Movie-Viewing Experiences 6/9/18 - 21/9/18
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
A SIMPLE FAVOUR (2018)
A FIRST VIEWING IN-CINEMA
d: Paul Feig
CAST: Anna Kendrick; Blake Lively; Henry Golding; Andrew Rannells
> a bit of a find...one of the most purely entertaining comedy-mysteries to come out of Hollywood in a long time; Anna is an exhaustingly pro-active, busy-bee, cupcake of a single Mom who meets cynical, bruisingly-blunt, businesswoman Blake...opposites attract (with the help of some potent martinis) and an unlikely friendship is forged...one day, Blake goes missing and her new best friend decides to find out exactly what happened; I laughed often at the irresistibly-perky character of Anna (a touch of the 1930's screwballness about her) and at the sheer audacity of the script...it darts off in eyebrow-raising directions; the first great film of 2018
Award-Worthy Performances
Anna Kendrick; Blake Lively
PATTON (1970)
A- MOVIE JUKEBOX
d: Franklin J. Schaffner
CAST: George C. Scott; Karl Malden; Michael Bates; Siegfried Rauch; Frank Latimore
> aka The George C. Scott Show...thank the God of War then that George is absolutely riveting in a role that would be most actors' unscalable mountain; the film successfully manages to juggle a biography, an action movie and an historical rendering, faltering only a couple of times: the reincarnation guff (complete with otherworldly trumpets which I find an annoyance) and too many shots of tanks & jeeps rolling across the landscape; while the battle vistas are suitably spectacular, the scenes inside the German HQ (with a wiseacre captain giving everyone a running commentary) are a onesided setup...I'm sure the Nazi Commanders weren't really that foolish
Award-Worthy Performance
George C. Scott
PS I've just finished reading Michael Jones' 2015 book After Hitler: The Last Ten Days of World War II in Europe. It is one of the great WWII books. Highly Recommended.
JULIET, NAKED (2018)
A- FIRST VIEWING IN-CINEMA
d: Jesse Peretz
CAST: Rose Byrne; Ethan Hawke; Chris O'Dowd; Megan Dodds
> a caveat: I have probably overrated this because I am a sucker for British rom-coms which brim with nice, good-looking people who say "fuck" a lot and have quirky friends (Notting Hill etc)...I guess I just crave undemanding joy in the cinema; so, after that manly confession... the plot of this spins around Rose and her nerdy boyfriend Chris who is obsessed with faded rockstar Ethan...Rose & Chris split, Rose & Ethan meet and they give each other the missing pieces in their lives; add a cute kid, seaside English village, funny sister, upbeat soundtrack and loads & loads of moviestar charm from the two leads, and you've got another feelgood winner
Award-Worthy Performances
Rose Byrne & Ethan Hawke
SEARCHING (2018)
B+ FIRST VIEWING IN-CINEMA
d: Aneesh Chaganty
CAST: John Cho; Debra Messing; Michelle La; Joseph Lee; Sara Sohn
> clever, clever, clever...but it's still just a gimmick film, in the order of The Blair Witch Project and some of the William Castle extravaganzas (hey, this is not necessarily a putdown); a 16YO girl goes missing and Dad trawls through her digital/online life to aid a detective in tracking her down; the entire film is told via screenshots (video + photos + social media + streaming + texts etc) and cut together to layout an intriguing Vera-style whodunnit...it goes in unexpected directions (which is good) and I counted at least three shock-twists (the last one, a twist too many...which is bad); the acting is serviceable but hardly riveting and the running commentary on modern digital life (and our quest for the proverbial "15 minutes of fame") occasionally deflates the established tension...but the gimmick is the only feature that matters
BOYHOOD (2014)
B+ SECOND VIEWING
d: Richard Linklater
CAST: Ellar Coltrane; Patricia Arquette; Ethan Hawke; Lorelei Linklater
> aka Growing Up in the 21st Century...If You're a White, Straight, Middle-Class American; a big deal is made of this film's 12 year gestation (you watch a kid actually grow from 6 to 18) which is admirably unique but...so what? (if I was such a stickler for authenticity, I'd rewatch the 7Up series instead); however, the film's few draggy spots are rarely mentioned... Life is full of these, but, as Hitchcock once paraphrased, "Film is Life with the boring bits cut out"...and this film runs for nearly 3 hours; however, this is all redeemed when 50YO Mum looks at her empty-nested future and cries: "I just thought there'd be more!"...so say we all
Award-Worthy Performance
Ellar Coltrane
THE LAST DAYS OF DOLWYN (1949)
B+ FIRST VIEWING
d: Emlyn Williams
CAST: Edith Evans; Emlyn Williams; Richard Burton; Barbara Couper; Hugh Griffith
> a sad little story about a Welsh village in 1892...an ex-resident developer (who has a personal grudge against the place) plans to flood the village to make a reservoir...a lot of money is flapped around and the townsfolk can't resist it...and so the town goes under while everyone moves to Liverpool; with typically superb acting (Edith is a darling), the time is spent getting to know the people who live there...lots of God and family ties and classism and worship of the rural life; you know from the outset that two citizens don't make it out, so your interest is held by trying to guess who they will be; a shame the ending is a little turgid
Award-Worthy Performance
Edith Evans
THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF (1961)
B FIRST VIEWING
d: Terence Fisher
CAST: Clifford Evans; Oliver Reed; Catherine Feller; Yvonne Romain; Anthony Dawson
> this is like much of the Hammer Horror I have seen thus far: takes an iconic monster (check the title) and comes up with something which is unusual, folklore-ic and pastoral, more tragic than frightening, and more sad than pulse-racing...but it's also just a little too soft; set in Spain (for no particular reason), this tells the tale of an orphaned boy who was born on Christmas Day and therefore, according to local peasant belief, is cursed...in this case, to a life of lycanthropy... so he goes out whenever there's a full moon and has midnight snacks; Oliver plays the poor afflicted soul with little subtlety (when he feels the urge coming on, Ollie looks like he's about to vomit) and the rest of the cast are consequently nudged into underplaying for balance; topnotch filmcraft (I especially like the richness of colour and the music) adds class
UNDER THE SKIN (2013)
B FIRST VIEWING
d: Jonathan Glazer
CAST: Scarlett Johansson
> unsettling bleak Art which cries out for a second viewing; an alien takes residence in Scotland and, wearing the skin of Scarlett Johansson, acts as a honey trap, driving around and picking up sexually-hungry men...it/she takes them to her place where they definitely don't get laid; great acting by Scarlett (we fascinate her)...the alien captures humans with no more emotion than a lepidopterist dropping butterflies into a killing jar; tragically, the alien also starts to absorb our humanity...her despicable fate is an ending straight from Hell and, for me, reshapes what has gone before; we are savaged twice: by what she does and then by what is done to her
Award-Worthy Performance
Scarlett Johansson
THE NARROW CORNER (1933)
B- FIRST VIEWING
d: Alfred E. Green
CAST: Douglas Fairbanks Jr; Patricia Ellis; Ralph Bellamy; Dudley Digges; Arthur Hohl
> a man wanted for murder in Sydney is snuck out of town on board a sailing ship, bound for islands in the South Seas...landing on one of these, Love & Jealousy & Betrayal rear their ugly heads; based on a Somerset Maugham novel, this wants to turn out as well as William Wyler's 1940 The Letter did, but muffs it (mainly due to some cringy dialogue and an ending which is tripe); still, there are some bright spots: Doug Jr shows yet again that he was underrated in Hollywood + Dudley impresses as an opium-smoking cynic + the ocean storms are quite spectacular + Ralph attempts a Scandinavian accent but wisely decides to give up
Award-Worthy Performance
Dudley Digges
YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE (2017)
B- FIRST VIEWING IN-CINEMA
d: Lynne Ramsay
CAST: Joaquin Phoenix; Ekaterina Samsonov; Judith Roberts
> brutal and relentlessly unpleasant; Joaquin is a killer (weapon of choice: hammer) who rescues kidnapped girls...he is also suicidal and troubled by memories of what he went through as a kid, and what he has seen and done as an adult...one rescue goes horribly wrong and things are not what they seem...can he save the senator's daughter?; this is clearly for fans of Death Wish, Taxi Driver and Marvel Comics' The Punisher...a violent anti-hero who is severely mentally disturbed...the fact that his heart is in a morally-admirable place (he saves children from perverts and takes care of his frail mum) is not enough to make his antics (he likes to bludgeon baddies and, during his downtime, he plays self-suffocation) something to cheer on; saved from the murk by two lead performances which manage to kindle some sympathy
TOMORROW, THE WORLD! (1944)
B- FIRST VIEWING
d: Leslie Fenton
CAST: Skip Homeier; Fredric March; Betty Field; Joan Carroll; Agnes Moorehead
> a classic example of a film made for a specific purpose (WWII propaganda) which is forever stuck, cemented in its time, unable to make a Casablanca-style leap; decent guy Fred brings his Hitler Youth nephew back from Germany to raise him as a good American...but the kid has other plans; based on a popular 1943 stage play, this is fully-loaded for maximum preaching: Fred's fiance (and the kid's teacher) is a Jew + the housekeeper is an anti-Nazi German + a playmate is a Pole + Fred works for The Pentagon, with secret papers in his top drawer + Agnes is weak and easily manipulated by lies + everybody except the Nazi is kind, generous and able to make with the wisecracks; what defeats the little stormtrooper?...why, a good licking of course (from the Polish kid) and finally crying tears like a real boy; graded leniently for its fine public service
STAIRCASE (1969)
F SECOND VIEWING, FIRST TIME ALL THE WAY THROUGH...NEVER AGAIN
d: Stanley Donen
CAST: Richard Burton; Rex Harrison; Cathleen Nesbitt
> an unwatchable horror; Richard & Rex are a pair of homosexual men, living as a couple in the East End of London...they hate themselves, they hate each other, they hate their life and they hate your life too...Rex is charged with moral depravity or something and must appear in court...as he awaits the trial, he spits bile at his partner, who spits back...for 96 excruciating minutes; opting for Camp over Compassion ("giggle at the bitchy old queers"), this is Mr Humphries from Are You Being Served ("I'm free!") squaring off against Clarence from The Dick Emery Show ("Hello Honky Tonks!"); no physical affection between the men is shown, only mincing, preening and a rancid touch of British kitchen-sink realism (Richard empties his mother's bedpan + Rex cuts his toenails in bed); blitheringly cruel and an insult to humanity
Got something you want to tell me?
GO RIGHT AHEAD: masted59@gmail.com
A SIMPLE FAVOUR (2018)
d: Paul Feig
CAST: Anna Kendrick; Blake Lively; Henry Golding; Andrew Rannells
> a bit of a find...one of the most purely entertaining comedy-mysteries to come out of Hollywood in a long time; Anna is an exhaustingly pro-active, busy-bee, cupcake of a single Mom who meets cynical, bruisingly-blunt, businesswoman Blake...opposites attract (with the help of some potent martinis) and an unlikely friendship is forged...one day, Blake goes missing and her new best friend decides to find out exactly what happened; I laughed often at the irresistibly-perky character of Anna (a touch of the 1930's screwballness about her) and at the sheer audacity of the script...it darts off in eyebrow-raising directions; the first great film of 2018
Award-Worthy Performances
Anna Kendrick; Blake Lively
PATTON (1970)
d: Franklin J. Schaffner
CAST: George C. Scott; Karl Malden; Michael Bates; Siegfried Rauch; Frank Latimore
> aka The George C. Scott Show...thank the God of War then that George is absolutely riveting in a role that would be most actors' unscalable mountain; the film successfully manages to juggle a biography, an action movie and an historical rendering, faltering only a couple of times: the reincarnation guff (complete with otherworldly trumpets which I find an annoyance) and too many shots of tanks & jeeps rolling across the landscape; while the battle vistas are suitably spectacular, the scenes inside the German HQ (with a wiseacre captain giving everyone a running commentary) are a onesided setup...I'm sure the Nazi Commanders weren't really that foolish
Award-Worthy Performance
George C. Scott
PS I've just finished reading Michael Jones' 2015 book After Hitler: The Last Ten Days of World War II in Europe. It is one of the great WWII books. Highly Recommended.
JULIET, NAKED (2018)
d: Jesse Peretz
CAST: Rose Byrne; Ethan Hawke; Chris O'Dowd; Megan Dodds
> a caveat: I have probably overrated this because I am a sucker for British rom-coms which brim with nice, good-looking people who say "fuck" a lot and have quirky friends (Notting Hill etc)...I guess I just crave undemanding joy in the cinema; so, after that manly confession... the plot of this spins around Rose and her nerdy boyfriend Chris who is obsessed with faded rockstar Ethan...Rose & Chris split, Rose & Ethan meet and they give each other the missing pieces in their lives; add a cute kid, seaside English village, funny sister, upbeat soundtrack and loads & loads of moviestar charm from the two leads, and you've got another feelgood winner
Award-Worthy Performances
Rose Byrne & Ethan Hawke
SEARCHING (2018)
d: Aneesh Chaganty
CAST: John Cho; Debra Messing; Michelle La; Joseph Lee; Sara Sohn
> clever, clever, clever...but it's still just a gimmick film, in the order of The Blair Witch Project and some of the William Castle extravaganzas (hey, this is not necessarily a putdown); a 16YO girl goes missing and Dad trawls through her digital/online life to aid a detective in tracking her down; the entire film is told via screenshots (video + photos + social media + streaming + texts etc) and cut together to layout an intriguing Vera-style whodunnit...it goes in unexpected directions (which is good) and I counted at least three shock-twists (the last one, a twist too many...which is bad); the acting is serviceable but hardly riveting and the running commentary on modern digital life (and our quest for the proverbial "15 minutes of fame") occasionally deflates the established tension...but the gimmick is the only feature that matters
BOYHOOD (2014)
d: Richard Linklater
CAST: Ellar Coltrane; Patricia Arquette; Ethan Hawke; Lorelei Linklater
> aka Growing Up in the 21st Century...If You're a White, Straight, Middle-Class American; a big deal is made of this film's 12 year gestation (you watch a kid actually grow from 6 to 18) which is admirably unique but...so what? (if I was such a stickler for authenticity, I'd rewatch the 7Up series instead); however, the film's few draggy spots are rarely mentioned... Life is full of these, but, as Hitchcock once paraphrased, "Film is Life with the boring bits cut out"...and this film runs for nearly 3 hours; however, this is all redeemed when 50YO Mum looks at her empty-nested future and cries: "I just thought there'd be more!"...so say we all
Award-Worthy Performance
Ellar Coltrane
THE LAST DAYS OF DOLWYN (1949)
d: Emlyn Williams
CAST: Edith Evans; Emlyn Williams; Richard Burton; Barbara Couper; Hugh Griffith
> a sad little story about a Welsh village in 1892...an ex-resident developer (who has a personal grudge against the place) plans to flood the village to make a reservoir...a lot of money is flapped around and the townsfolk can't resist it...and so the town goes under while everyone moves to Liverpool; with typically superb acting (Edith is a darling), the time is spent getting to know the people who live there...lots of God and family ties and classism and worship of the rural life; you know from the outset that two citizens don't make it out, so your interest is held by trying to guess who they will be; a shame the ending is a little turgid
Award-Worthy Performance
Edith Evans
THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF (1961)
d: Terence Fisher
CAST: Clifford Evans; Oliver Reed; Catherine Feller; Yvonne Romain; Anthony Dawson
> this is like much of the Hammer Horror I have seen thus far: takes an iconic monster (check the title) and comes up with something which is unusual, folklore-ic and pastoral, more tragic than frightening, and more sad than pulse-racing...but it's also just a little too soft; set in Spain (for no particular reason), this tells the tale of an orphaned boy who was born on Christmas Day and therefore, according to local peasant belief, is cursed...in this case, to a life of lycanthropy... so he goes out whenever there's a full moon and has midnight snacks; Oliver plays the poor afflicted soul with little subtlety (when he feels the urge coming on, Ollie looks like he's about to vomit) and the rest of the cast are consequently nudged into underplaying for balance; topnotch filmcraft (I especially like the richness of colour and the music) adds class
UNDER THE SKIN (2013)
d: Jonathan Glazer
CAST: Scarlett Johansson
> unsettling bleak Art which cries out for a second viewing; an alien takes residence in Scotland and, wearing the skin of Scarlett Johansson, acts as a honey trap, driving around and picking up sexually-hungry men...it/she takes them to her place where they definitely don't get laid; great acting by Scarlett (we fascinate her)...the alien captures humans with no more emotion than a lepidopterist dropping butterflies into a killing jar; tragically, the alien also starts to absorb our humanity...her despicable fate is an ending straight from Hell and, for me, reshapes what has gone before; we are savaged twice: by what she does and then by what is done to her
Award-Worthy Performance
Scarlett Johansson
THE NARROW CORNER (1933)
d: Alfred E. Green
CAST: Douglas Fairbanks Jr; Patricia Ellis; Ralph Bellamy; Dudley Digges; Arthur Hohl
> a man wanted for murder in Sydney is snuck out of town on board a sailing ship, bound for islands in the South Seas...landing on one of these, Love & Jealousy & Betrayal rear their ugly heads; based on a Somerset Maugham novel, this wants to turn out as well as William Wyler's 1940 The Letter did, but muffs it (mainly due to some cringy dialogue and an ending which is tripe); still, there are some bright spots: Doug Jr shows yet again that he was underrated in Hollywood + Dudley impresses as an opium-smoking cynic + the ocean storms are quite spectacular + Ralph attempts a Scandinavian accent but wisely decides to give up
Award-Worthy Performance
Dudley Digges
YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE (2017)
d: Lynne Ramsay
CAST: Joaquin Phoenix; Ekaterina Samsonov; Judith Roberts
> brutal and relentlessly unpleasant; Joaquin is a killer (weapon of choice: hammer) who rescues kidnapped girls...he is also suicidal and troubled by memories of what he went through as a kid, and what he has seen and done as an adult...one rescue goes horribly wrong and things are not what they seem...can he save the senator's daughter?; this is clearly for fans of Death Wish, Taxi Driver and Marvel Comics' The Punisher...a violent anti-hero who is severely mentally disturbed...the fact that his heart is in a morally-admirable place (he saves children from perverts and takes care of his frail mum) is not enough to make his antics (he likes to bludgeon baddies and, during his downtime, he plays self-suffocation) something to cheer on; saved from the murk by two lead performances which manage to kindle some sympathy
TOMORROW, THE WORLD! (1944)
d: Leslie Fenton
CAST: Skip Homeier; Fredric March; Betty Field; Joan Carroll; Agnes Moorehead
> a classic example of a film made for a specific purpose (WWII propaganda) which is forever stuck, cemented in its time, unable to make a Casablanca-style leap; decent guy Fred brings his Hitler Youth nephew back from Germany to raise him as a good American...but the kid has other plans; based on a popular 1943 stage play, this is fully-loaded for maximum preaching: Fred's fiance (and the kid's teacher) is a Jew + the housekeeper is an anti-Nazi German + a playmate is a Pole + Fred works for The Pentagon, with secret papers in his top drawer + Agnes is weak and easily manipulated by lies + everybody except the Nazi is kind, generous and able to make with the wisecracks; what defeats the little stormtrooper?...why, a good licking of course (from the Polish kid) and finally crying tears like a real boy; graded leniently for its fine public service
STAIRCASE (1969)
d: Stanley Donen
CAST: Richard Burton; Rex Harrison; Cathleen Nesbitt
> an unwatchable horror; Richard & Rex are a pair of homosexual men, living as a couple in the East End of London...they hate themselves, they hate each other, they hate their life and they hate your life too...Rex is charged with moral depravity or something and must appear in court...as he awaits the trial, he spits bile at his partner, who spits back...for 96 excruciating minutes; opting for Camp over Compassion ("giggle at the bitchy old queers"), this is Mr Humphries from Are You Being Served ("I'm free!") squaring off against Clarence from The Dick Emery Show ("Hello Honky Tonks!"); no physical affection between the men is shown, only mincing, preening and a rancid touch of British kitchen-sink realism (Richard empties his mother's bedpan + Rex cuts his toenails in bed); blitheringly cruel and an insult to humanity
Got something you want to tell me?
GO RIGHT AHEAD: masted59@gmail.com
