Category: Movie Reviews

Suppose, by some outlandish quirk of life, you found yourself sitting in a movie theater, watching the new remake of The Great Gatsby, with a rap soundtrack. You don’t know how you got there: it’s like waking up in Dracula’s castle.

To save your sanity, you slide hurriedly into a trance. And now you’re in another theater, with another movie playing. One of these, in fact–great movies that were never made, but should have been.

1. Ulysses starring Toshiro Mifune, directed by Akira Kurosawa. It just doesn’t get any better than this. Homer’s epic would translate beautifully to an old Japanese setting, especially if the screenwriters concentrated on what happens when Ulysses finally gets home and finds his house occupied by “suitors” planning to rape his wife and murder his son. The Kirk Douglas Ulysses is one of my favorite films, but this would be even better. Much better.

2. Only in New England starring Joseph Cotten, directed by Otto Preminger. This is from a 1959 book by Theodore Roscoe, subtitled “The Story of a Gaslight Crime.” A writer vacationing in a New England shore town delves into a murder that happened some sixty years before, in the very house he’s staying in. As he uncovers the strange secrets of an extinct family, we get a strong impression that murder is sneaking up on him, too. In glorious and creepy black and white!

3. The Hollow starring Virginia Christine as an evil movie star, Michael Rennie as an egotistical doctor suddenly freed from his obsession with her, and Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot, called in to solve a murder. This is, as you’ve guessed, an Agatha Christie novel. (By the way, if you don’t think Virginia Christine would be up to the challenge of this role, see my Oct. 20 post, “Blessing the Mummy’s Curse.”) In this haunting tale, Christie created such complex characters, and peered so deeply into their troubled, complicated souls, we almost (but not quite) don’t care about the murder.

OK, that’s it for non-movie time today.

If you know of some other terrific movies that were never made, I’d love to hear about them.

Sometimes I just can’t stand it anymore, this debauched and benighted period of history. And that’s a good time to turn to The Last of the Summer Wine.

This BBC sitcom was one of the longest-running TV series ever, from 1973 through 2010, and only had to stop, finally, because almost everyone involved in it died of old age. Because the main characters were post-middle-aged to begin with, cast members did die out. They kept replacing them as needed, but finally had to call it a day.

Summer Wine is about a few eccentric retired men in a small town in Yorkshire, and their talent for getting themselves into ridiculous situations. And believe me, some of those situations are monumentally ridiculous. The way this show worked, they amble along sedately, creating a tone of mild amusement, and then suddenly spring something on you that’ll cause you to explode with laughter. We were watching an episode the other day in which the comedic climax caught my wife with a mouthful of tea. And I laughed so hard, I couldn’t see for all the tears in my eyes.

Man, I needed that!

Along with the comedy, you get soothing and often witty background music and even more soothing, absolutely beautiful, Yorkshire scenery.

A lot of PBS affiliates carry The Last of the Summer Wine, some episodes are available on youtube video, and you can buy DVDs of whole seasons. I recommend the latter: you’re going to want to see these again and again.

Patty and I have a custom, every New Year’s Day, to watch The Time Machine–the George Pal production from 1960, starring Rod Taylor, Alan Young, and Yvette Mimieux.

It’s wonderful for its story, its acting, its mind-blowing sets, and its musical score: truly one of our favorite films. But this year we  both noticed that the post-apocalyptic world discovered by the time-traveler, some 800,000 years in the future, is a progressive’s wet dream.

Think about it. The Eloi people have their food and clothing provided for them. They have no work to do, no responsibilities–just play. They know nothing of the past, and can’t conceive of any future. Their rulers, the Morlocks, give them everything they need. The poor, dumbed-down Eloi give their rulers blind obedience. When they reach a certain age, or ripeness, the Morlocks eat them.

Now that’s Agenda 21! That’s Detroit without the ruined buildings!

And that’s exactly where our own smart-as-paint Morlock wannabes will take us, if they can.

Here at our humble abode, we have discovered the pleasure of watching old movies, for free, on the Internet. There’s scads of really good ones out there!

My favorite, so far, is Sitting Pretty (1948), starring Clifton Webb with great support from Maureen O’Hara and Robert Young (way before he was Marcus Welby). If you’re old enough to remember 1980’s TV shows, you might remember a sitcom called Mr. Belvedere, with Bob Ueker. Well, that series was based on Sitting Pretty.

A young attorney and his wife want to hire a live-in baby-sitter for their three impossible kids. They live in a small, upscale suburban community where the major recreation is gossip. Thinking applicant “Lynn Belvedere” is a young woman, they are flabbergasted when Clifton Webb shows up to take the job. He admits that he despises children, says he is fully capable of handling them anyhow, and adds, “Yours are more repulsive than most.” The kids wind up loving him in spite of his strict discipline (which straightens them out right away), because he is, in his own words, a genius. There seems to be nothing he can’t do.

This little movie is a real gem. The writing is witty, the acting is superb, and the situations are hilarious. And that’s all I’m gonna tell you about it, because it contains a lot of surprises and I don’t want to spoil them. But I guarantee this movie will add to your Christmas-season glow: and it’ll help you relax after Christmas, if you want to wait.

 

See–I haven’t forgotten this is a blog devoted to fantasy literature (especially those books written by me) and movies.

Having just watched Inkheart (U.S. release, 2009) starring Brendan Fraser et al, I can happily recommend it to fantasy fans. The movie is based on a young readers’ book by a German writer, Cornelia Funke–and if that ain’t a nom de plume, I dunno what is. But for once we get a clever and  creative story that doesn’t fall apart before it ends, terrific sets, a good cast, and fast-paced action. Oddly enough, I read that Fraser was Ms. Funke’s personal choice to play her hero: indeed, that she’d written the character with him in mind. I wonder if I can get Claude Rains to play Lord Reesh once my books make it to movieland.

I don’t want to spoil the story for you, so I’ll tell you just enough to get you interested. Fraser’s character has an inborn talent that’s very rare: when he reads aloud, he makes it possible for the characters in the story to come into our world, the real one. Unfortunately, it’s not so easy for them to go back. Some of them want to stay here and make trouble. But one of them wants very badly to get back home, and he’s on a mission to force Fraser to “read me back where I belong.”

I gotta read Ms. Funke’s book.

Look, if you like a very imaginative movie that doesn’t let you down–I’ve gotten to where I always expect it–Inkheart is for you. Never mind that some of the villain’s henchmen look like they’re getting ready to go to Walmart: it’s not a serious problem. And I should mention that the supporting cast of Helen Mirren, Eliza Bennett, and Paul Bettany is very strong… and for once the special effects don’t look like a video game.

I think there is a video game based on this movie. Oh, well…

With our power back on, finally, my wife and I relaxed yesterday by watching an Alfred Hitchcock movie from 1936–Sabotage, starring Oscar Homolka and Sylvia Sydney.

I’ll do my best not to spoil it for you if you haven’t seen it. It’s well worth a trip to your library or to Redbox.

Sabotage got Hitchcock into hot water with the movie-going public. In many ways, it was decades ahead of its time. The controversy over one scene in particular caused Hitchcock to reconsider his whole approach to suspense. Once you see the film, you’ll understand exactly what I’m talking about.

Homolka plays a movie theater owner who augments his income by performing acts of sabotage: a terrorist for hire. When his unspecified foreign employers want him to plant a great big bomb that will kill a lot of people, he at first turns them down. But his resistance is easily overcome by money. In due course the bomb is delivered to his doorstep, and all he has to do is put it in place before it goes off.

That’s when things get complicated. And the clock just keeps on ticking…

Hitchcock wanted to make a statement about the evil of terrorism–a topic which people in 1936 really weren’t quite ready to consider. He wound up making a statement that was a lot stronger than his audience wanted to hear: but not, more’s the pity, too strong for us in 2012.

Warning: this film is a peek into the darkness of the human soul. Not for the faint-hearted!

Unwinding from a more than usually stressful week, my wife and I resorted to one of our favorite movies–The Mummy’s Curse (1944).

You know what’s really cool about this movie? Virginia Christine‘s performance as “the Princess Ananka.” Try to forget that the screenplay makes no sense whatsoever.

Ms. Christine had a very long acting career in movies and TV. If you’re old enough, you probably know her best as “Mrs. Olsen” in a bunch of Folger’s Coffee commercials. The role of Princess Ananka came quite early in her career, and she just blew the doors off it. Hey, the whole movie’s only 61 minutes long. It’s worth seeing just to watch her first scene.

Yes, I know the storyline of the mummy movies sometimes lapses into incoherence. When we last see them, before this movie, the Mummy and his hapless reincarnated princess are getting sucked into a bog somewhere in New England. In The Mummy’s Curse, the two of them emerge from the mud in Louisiana. If you can explain how that happened, you need to apply for a job as a presidential press secretary.

Anyhow, it’s all in fun–and I don’t think you have to worry about this movie scaring you to death.

I’d like to take this opportunity to warn you off Quarantine (2009), starring no one in particular, which I’ve just aborted after about half of it.

Extra warning: a lot of this is shot with a hand-held camera, and it will make you ill if you’re susceptible to motion sickness. I’m not, but my wife is.

My problem with it was that I’m not entertained by the gratuitous suffering of my fellow human beings. So when the fireman had to chop up the little girl with his axe, I bailed out. Last straw, enough already…

I’m not a prude when it comes to movie violence, although this movie’s violence was inexcusably graphic. But when it’s in there for no real reason, when the characters have no way out, when I get the impression that the whole thing’s been staged to see if they can gross out an audience jaded by extremely nasty video games–well, that’s when I pull the plug.

Do yourselves a favor, and watch something else.

Here’s another fantasy film not to waste your time on: the 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans, starring some guy named Sam along with Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes. How do big stars like Neeson and Fiennes wind up in a turkey like this?

I don’t suppose the Perseus story is as well-known today as it was when I was a kid at Y  Camp, and the counselor told the story over the campfire and gave us all the chills. But you’d think a story that’s stuck around for some 3,500 years wouldn’t need too much improvement. After all, Perseus had great adventures; and we can look up at the night sky and see constellations named after characters in this story–Cepheus, Cassiopeia, Andromeda, and Perseus himself.

But, no–not good enough for Hollywood! They “improved” the Perseus story by adding a whole bunch of computer effects, crazy architecture that looks more like one of Harry Potter’s nightmares than it looks like ancient Greece, and a kind of post-modern and utterly unedifying spin on the mythology. There is something going on in this muddled screenplay that is insulting both to religion and to humanism. I guess that’s what happens when you mix theology with cocaine.

So, we have yet another example of how difficult it is to create a really satisfying fantasy. Then again, Hollywood these days is having difficulties creating anything that satisfies.

P.S.–In the most annoying scene in the movie, Perseus jazzes up a swordfight by jumping eight feet into the air and doing the usual kung-fu movie somersaults. Aw, gimme a break!

Here’s a movie I never heard of until we watched it today: The Book of Eli, starring Denzel Washington (2009). I read it was highly successful when it opened, but I suppose the eco-doofus epic, Avatar, grabbed most of the headlines at the time.

Anyhow, if you haven’t seen this movie–hey, what’re you waiting for? You gotta see this! It’s about the Word of God, about a hero who walks by faith and not by sight, it’s about redemption… and the best movie I’ve seen all year. Yeah, I know it’s three years old. So what? Rent it!

I don’t want to do anything to spoil the story, but you’ll see from the box that it’s about Denzel Washington making his way across the wreckage of a post-apocalyptic America, in the Mad Max tradition. But of course it’s much, much more than that. If you’ve given up on the idea of movies grounded on the Christian faith, Eli will blow you out of the water.

As an aside, I don’t think we need a thermonuclear holocaust to turn our world into a wasteland. Insane public policies will surely do the trick. Today’s global civilization depends on the continued success of the United States economy. Trash the American economy, and the whole planet turns into North Korea… only worse, because even North Korea today gets a tiny trickle of prosperity.

But never mind–just go out and rent this movie.