My Dumb, Fun Movie of the Night.

Jan 152017
  January 15, 2017

For my dumb, fun, movie of the night, I went with Transporter 2 from 2005. I had only seen the first, which was dumb and fun. And this one was dumb and fun. Jason Statham did his alpha manly man thing to the point that I was expecting to see pools of testosterone on the floor around him.

It could easily have been a better film. I could have improved the film massively with an hour and a red pen. But my guess is that the expected viewers for this kind of film don’t want it improved. The fights in the first half were exciting, but as we headed toward the climax, they just became too dumb to mean anything. Our hero against two tough guys and a lingerie-clad girl with automatic pistols? That’s cool. Our hero against twelve axe-wielding brutes with no place to duck? That’s just stupid. He would have died. Simple. It makes it far less exciting. But I’m guessing the fans of these flicks just think it is cooler with more. I’ve seen the same thing with old Shaw brothers martial arts films that get dumber and dumber as they go along until it is nothing but bodies moving on screen. Or anything with Chuck Norris. I don’t think the genre has to be bad, but maybe its biggest fans think it does.

It also had the recent James Bond film problem. Old Bond (Connery/Moore) could get away with certain things because it was part of the dance. It isn’t real. We know it isn’t real. And there are rules in the unreal world. It’s like a musical, where the rules say people can suddenly break into song. So in old Bond, villains could have elaborate ridiculous plans, as well as shark tanks, instead of just shooting Bond and being done with it. But now that Bond is supposed to be “gritty and realistic” that sort of thing doesn’t work so well (like, everything in Spectre). And so we have Transporter 2—not realistic by any means, but also not a faux-world Bond film. In the Transporter world, people do just kill people. All the time. Lots of them. Yet villains could have shot our hero four times—shot him dead—but didn’t. No reason. A lot of reasons why they should. But they didn’t. They instead held off to chat. Which is
dumb. Give me magical Bond spy world, I’m OK with it. But in kill-everything-that-moves Transporter land, our hero should be dead.

All of which means the problem isn’t really with films, it’s with audiences. There are far too many dim film-viewers. Classes would be nice. Thinking would be nicer, but that’s asking too much. So to get better films, we need a better class of audience. Maybe we can get The Transporter to eliminate some of the current group. Just a thought.

 Thoughts

Best film of the year? It might be Love & Friendship.

Jan 112017
  January 11, 2017

I’ve been doing the best genre film list thing for 2016, and I’ll keep to that as I haven’t seen enough outside the genre world to sum up all the work out there. But Love & Friendship has got to be high up on any full list, and slashes to bits most of those genre films.

love-and-friendship-2016Love and Friendship is a Jane Austin film. For those who don’t read or watch Austin (shame on you), she can be quite pointed. But her jabs tend to be done with a bit of affection. Society is dumb and the people in it shallow and silly, but society is beautiful as well and those shallow silly people have good hearts. Not so here. This is Austin with the gloves off and in full comedy mode.

What’s really fun is that we are completely on the side of the villain. Lady Susan (played wonderfully by Kate Beckinsale, returning to Austin after a fine 1996 turn as Emma–people forget what a fine actress she is, discounting her because of her action work in Underworld, and ignoring that she’s quite good in those films) is a manipulative, mastermind who is pathologically unable to see herself as anything but perfect. Most of those she twists about are fools, but a few rise above that, yet I wanted them to lose and Lady Susan to win. Her exact goals are foggy as key scenes are kept hidden from us–because Susan’s world is that of society; that is where she is mistress of all and so that is where we see her. That and reporting back to her confident who shares her outlook on life.

The plot twists here and there, particularly as so much is hidden, but the basics are simple enough: Lady Susan, a non-grieving widow currently lives by visiting wealthy friends and family. She’s looking for a bit of fun for herself, and a bit of money, and a match for her daughter. She’s just been tossed out of one house for her affair with the married master of the mansion, so heads over to her husband’s brother’s home. The wife hates her, and understands her, but is no equal. Lady Susan sets to work on those less clever and therein lies the story.

The film is ruthless with social custom, and more so toward those who control the status quo, while just being a lot of fun. Considering the failings of the world that the good people fit into so comfortably, perhaps Lady Susan is a heroine after all.
 

 

 Thoughts

November (2017)

Jan 092017
 
four reels
november

In a bleak Estonian village, the peasants survive with the help of witchcraft and folk magic, which is as much a part of everyday life as the tree bark they eat. The most notable magic takes the form of “kratts,” automatons made from wood, bone, straw, farm implements, and eventually even snow, and animated by a soul purchased from The Devil. These are used sometimes for basic work, but as often to steal from each other. Among these unsavory villagers is Liina, a young and pretty girl who is besotted with Hans, who is the least repulsive of the local males. But Hans is obsessed by the Baroness, the daughter of the feeble German landowners who are constantly being robbed by their servants. Her attempts to win him with magic over several months are complicated by ghosts, the plague, lycanthropy, a poetic snowman, and a very angry Devil.

It doesn’t get much weirder than this art house surrealistic fairytale. After a brief scene of a wolf (more likely werewolf) in the snow, we’re introduced to a three-legged creation, with blades for hands (or feet) and a mounted cow’s skull, that breaks into a barn, steals a calf, and then turns into a helicopter. By the time the dead, that have dropped by for dinner and a sauna, have turned into giant chickens, it all seems to fit together. It doesn’t make sense exactly, but it fits.

Based on a hugely successful Estonian novel, the film keeps many of the comic elements, but on the whole takes a more dour tone. There’s some laughs to be had, often connected to cruelty. More often it is tense. The B&W photography is beautiful, but that’s a beautiful look at a wretched place, filled with broken buildings and unsanitary people. There’s no feeling of hope, which is driven home by the grim score. As these people cheat and steal from each other, my question is why they bother. I’d just embrace the plague, which comes first as a beautiful girl, then a goat, and finally a pig.

This may all sound dreary, but it is gorgeous and captivating. Even though you are trudging along in the muck, the muck is shiny and there’s always something new. There’s a sleepwalking girl who must be saved, by her father, lover, and enemy. There’s multiple trips to a crossroads to make deals with the devil. There’s a priest lead around on a leash, peasants spitting out Eucharist wafers to make holy arrows, hidden treasure, and men with their souls ripped out. It’s all crazy, and slow, but never boring. Poetic, twisted, and perplexing, if you really mean it when you say, “Hollywood keeps making the same stuff; I want something different” then I’ve got a movie for you.

 Fantasy, Foreign Language, Reviews, Witches Tagged with:

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

Dec 312016
 
four reels

An Imperial pilot (Riz Ahmed) has defected with news of a new super weapon called The Death Star — good name. The rebellion needs the information the pilot has as well as to stop the lead weapons-maker (Mads Mikkelsen), so they free Jyn (Felicity Jones), the weapons-maker’s daughter, from imperial custody and send her with an assassin (Diego Luna) and a cynical, reprogrammed Imperial Droid (voiced by Alan Tudyk) to get the pilot and deal with her father. This leads to the three of them, along with the pilot, a force monk (Donnie Yen) and his gun-totting friend (Wen Jiang), and a band of reprobates, to make their own plans to steal The Death Star blueprints.

Star Wars was a Western (or Samurai epic) in space. This is war. Gone are black and white, and simple heroes. In comes hard choices, violence, pain, and real sacrifice, and it makes for the most satisfying Star Wars film since 1977. Rogue One’s direct kin are The Dirty Dozen, Where Eagles Dare, and The Guns of Navarone, with behind-enemy-lines skirmishes and a few actions that would keep our protagonists out of polite society. We know from the start that the ensemble will succeed in their mission. The question is the cost.

The narrative stumbles in the first half, with time wasted on needless travel logs and meeting characters of no importance, while we are distracted by obvious call-backs to earlier films. It takes a while for Rogue One to figure out what kind of film it is, even giving us a rousing “Independence Day” speech from Jyn which would have fit in The Force Awakens but feels fake and shoehorned in here, but once our rogues set out on their mission, it all hums. The action is everything I could ask for and each of the main characters is given a moment without it ever becoming absurd or sentimental. Sure we get one overly coincidental meeting (the main bad guy just happens to decide it is a good time to stop by the base and figures personal confrontation is better then being the commander that he is
oh well) but it is a little flaw in a truly exciting sequence. Far too often in modern action films there are no stakes in the battles. Not here. It had me emotionally and I cared far more in the end about these non-Jedi soldiers, doing what the best soldiers must do, then I have for any of the numerous super-people of the last decade. The conclusion does not disappoint.

It is also worth noting that this is the most diverse cast in any genre film, ever, with East Asians, a South Asian, a Latino, and
well, a robot, working under a woman. And what do you know—having everyone not be White guys hasn’t seemed to hurt ticket sales. Hmmm. Wonder if there is a lesson there.

There are a few returning characters but they don’t take center stage and generally the cameos are good. Darth Vader is once again someone to fear and I suspect that alone will win over any doubting Star Wars fans. There are two clear cases when some CG effects are not quite what they should be, but they are close enough.

This isn’t the film to bring the magic back to the Star Wars franchise, but it is the one to bring back meaning and emotion, and that’s better.

 Reviews, Science Fiction, Space Opera Tagged with:

Passengers (2016)

Dec 252016
 
three reels

An accident on a colonization ship causes one man (Chris Pratt) to wake from suspended animation ninety years too early. Alone on a luxury liner, with no one to talk to, no hope of returning to stasis, no future, and in a state of suicidal despair, he begins to obsess about one of the sleeping passengers, an exquisite women (Jennifer Lawrence).

Passengers is a beautiful picture, with a space ship that looks both familiar and like something new, and shot after shot elicited my attention. It presents us with a real character and a twisting moral issue packed with enough philosophical levels for a Russian novel. And it is happy to take its time, focusing on emotion. It does what fantasy and science fiction do best, takes a question or idea out of reality and lets us examine it under circumstances that frees us from the preconceptions of the world. It has everything to be brilliant.

But Passengers isn’t that type of picture. It isn’t trying to be brilliant. It doesn’t want to delve too deeply into the morass it has created. It doesn’t want to be Crime and Punishment. It wants to be a middle-of-the-road, pleasant Hollywood picture. And I suppose it succeeds with that, although with such modest goals, it should have had a far more modest first third. You don’t rip into emotional need and loss and ethical conundrums if you want to make fluff. It comes out just a bit awkward.

It all flows along nicely and kept me engaged. Chris Pratt is perfect in the role of the imperfect man and this is the best I’ve ever seen Jennifer Lawrence. They’ve got chemistry together, and apart (really, that makes sense) and I was with them all the way. Well, all the way until the filmmakers took the easy way out and let plot nudge aside all that pesky character and theme. I sympathize with the studio, wanting something to happen in their film. There’d been close to nothing happening for an hour and a half. I understand their desire to stick something in, and something that also saves them from dealing with what they’d created. But it is a shame. Plot was unnecessary. If they’d taken the film in any of several places they could have—should have—I’d be talking about Passengers as the best film of the year. I’d be speaking of the daring. But instead the whole thing weighs in like a feather. One could (and quite a few have) take offense, but that is giving the film more credit than it deserves. Passengers could have been truly offensive, and that would have been interesting. But we don’t get interesting. We get thoughtful science fiction until the filmmakers yell out, “Enough of that; let’s just stop right where we are and blow something up.” From there it is predictable sci-fi action (very predictable—you know exactly what is going to happen at each beat).

Which isn’t to say it’s a bad time. There’s enough in the first two-thirds for me to fork over my dollars for a ticket. However, not only should it have been more, it absolutely needed to be more.

 Reviews, Science Fiction Tagged with:

Rock-n-Roll Christmas Songs

Dec 242016
  December 24, 2016

I tried to avoid Christmas again, but am failing, so oh well, I’ll dive into this: Xmas songs. Let’s face it, most rock Christmas songs are horrible. The covers of carols are universally rotten. No Bruce Springsteen cannot put it off. Traditional carols just don’t lend themselves to a rock makeover. A few artists have done great jobs, but they tend not to be playing rock: Welcome Christmas by Love Spirals Downwards is breathtaking while God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman by Loreena McKennitt is for my money the finest Christmas song ever recorded. But if we are talking rock, well, it only works when they write something new, and then it usually fails. But there’s been some successes, and I’ve got them, even if some are barely rock. There is a lot more anger and sadness in these songs than celebration, but then I guess anger and sadness is why we need celebrations. Here are the top ten original rock Xmas tunes.

Honorable mention to Merry Christmas (I Don’t Wanna Fight) just because it is a Xmas song by The Ramones, and another to Ring Out, Solstice Bells by Jethro Tull which isn’t technically a Christmas song.

 

#10 The Season’s Upon Us (Dropkick Murphys)

Feeling cynical? Here’s your song. Hate being with your relatives, and have good reason for that? Here you go.

Continue reading »

 Lists, Thoughts

Arrival (2016)

Dec 192016
 
two reels

The arrival of twelve spaceships causes worldwide panic. Linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) and physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) are brought into a military team tasked with determining what the aliens want. Each day they can enter a ship and confront the mutli-tentacled aliens behind a glass wall and try and work out some form of communication. Time becomes an issue when China declares war on the ship within their boarders. And during all of this, Louise is recalling the tragic death of her daughter.

Let me approach Arrival on a tangential road and discuss the indie, drama film-look, which can also be considered the film festival drama-look. Developed in the last twenty years, the look includes a loose camera, often including shaky cam. Closeups are the norm, but even on medium shots a single individual is dominate. Angles may shift wildly, keeping only part of the body in view: an elbow, the right side of the face, a hip and leg. Focus will drift in and out. It uses natural lighting with a subdued color pallet and a high amount of grain. Editing is “slow,” with long lingering shots, hanging on seconds longer than you’d expect in a big budget film. Yet cuts can be sudden, with intermediate steps missing; that is, we spend a protracted moment with a character when he is starting to walk, and then suddenly jump to him arriving at his destination. Sound tends to edge toward natural, but slightly more muffled and chaotic.

The main reason the indie drama-look developed was because it is cheap. But there are cheaper ways to go. This particular low-cost style caught on because it has an artistic use. How a film is shot says something (just as it matters what words you use in a story). And this look conveys things directly to the audience so they do not have to be explained. It declares that the scenes we are seeing are close to reality. There’s no magic here. It conveys the struggle of everyday life. It is distancing, which is useful if you want your audience to think more than feel. But while it tones down joy, excitement, and wonder, it is perfect for expressing melancholy. A typical indie drama might be about a single mother, stuck in a dead-end, low paying job, her dreams long gone, and now the father who abandoned her has returned because he is dying. There is not a lot of story, but rather just a few sad days in this woman’s life. And the indie film-look is exactly what you want for that story.

That’s enough independent film lecture. What’s my point? This style is appropriate to tell certain types of stories, say, ones about the bleak life of a drug addict or the dissolution of a marriage. It is not appropriate for extraterrestrial invaders, international intrigue, deep mysteries, and traitorous soldiers, even with a child dying of a cancer-like disease. All of those things, all except the child, call for excitement, wonder, sudden fear (instead of never-ending dread), hope, and even occasional humor. Arrival was made with all the wrong tools. It’s as if I asked for a realistic portrait but supplied only pastels or commissioned a heavy metal epic but would let the musicians use only unamplified accordions.

So a story that should have evoked a sea of emotions instead settles into mournful dread. That fits with the dying child, but everything has the same emotional resonance as that dying child. There’s a strong theme of accepting and enjoying what one can of life as everything ends, but while that comes across intellectually, the feeling I get from the film is, “Why bother?”

If you can ignore the style, the film has an engaging story, but only part of the time. For the first half we are gifted with stupid people who have never heard of foreign languages or seen a science fiction film. They hail it as brilliant when Louise does the old “Me Tarzan, you Jane” bit. You don’t need a linguist to have worked that out. Her idea to use written words and pictures for communication instead of just sounds is shocking to the rest of the team (I guess they never texted). To create inappropriate and unnecessary tension, the most basic concepts are fought by the military. Why do you want to try and figure out the basics of communication instead of just asking “What is your purpose on Earth?” I’d hate to see that guy on the first day of French class. “I’m sick of ‘I’ and ‘you.’ Why aren’t we reading Les MisĂ©rables?”

When Louise is just allowed to do her job, the story flows much better, even if everything is in a pool of ennui. The linguistic tricks and the tie-in with her daughter are clever and dramatic enough without the need for faux antagonisms and saber rattling. It feels like they started with a good script, but then didn’t trust it. Still, I think they had the correct writers, just the wrong director.

Arrival has been described as “smart science fiction,” and I suppose compared to Star Wars or Iron Man, it is. But that only makes it stand out more when it is dumb, and it is never that smart anyway. Iron Man can distract you from the silly science with razzle-dazzle action. Arrival has nothing but a semi-smart idea and a lot of gloom. This is a science fiction film as created by Sartre who had to express it with interpretive dance.

 Aliens, Reviews Tagged with:

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)

Dec 162016
 
three reels

In 1926—in the pre-Harry, Harry Potter world—Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) comes to a terribly quaint New York with his suitcase full of magical creatures. That probably wasn’t a good move on his part as magical creatures are illegal there. An accidental run-in with Kowalski (Dan Fogler) a “no-mag” allows several of his beasts to escape. He’s soon captured by Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston) of the American Congress of Magic, but she has such a poor reputation that no one pays her any attention and Newt and Kowalski end up back at her apartment where she lives with her mind reading sister, Queenie (Alison Sudol).

Elsewhere in the city, things aren’t going well. The senator and son of newspaper tycoon Henry Shaw (Jon Voight) is killed very publicly by magic. Something sinister is going on within a group of religious zealots that claims witches are all around. And Percival Graves (Colin Farrell), a bigwig in the Magic Congress, has some evil plans.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a colorful, fanciful, beautiful, meandering, bloated semi-movie that’s far more interested in starting a new Harry Potter franchise than telling a story or developing characters. The other eight movies set in this universe were based on books, so their occasionally being over-stuffed and at other times letting plots or characters dangle is not surprising. It’s what happens with a less-than-perfect novel-to-screen transfer. But there was no novel here. The title comes from a playful encyclopedia of creatures first mentioned in a Harry Potter novel. It had no characters and no story. Everything was created for the screen and somewhere director David Yates and screenwriter J.K. Rowling got lost in the setting.

Partly the issue is the number of characters. Some, like Voight’s newspaper owner don’t belong in the film. They serve no purpose. He and his sons could have been written out with a single line: “And now no-mags are being killed by the invisible force.” Done. These characters take up time, but not enough time for them to mean anything or for them to have personalities.

Then there are the leads. The film needed to settle on a lead. It couldn’t find one. So we have Newt, of whom we know nothing more at the end of the film than we did at the beginning. He’s not so much a character as the words “To be filled-in later” in the script. Is he the protagonist? No. He and his animals have nothing to do with what I loosely call the main plot (magical events threaten to expose the witches and wizards and an evil wizard who wants to start a war is somehow connected). He is a side story.

What about Tina? Well, if they’d read screen writing 101, then yes, she should have been the lead as she is connected to the Magic Congress, the zealots, and the evil wizard. But she is no protagonist as she simply reacts to situations. Worse, she isn’t even a non-protagonist lead because she has only a bit more personality than the empty Newt, and what she has is dull. She meekly goes along with whatever comes up and looks apologetic a lot. We learn she is emotional in a vague, general way (that is her one character trait), but otherwise, there’s nothing to her.

Things look up with the sidekicks. Both Kowalski and Queenie are delightful. Both are given some depth. They have concerns, motivations, and are the romantic duo of the film. Yes they’d be great, except they aren’t the leads. Kowalski could be written out with ease. And Queenie is fully a sidekick. They are not a part of the plot enough to be our protagonists. But they are given twice the time normally allotted to sidekicks, time desperately needed to flesh out Newt and Tina.

Which leaves us with no protagonists and no direction. Half the runtime is spent catching or looking after the animals. It’s cute, but also irrelevant, and starts to drag when it is clear it doesn’t matter, particularly when we get to an embarrassing scene in central park.

For the plot(s) to move at all, everyone has to act stupidly. The Harry Potter franchise had already established that governing organizations (or maybe just adults) all function on a combination of ignorance and incompetence. That’s back again as no one in authority ever makes a smart move. But now add in that our villains take actions that are not to their own advantage. Why? So that the story can progress. And then there is Newt, the expert with magical animals, who gives bold new expression to the word “irresponsible.” This man isn’t capable of taking care of a goldfish. He’d have lost every critter long ago, and probably gotten most of them killed. That could have worked in a zany, slapstick comedy, which Fantastic Beasts approaches on several occasions, but not for a family-friendly fantasy epic.

The theme is as murky as the plot strands and characters. Is this about child abuse? Kinda. Is it about institutionalized bigotry? Sorta. Is it about religious foolishness? A bit. Is it about political failure and corruption? Maybe. Is it about animals rights? Partly. All of these pop up but none of it goes anywhere.

Which should give rise to the question: Why’d you give such a mess 3 Reels? It is a mess, but as mentioned in my first line, it is a beautiful and fanciful one. It is as dumb as they come, but the creatures do have a bit of magic about them. And the sidekicks are worthy of their own film. Plus, it is a very low 3 Reels.

My Harry Potter reviews Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Back to Fantasy

 Fantasy, Reviews Tagged with:

Underworld: Blood Wars (2016)

Dec 122016
 
2.5 reels

In this fifth film in the Underworld series, Selene (Kate Beckinsale), last of the Death Dealers, is hunted by both vampires and lycans. Some want her dead. Some want her special blood. And some want information on the location of her child, who has even more special blood. The lycans, empowered by their new blood-addicted leader (Tobias Menzies), have been wiping out the vampire covens around the world. The remaining southern coven invites Selene and her sidekick David (Theo James) to return to train new Death Dealers, but really there are multiple levels of treachery afoot.

Remember the vampire and lycan purges of Underworld: Awakening? No? That’s OK, neither do the filmmakers. The vamps are back in gothic mansions as if nothing ever happened. Humanity’s knowledge of non-humans? Don’t worry about that either as humans just don’t seem to be around in this film. Remember Michael? Well, forget about him. And Selene’s daughter? She’s just a MacGuffin now.

So, forget continuity. That’s not a terrible thing as Awakening (the forth film in the series) had taken things down an unwanted path. We are back in familiar territory, which is good or bad depending on what you are looking for. Blood Wars is about overly grumpy werewolves facing asshole vamps, with lots of shooting, sword swinging, biting, and clawing. If that’s what you came for, you should be happy, though I found the battles a step down from previous installments. If, on the other hand, you’re watching to see Beckinsale in leather and vinyl, and the general vampire fashion show, you are definitely in luck. She looks lovely and this is the most clothing modeling we’ve gotten since the first film. And this time we get a bonus with new northern vampires who dress in white Viking chic. In films where style is everything, it’s nice to get a new style.

The plot, beyond combat, does less well than the look. It is both empty and overly packed. There’s too many goals from too many different characters, most of whom we don’t know, and it is all rushed. Selene is an outcast. Then she isn’t. Then she is. Then she’s at another coven. David discovers something supposedly important and emotional about himself, but I didn’t care. First one character betrays her people, and I didn’t care, then another does, and I didn’t care, and then yet a third, and I still didn’t care. Nothing anyone does matters and it all comes to nothing. It’s a shame as the first few Underworld films supplied a passable story and engaging characters as well as delivering style and action.

While character is wanting, casting is not. When the parts are lacking, sometimes shear charisma can carry the day. Beckinsale is sensual, expressive, and a joy to behold. Theo James is solid as the co-star and Daisy Head, James Faulkner, and Bradley James bring a little extra to their supporting roles. Charles Dance is only around for an extended cameo but a little bit of him is worth a great deal. And then there is Lara Pulver as one of the two main villains, who vies with Beckinsale in the game of who cane be the sexiest. She excelled as Irene Adler in Sherlock, and brings that same charm to Blood Wars. Tobias Menzies is the only main cast member who fares poorly, but he’s given such a lackluster, underwritten villain that there was nothing he could do.

The Underworld series started strong in 2003, as something different, exciting, and fun, with just enough meaning to get by. Things have fallen off since then. Blood Wars is in a lesser league, but if you don’t ask too much of it, there’s enough fun to be had to be worth your time.

 

Blood Wars follows Underworld (2003), Underworld: Evolution (2006), Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009), Underworld: Awakening (2012).

Kate Beckinsale also starred in the action-horror romp, Van Helsing (2004), the ghost story Haunted (1995) and in one of the best films of 2016, the Jane Austin inspired Love and Friendship.  She had supporting roles in the Shakespearian features Much Ado About Nothing (1993) and Prince of Jutland (1994).

 Reviews, Vampires, Werewolves Tagged with:

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2016)

Nov 042016
 
two reels

Jake (Asa Butterfield) is a bland and unhappy teen, raised listening to the fantastic bedtime stories of his Grandfather (Terence Stamp). When his grandfather dies under mysterious circumstances at the hand of an invisible monster that only Jake can see, he sets off to find the orphanage in the stories. Once there, he meets the “peculiar” children, each with a magical ability, as well as Miss Peregrine (Eva Green), who looks after them by looping time, repeating the same day in 1943 forever. He also discovers that he too, is peculiar.

Director Tim Burton teamed up with Eva Green to make a goth-lite, weird tale: What could go wrong?

The title of the film brings to mind quirky, period fun. A better title would have been “A Passive Teen In The Land Of Exposition.” For an hour and thirty minutes, nothing happens and our lead does absolutely nothing but doubt things and act fearfully while the world is explained to us. Yes, there is a mystery of sorts, but the viewer knows all the answers ninety minutes early. There’s a bit of an unearned romance which is mainly characters telling us that there is a potential relationship, but nothing more. All of which could be forgiven if the characters were enjoyable to watch. But the lead is tedious, the peculiar children are quite plain, and Miss Peregrine acts stupidly just to keep the plot moving.

It also doesn’t help that all the great dangers would vanish if anyone bought a gun. I know that’s a terribly American thing to say, but guns do exist.

The film perks up at the end with a silly battle that exists only for the sake of having a battle. But a fight can be fun even if it is ridiculous. Samuel L. Jackson chews up the scenery, which isn’t exactly good but does have energy, and the children get to use their substantial powers for something other than returning lost squirrels to trees.

The obvious comparison is to Harry Potter: springing from a YA book, magical children live together while hidden from the normal world, finding their way as they are hunted by a great evil power. But Harry is active, and likeable. If someone had worked out the “show don’t tell” bit, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children could have been a reasonable second tier teen fantasy. Instead, the last quarter shows enough life to make watching it on TV for free barely worth the time.

 Fantasy, Reviews Tagged with:

Top 13 Horror Film Themes

Oct 242016
  October 24, 2016

It’s Halloween-time, so time to look at horror film scores/theme songs. To keep this apples-to-apples, I’ll only be including original compositions (otherwise this list would include a lot of classical works, and as much as I love Swan Lake, that’s not what I’m looking for today). That means no Tubular Bells, the music that tricked millions into thinking The Exorcist was a good film.

I’m also am avoiding songs with lyrics as that feels like a different list, so no Cry Little Sister from The Lost Boys or Willow’s Song from The Wicker Man (if The Wicker Man is a horror film).

First, a few Honorable mentions. There are some great themes that sound a bit too much like ones that I’ve chosen for my list, so I’ll just give honorable mentions to all of John Carpenter’s work that isn’t on my list, multiple themes by Goblin, and the Re-Animator Theme. I’m also giving honorable mentions to a few songs that don’t quite make it on my list on their own, but really fit their films: The Lullaby from Rosemary’s Baby, and The Omen Theme.

So, to the scores/themes, starting with:

 

#13 The Werewolf of London (Karl Hajos)

The also-ran of early Universal monster films, The Werewolf of London had a distinctive score that adds greatly to the work. Written primarily by Karl Hajos, it also contains cues from Heinz Roemheld’s scores for The Invisible Man and The Black Cat; borrowing was very common for studio music departments for the next twenty years. This music is hard to find and I’m unaware of any official release.

 

#12 Resident Evil (Marco Beltrami & Marilyn Manson)

The basic repeated theme is memorable (I used it as my ring tone for several years) but the addition of Marilyn Manson as co-composer created an unsettling sound that elevated the theme and the movie to something sinister.

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 Lists, Thoughts

Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders (2016)

Oct 152016
 
three reels

Batman (Adam West) and Robin (Burt Ward), in full ‘60s TV-era form must face off against Catwoman (Julie Newmar), The Joker, The Riddler, and The Penguin and their plot which involves a duplication ray. The daring duo follows them, even into space, to stop their dastardly scheme, but fails to take into account Catwoman’s plan to drug Batman into joining the side of evil.

Nostalgia is the thing, but anyway you look at it, Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders is the best Batman movie of the year. With the troubled Suicide Squad and abysmal Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice and The Killing Joke, it wasn’t the hardest crown to win, but still it won it. It casts off the dour nature of recent flicks and gives us fun and silliness and a lot of self-aware humor. This is a smarter movie then you’d think: a kids film made for adults.

If you can’t stand that the old TV show exists, then this animated version isn’t for you. West, Ward and Newmar all return to their roles with the 70+-year-old Ward sounding the same as his long ago self. West and Newmar are a bit sketchier; they are passable, but no one will mistake them for anything other than the senior citizens that they are. Newcomers do their best to imitate the actors who are no longer with us in all of the other parts and pull it off well enough. And animation takes care of the visual side of that pesky aging, so we are back in the bright Gotham City I knew from my childhood.

If what you want is just to revisit the show you loved as a kid, you are in good shape here. All the old gags show up (walking up walls, fights that include bubbles that say “pow”), the great theme music is back, and it is all pleasantly familiar. Luckily they went beyond repeating what we’ve seen before, commenting on the old series (the “being a good citizen by using the crosswalk” bit is hilarious) and on the wretched way Batman has been treated in other films and even the comics (with Batman going dark the proper way). They even take a shot at Nolan. And the hormones are turned up between Batman and Catwoman more than the old show would have allowed.

This isn’t a shining example of art. And for my money, it didn’t go far enough; I’d have liked to see the meta-nature of it turned up to eleven. But it is fun and that counts for quite a bit.

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