railway station is, I [ahem] believe, one of the great action pieces in cinema...and while it may be a ripoff of/tribute to 1925's Battleship Potemkin, who cares?; the violence is vile but undeniably riveting, and the heartwarming counterbalances are kept to a blessed minimum
Award-Worthy Performance
Sean Connery
BLACKKKLANSMAN (2018)
A- FIRST VIEWING IN-CINEMA
d: Spike Lee
CAST: John David Washington; Adam Driver; Laura Harrier; Topher Grace; Jasper Paakkonen
> a commendable overreach...a film that strives to tell more than its story; the narrative is the true tale of a black detective circa 1972, who, with the help of a white partner, infiltrates the Colorado chapter of the KKK; this is bookended by a funny Alec Baldwin racist diatribe + not funny footage of the 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia where white supremacists clashed with protesters, resulting in a car-attack killing; comedy is used throughout the film (mainly taking off from how moronic the bigots are) but most of my laughter was over by the mid-section...by the time Harry Belafonte told his horror story, I was deadly serious; beautiful camerawork (loved the pans!) and use of inserts (1915's Birth of a Nation...gasp) but Spike substitutes tying-up unimportant loose ends for an ending; the purity of the message kicks it up a notch
LOGAN LUCKY (2017)
B+ FIRST VIEWING
d: Steven Soderbergh
CAST: Channing Tatum; Adam Driver; Daniel Craig; Riley Keough; Hilary Swank
> this is a redneck comedy jiggered up into a heist movie, with a touch of the shaggy-dog-isms, so it's a little slow and long-winded in the telling...which is its major glitch; three siblings plan and carry out a speedway robbery with the help of an incarcerated explosives expert and his two dingbat brothers; the caper is impressively tricky to say the least (cleverly scripted) but it's the comic performances that carry it (especially from one-handed Adam who made me laugh out loud a number of times...wait until you hear him say "Cauliflower"); MAJOR BONUS: not a single gun used by anyone, not even by the cops...y'see America? You CAN do it!
Award-Worthy Performance
Adam Driver
SHERLOCK HOLMES FACES DEATH (1943)
B+ FIRST VIEWING
d: Roy William Neill
CAST: Basil Rathbone; Nigel Bruce; Dennis Hoey; Gavin Muir; Hillary Brooke; Halliwell Hobbes
> this is Number 6 in the wonderful Basil'n'Nigel Sherlock Holmes film series, and a welcome return to Conan Doyle form (after 3 ra-ra WWII war effort efforts); the plot of this is quite Agatha Christie in style: murders take place in one place (a repatriation hospital for shellshocked soldiers which, during peacetime, is a creepy English mansion complete with secret passages and a clock that strikes 13) with seven suspects, all with logical motives (my faves are the three recuperating servicemen: one who knits, one who wears rope wrapped around his middle, and one who is wary of small packages); Dr Watson is less the comic relief this time and more the helpful partner of Holmes...they solve it together, which is nice; naff supporting performances don't cripple the show too much; an enjoyable dark'n'stormy night mystery which doesn't ask too much of you
PS Did you spot Peter Lawford? Yep, so young you can count the strands of bumfluff.
THE DIVIDED HEART (1954)
B+ FIRST VIEWING
d: Charles Crichton
CAST: Cornell Borchers; Yvonne Mitchell; Michel Ray; Armin Dahlen; Geoffrey Keen
> the perfect title for a wrenching No Win / No Win story: seven years after WWII, a German couple receive a knock at the door...the supposedly-orphaned boy who they lovingly adopted when he was 3 has been claimed by his birth mother (an Auschwitz survivor)...now, I ask you, can you imagine a more heartbreaking premise? (and, for greater tug, it is based on a true story...in fact, probably hundreds of true stories); everybody involved is decent & wholly devoted to the child, so, no matter which outcome the film goes for, it will be unsatisfying... which is, of course, the entire point; I would have preferred more backstory-telling of both mothers (there are fleeting flashbacks which aren't enough) and an opening up of the kid's emotional tussle...he just seems to throw things then go quiet; still, it will get to you
THE WIFE (2017)
B FIRST VIEWING IN-CINEMA
d: Bjorn Runge
CAST: Glenn Close; Jonathan Pryce; Christian Slater; Max Irons; Harry Lloyd; Annie Starke
> novelist is awarded the Nobel Prize but his wife has made a greater contribution to his work than the world knows; all of the critical accolades have gone to Glenn (who, when the writer makes his acceptance speech, gives a masterclass in silent reacting...stunning) but this is really a classic partnership performance...one of the best I have ever seen...Glenn & Jonathan are an as-flesh longtime couple, with no way to hide from / lie to each other; Near Fatal Flaw: it just isn't possible that this woman would enter into, then maintain, a subservient arrangement like this one...her titanic self-respect simply would not permit it...a doormat she ain't
Award-Worthy Performance
Glenn Close & Jonathan Pryce
ORDERS TO KILL (1958)
B- FIRST VIEWING
d: Anthony Asquith
CAST: Paul Massie; Irene Worth; Leslie French; Eddie Albert; Lillian Gish
> WWII drama set largely in occupied France...British soldier is sent to Paris to kill a double agent...the young man sees it all as a bit of an adventure, which has his superiors worried...but then when it comes to actually carrying out the murder...well, it's not as much gungho fun as he thought it would be; the big name stars really only contribute cameo appearances, so the lesser-knowns carry the picture...and they do okay, if lacking a little in the charisma department; the suspense comes almost entirely from our hero's Morality vs Duty tug-of-war, which is only intermittently enough to hold us; incorporation of street footage from the time adds that sought-after grey-day grit; the eventual killing is appropriately shocking & awful but the prolonged aftermath is more hysterical than gripping, then settles down into aw-gee niceguyness
SAHARA (1943)
B- FIRST VIEWING
d: Zoltan Korda
CAST: Humphrey Bogart; Dan Duryea; Bruce Bennett; Rex Ingram; J Carrol Naish
> a WWII Desert Campaign movie, filmed in the dunes of California; Bogie is a tank commander who is ordered to retreat after the fall of Tobruk...along the way, he picks up numerous strays (each one a different nationality...gee, what's the odds of that?) and they hole up in some old Arab ruins where there is water...but a nearby German platoon needs water too...; handsome cinematography (there's something about black & white and the desert landscape) and some solid acting aren't enough to compensate for some cringy (and understandable) moralising two-thirds in: Universal Brotherhood + The Evil of Fascism + Why We Fight + Heroic Deaths (as long as their first name isn't Humphrey); this is capped by the good guys turning into Super Soldiers: the 9 Allies decide to try and defeat a Nazi battalion of 500...and guess what...?
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: FALLOUT (2018)
B- FIRST VIEWING IN-CINEMA
d: Christopher McQuarrie
CAST: Tom Cruise; Henry Cavill; Ving Rhames; Simon Pegg; Rebecca Ferguson; Sean Harris
> #6 in the MI cinematic franchise, this has been called the best of the entries, but don't you believe it; built around three main action sequences (1: motorbike pursuit 2: rooftop jumping 3: helicopter chasey / cliff-tumbling), this fully lives up to the brag "Impossible", so ridiculous are many of the setups...I wasn't the only one in the audience who chortled at the blatant silliness...must be tough trying to top what went before, but if it slips too completely into the Realm of the Absurd, it also takes a sidestep into Stupid; and while we're talking about humour, where did the intentional comedy go?...even comic-relief Simon is more stuntman than mood-lightener; having said all that, the three aforementioned action sequences are admittedly stunning but they're all you'll take away with you along with the empty popcorn box
CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN (1943)
C FIRST VIEWING
d: Edward Dmytryk
CAST: Milburn Stone; Evelyn Ankers; John Carradine; Acquanetta; Lloyd Corrigan
> how daft can you get?...are you ready?...mad scientist / endocrinologist John (who has written a book called Glands and Their Secretions...eww) experiments on animals...his goal is to transfuse glandular fluids from one creature into another...eww...after many failures, he finds his dream coupling: the juice of a woman into the body of a gorilla (Spoiler Alert: it's not a real gorilla; it's a flunky in a monkey suit! gosh!); the end-product looks human but thinks ape; the scenes of lion & tiger taming are definitely not recommended for Animal Activists, but they sure are exciting...the trainer actually uses a whip & chair!; full credit to all the actors, none of whom ham it up or are apparently embarrassed to appear in such twaddle...they give it their I-want-another-job-after-this best; all over in 61 minutes, this is the epitome of short & dumb
WATERLOO (1970)
D FIRST VIEWING
d: Sergei Bondarchuk
CAST: Rod Steiger; Christopher Plummer; Jack Hawkins; Dan O'Herlihy; Orson Welles
> as nod-off dull as only a costume epic can be; it's amusing that Rod Steiger was once considered a great actor...in this, he portrays History's ultimate Short Man Syndrome sufferer as someone who clearly loves comedy...he's all sideways hat and chubby fingers twitching behind his back...I kept waiting for him to cry out "They're coming to take me away, ha-ha!"; Christopher as Wellington seems utterly disinterested and the rest of the supporting cast resorts to panto cliche...only Orson produces something fresh, but that's as a seated planet; the Napoleonic Era is something I know little about, but this movie won't help that...despite being framed as a docu-drama, it is riddled with historical inaccuracies; graded leniently because at least this epic doesn't have an overture, an intermission or Charlton Heston
Got something you want to tell me?
GO RIGHT AHEAD: masted59@gmail.com
THE INNOCENTS (1961)
d: Jack Clayton
CAST: Deborah Kerr; Martin Stephens; Pamela Franklin; Peter Wyngarde; Megs Jenkins
> the first time I came across Henry James' The Turn of the Screw was as an audio book, playing while I was driving home one night from Bendigo...it was hardly an ideal companion, creeping me out as I watched for roos in the headlights; this film version is beautifully crafted (deep focus + great use of shadow + classy dissolves), necessarily reducing the children's debauchery and, in compensation, fleshing out the governess' dread of sex; the ghosts are shown without fancy SFX or soundtrack heralding (they just appear), which means you never know when they'll turn up next; not the usual horror...but as unsettling as an empty grave
Award-Worthy Performance
Deborah Kerr
THE UNTOUCHABLES (1987)
d: Brian De Palma
CAST: Kevin Costner; Sean Connery; Robert De Niro; Andy Garcia; Charles Martin Smith
> I was never much of a fan of the vintage TV series (I enjoyed the stories but thought that Robert Stack as Eliot Ness was as wooden as a bench), but this film is American myth-making-hoopla at its finest...the Yanks love a parade, and that's this movie...watch the good honest cops bring in the big bad guys, as scene after exciting scene go by...now, cheer!; the sequence set in the railway station is, I [ahem] believe, one of the great action pieces in cinema...and while it may be a ripoff of/tribute to 1925's Battleship Potemkin, who cares?; the violence is vile but undeniably riveting, and the heartwarming counterbalances are kept to a blessed minimum
Award-Worthy Performance
Sean Connery
BLACKKKLANSMAN (2018)
d: Spike Lee
CAST: John David Washington; Adam Driver; Laura Harrier; Topher Grace; Jasper Paakkonen
> a commendable overreach...a film that strives to tell more than its story; the narrative is the true tale of a black detective circa 1972, who, with the help of a white partner, infiltrates the Colorado chapter of the KKK; this is bookended by a funny Alec Baldwin racist diatribe + not funny footage of the 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia where white supremacists clashed with protesters, resulting in a car-attack killing; comedy is used throughout the film (mainly taking off from how moronic the bigots are) but most of my laughter was over by the mid-section...by the time Harry Belafonte told his horror story, I was deadly serious; beautiful camerawork (loved the pans!) and use of inserts (1915's Birth of a Nation...gasp) but Spike substitutes tying-up unimportant loose ends for an ending; the purity of the message kicks it up a notch
LOGAN LUCKY (2017)
d: Steven Soderbergh
CAST: Channing Tatum; Adam Driver; Daniel Craig; Riley Keough; Hilary Swank
> this is a redneck comedy jiggered up into a heist movie, with a touch of the shaggy-dog-isms, so it's a little slow and long-winded in the telling...which is its major glitch; three siblings plan and carry out a speedway robbery with the help of an incarcerated explosives expert and his two dingbat brothers; the caper is impressively tricky to say the least (cleverly scripted) but it's the comic performances that carry it (especially from one-handed Adam who made me laugh out loud a number of times...wait until you hear him say "Cauliflower"); MAJOR BONUS: not a single gun used by anyone, not even by the cops...y'see America? You CAN do it!
Award-Worthy Performance
Adam Driver
SHERLOCK HOLMES FACES DEATH (1943)
d: Roy William Neill
CAST: Basil Rathbone; Nigel Bruce; Dennis Hoey; Gavin Muir; Hillary Brooke; Halliwell Hobbes
> this is Number 6 in the wonderful Basil'n'Nigel Sherlock Holmes film series, and a welcome return to Conan Doyle form (after 3 ra-ra WWII war effort efforts); the plot of this is quite Agatha Christie in style: murders take place in one place (a repatriation hospital for shellshocked soldiers which, during peacetime, is a creepy English mansion complete with secret passages and a clock that strikes 13) with seven suspects, all with logical motives (my faves are the three recuperating servicemen: one who knits, one who wears rope wrapped around his middle, and one who is wary of small packages); Dr Watson is less the comic relief this time and more the helpful partner of Holmes...they solve it together, which is nice; naff supporting performances don't cripple the show too much; an enjoyable dark'n'stormy night mystery which doesn't ask too much of you
PS Did you spot Peter Lawford? Yep, so young you can count the strands of bumfluff.
THE DIVIDED HEART (1954)
d: Charles Crichton
CAST: Cornell Borchers; Yvonne Mitchell; Michel Ray; Armin Dahlen; Geoffrey Keen
> the perfect title for a wrenching No Win / No Win story: seven years after WWII, a German couple receive a knock at the door...the supposedly-orphaned boy who they lovingly adopted when he was 3 has been claimed by his birth mother (an Auschwitz survivor)...now, I ask you, can you imagine a more heartbreaking premise? (and, for greater tug, it is based on a true story...in fact, probably hundreds of true stories); everybody involved is decent & wholly devoted to the child, so, no matter which outcome the film goes for, it will be unsatisfying... which is, of course, the entire point; I would have preferred more backstory-telling of both mothers (there are fleeting flashbacks which aren't enough) and an opening up of the kid's emotional tussle...he just seems to throw things then go quiet; still, it will get to you
THE WIFE (2017)
d: Bjorn Runge
CAST: Glenn Close; Jonathan Pryce; Christian Slater; Max Irons; Harry Lloyd; Annie Starke
> novelist is awarded the Nobel Prize but his wife has made a greater contribution to his work than the world knows; all of the critical accolades have gone to Glenn (who, when the writer makes his acceptance speech, gives a masterclass in silent reacting...stunning) but this is really a classic partnership performance...one of the best I have ever seen...Glenn & Jonathan are an as-flesh longtime couple, with no way to hide from / lie to each other; Near Fatal Flaw: it just isn't possible that this woman would enter into, then maintain, a subservient arrangement like this one...her titanic self-respect simply would not permit it...a doormat she ain't
Award-Worthy Performance
Glenn Close & Jonathan Pryce
ORDERS TO KILL (1958)
d: Anthony Asquith
CAST: Paul Massie; Irene Worth; Leslie French; Eddie Albert; Lillian Gish
> WWII drama set largely in occupied France...British soldier is sent to Paris to kill a double agent...the young man sees it all as a bit of an adventure, which has his superiors worried...but then when it comes to actually carrying out the murder...well, it's not as much gungho fun as he thought it would be; the big name stars really only contribute cameo appearances, so the lesser-knowns carry the picture...and they do okay, if lacking a little in the charisma department; the suspense comes almost entirely from our hero's Morality vs Duty tug-of-war, which is only intermittently enough to hold us; incorporation of street footage from the time adds that sought-after grey-day grit; the eventual killing is appropriately shocking & awful but the prolonged aftermath is more hysterical than gripping, then settles down into aw-gee niceguyness
SAHARA (1943)
d: Zoltan Korda
CAST: Humphrey Bogart; Dan Duryea; Bruce Bennett; Rex Ingram; J Carrol Naish
> a WWII Desert Campaign movie, filmed in the dunes of California; Bogie is a tank commander who is ordered to retreat after the fall of Tobruk...along the way, he picks up numerous strays (each one a different nationality...gee, what's the odds of that?) and they hole up in some old Arab ruins where there is water...but a nearby German platoon needs water too...; handsome cinematography (there's something about black & white and the desert landscape) and some solid acting aren't enough to compensate for some cringy (and understandable) moralising two-thirds in: Universal Brotherhood + The Evil of Fascism + Why We Fight + Heroic Deaths (as long as their first name isn't Humphrey); this is capped by the good guys turning into Super Soldiers: the 9 Allies decide to try and defeat a Nazi battalion of 500...and guess what...?
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: FALLOUT (2018)
d: Christopher McQuarrie
CAST: Tom Cruise; Henry Cavill; Ving Rhames; Simon Pegg; Rebecca Ferguson; Sean Harris
> #6 in the MI cinematic franchise, this has been called the best of the entries, but don't you believe it; built around three main action sequences (1: motorbike pursuit 2: rooftop jumping 3: helicopter chasey / cliff-tumbling), this fully lives up to the brag "Impossible", so ridiculous are many of the setups...I wasn't the only one in the audience who chortled at the blatant silliness...must be tough trying to top what went before, but if it slips too completely into the Realm of the Absurd, it also takes a sidestep into Stupid; and while we're talking about humour, where did the intentional comedy go?...even comic-relief Simon is more stuntman than mood-lightener; having said all that, the three aforementioned action sequences are admittedly stunning but they're all you'll take away with you along with the empty popcorn box
CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN (1943)
d: Edward Dmytryk
CAST: Milburn Stone; Evelyn Ankers; John Carradine; Acquanetta; Lloyd Corrigan
> how daft can you get?...are you ready?...mad scientist / endocrinologist John (who has written a book called Glands and Their Secretions...eww) experiments on animals...his goal is to transfuse glandular fluids from one creature into another...eww...after many failures, he finds his dream coupling: the juice of a woman into the body of a gorilla (Spoiler Alert: it's not a real gorilla; it's a flunky in a monkey suit! gosh!); the end-product looks human but thinks ape; the scenes of lion & tiger taming are definitely not recommended for Animal Activists, but they sure are exciting...the trainer actually uses a whip & chair!; full credit to all the actors, none of whom ham it up or are apparently embarrassed to appear in such twaddle...they give it their I-want-another-job-after-this best; all over in 61 minutes, this is the epitome of short & dumb
WATERLOO (1970)
d: Sergei Bondarchuk
CAST: Rod Steiger; Christopher Plummer; Jack Hawkins; Dan O'Herlihy; Orson Welles
> as nod-off dull as only a costume epic can be; it's amusing that Rod Steiger was once considered a great actor...in this, he portrays History's ultimate Short Man Syndrome sufferer as someone who clearly loves comedy...he's all sideways hat and chubby fingers twitching behind his back...I kept waiting for him to cry out "They're coming to take me away, ha-ha!"; Christopher as Wellington seems utterly disinterested and the rest of the supporting cast resorts to panto cliche...only Orson produces something fresh, but that's as a seated planet; the Napoleonic Era is something I know little about, but this movie won't help that...despite being framed as a docu-drama, it is riddled with historical inaccuracies; graded leniently because at least this epic doesn't have an overture, an intermission or Charlton Heston
Got something you want to tell me?
GO RIGHT AHEAD: masted59@gmail.com
