Mud Songs

The Creature from the Black Lagoon may be the best creature-feature B-movie I’ve seen since the original King Kong. Dramatically, it’s not in the same league as King Kong, but it’s a good action movie with enough thrills and surprises so it never gets boring. The DVD Talk synopsis (edited): “Starry-eyed scientist David Reed, adventurer-investor Mark Williams and curvaceous Kay penetrate the Black Lagoon to search for a full fossil to match the skeletal claw discovered by professor Carl Maia. But what greets them is an aquatic man-fish that takes an instant liking to the way Kay fills out a contoured swimsuit. The Gill Man decimates the supporting cast while the leads argue the best way to capture it; after he blocks their exit from the Lagoon, the wily Devonian goes a step further and claims Kay as a romantic spoil of war.” The underwater scenes (impressive even by today’s standards) are exciting and especially creepy when the The Gill Man follows the “curvaceous Kay” while she’s swimming. The creature may be a guy in a rubber suit, but it’s a pretty damn affective rubber suit.
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Forbidden Planet is the ultimate “sci-fi” B-movie. When one of the opening credits reads, “Electronic Tonalities by Louis and Bebe Barron,” you know it’s going to be a fun ride. Pick any five minutes from Forbidden Planet and you’ll see evidence of its influence on Star Wars, Star Trek and even Alien. It’s a total goofball movie full of blatant chauvinism and cheesy (yet spectacular) special effects and aliens that can read your mind, and a robot and a crazy spaceship and insane electronic tonalities — all kinds of fun stuff. Make yourself a big bowl and popcorn and dig in. Pretend you’re at a drive-in. You’ll have a blast.

Searching for Bobby Fischer became one of my favourites when I first saw it in a theatre in 1993. I was hooked after the opening narration by 8-year-old Max Pomeranc that recounts Bobby Fischer’s rise to fame as one of the best chess players in the world and ends with the whispered words: “He disappeared.” Then we discover the narrator is a child prodigy, a genius chess player who some call a young Bobby Fischer. But where Bobby Fischer was a nut, this kid stays on a path that keeps him sane. He plays baseball and goes fishing and doesn’t have a mean bone in his body. It’s a good story.

Whenever I put on just about any Krzysztof Kieslowski DVD, it becomes apparent, usually within the first 60 seconds, that I’m watching an exceptional film. The way it looks, the rhythm of the shots, the way it sounds, the natural look in the actors eyes — the attention to the details of every facet of the filmmaking process creates a feeling like a symphony of 50 different instruments playing a melody in perfect pitch and perfect time. It moves you. And you know that wherever the journey takes you, you’re in good hands. It doesn’t happen often because Sturgeon’s Law holds true in movies too. But when it does happen, you sit up and take notice because you don’t want to miss anything. You’re no longer a passive viewer. You’re engaged. You’re paying attention. Vera Drake is that kind of film. It tells the story of a woman in England after World War II who performs illegal abortions for poor people who can’t afford the medical procedure themselves. It’s not a pro-choice or anti-abortion film. It presents the situation, draws you into the thoughts and feelings of all the people involved (Vera’s close-knit family) and allows you to make your own judgements. None of it is black and white, though. When the end credits start rolling, you’re left with a lot of feelings to sort through and plenty to think about. It’s not an overly-serious downer film, though. Yes, there is drama, but it’s a pleasure to be with these characters because they’re so genuine and kind. It’s just solid filmmaking all around. At any rate, I’ll keep an eye out for anything directed by Mike Leigh for now on. He definitely got my attention with Vera Drake.

I’m talking about the original 1933 version of King Kong. It is a great movie and a hell of lot more violent and gruesome than I ever thought. It must have shocked and scared the crap out of audiences in 1933. I never realized what an incredible movie it is. There isn’t much of a story until Kong comes into the picture — and then you can watch the movie with the sound down if you feel like it because everything unfolds in broad strokes: 1) Island natives capture Fay Wray for sacrifice to Kong; 2) Kong runs into the jungle with Ms. Wray, protecting her instead of eating her; 3) A rescue party runs into the jungle and are killed off one at a time by Kong; 4) Kong is captured and brought back to the US… and so on. Although King Kong is sometimes considered a B-quality monster movie, it’s operatic and poignant as well. I’d love to see it in a theatre someday.

A big ominous ugly truck comes barrelling down the highway and makes life difficult for a lonely businessman in a car on his way to a meeting. Duel is like Jaws on wheels. Directed for TV by Steven Speilberg in 1971, this 90-minute theatrical cut is nothing but entertainment. There’s no moral to the story. It’s just one long chase scene that keeps you wondering, “How the hell is he going to get away from that truck?” Speilberg takes that simple concept and milks it to the hilt. Well done.

Brief Encounter is a 1946 film about two people who meet, have strong feelings for one another, toy with the idea of taking their brief encounter to another level and then… I won’t tell you want happens. My initial feelings were, “I’m not in the mood to watch some stiff British actors sit around a table with their cups of tea and say la-dee-da back and forth for an hour and a half,” but I’m glad I stuck it out. Over looking the film’s dated qualities is a small price to pay for a love story that rivals anything out of Casablanca. And what an ending!

In a multiplex full of crappy Hollywood blockbusters, The Visitor is an unusual find. It may not be a great film (I’m being generous giving it 4 stars), but it’s a nice quiet night at the movies. It’s a simple story of a professor sleepwalking through his humdrum life until he finds some people living in his usually-vacant New York apartment. He becomes friends with them, and that’s all you need to know. It’s a story about finding friendship in the most unlikely places. There’s no flash or glitter or contrived twists and turns. It’s just a story about life, and it’s a good one.

Don’t read any reviews or watch any on-line trailers. They give away too much.

Directed by Sydney Lumet. If you think you have problems or that your family is messed up or that your life hasn’t turned out the way you hoped it would, watch Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead and you’ll be grateful for everything you’ve got. It’s difficult to talk about the plot without giving away the story, but it involves two brothers who plan a heist that goes all wrong. And that’s just the beginning of their troubles. It’s the kind of story that only exists in movies, but the people feel so real, their reactions to the extreme circumstances so genuine, that it works. It’s completely engaging. The entire cast — Philip Seymour Hoffman, Albert Finney and even Ethan Hawke — couldn’t have given better performances. When you see acting on this level, you quickly realise how mediocre most actors are and what a challenging profession it really is. (Marisa Tomei has a major role, but they don’t give her much to do except take off her shirt.) It’s not a happy movie (though I had to laugh at the absurdity of it all from time to time), but it’s so over the top and compelling, it’s difficult to look away.

Once is a unique film about a singer-songerwriter in Dubln who works at his dad’s vacuum repair shop and spends the rest of his time busking on a street corner with his guitar. He eventually meets a girl and tries to make more of his music, and that’s pretty much the whole story. The film has been described as a musical because whenever the guy sings a song, we hear the whole thing. If you like the music, the full songs will work for you. I’m not going to go out and buy the soundtrack, but I still got into everything about this movie because it looks and feels like a documentary with characters who seem like real people. The plot (if you want to call it that) doesn’t feel contrived. You meet these people, you like them and you want find out what happens to them. It’s a simple equation that works on a nice, quiet, genuine level. It’s not a visually spectacular movie, but it doesn’t need to be. Once — once it gets noticed — is likely to become a favourite of independent singer-songwriters everywhere.

David Cronenberg gets off on showing close-up shots of gruesome things like people getting their faces blown off with a shot-gun (re: A History of Violence). In a world where beheadings make the news at least every other month (and can be viewed online if you know where to look — which I have no intention of ever doing — and photos of which are sometimes published in national newspapers), showing two separate scenes of people getting their throats slit is unnecessary. That’s one aspect of Cronenberg’s style I could do without. If you don’t like that kind of thing, just close your eyes for the few seconds when it happens, because the rest of the movie is excellent and well-worth watching. Eastern Promises tells the story of a doctor, Naomi Watts, who delivers a baby from a woman who works in a brothel. The mother dies and the doctor tries to track down the baby’s family and subsequently gets tangled up with the Russian Mafia — and those guys don’t fool around. Viggo Mortensen, as one of the Russian henchmen, has sympathy for her and tells her to go home and forget about it. But she doesn’t. And from there on in it’s, Oh, jesus, what the hell’s going to happen now? I was surprised at the emotional and moral complexity of the film. I guess you could say it’s a thriller with a conscience, and the best I’ve seen from Cronenberg.

The Blue Planet and Planet Earth are BBC documentary TV series — and they are without question the most spectacular, incredible documentaries about the natural world I have ever seen. They could easily play as a series of films in a theatre — and it would be fantastic. At times it’s like watching science fiction with creatures that seem unreal, landscapes and geological formations even the most imaginative artists couldn’t conceive, and shots of animals up close that turn into wide shots so wide you’d think the camera was fired into orbit. (I would love to work on these kinds of documentaries.) It’s not only a mind-blowing visual feast. It’s informative and dramatic. The narration reveals just enough to make you move in for a closer look — and it may transform your perception of the planet and the natural world. (My comments refer to the original BBC editions, not the US editions narrated by Sigourney “Ripley” Weaver.) I’ve spent plenty of time living on the land away from the noise and pollution of human activity. I’ve been able to feel a connection to natural things that is generally impossible to approach while living in the suburbs or a city. But watching The Blue Planet and Planet Earth comes pretty damn close to it, possibly closer than most people stuck in front of the boob tube will ever get. My highest recommendations.

Death at a Funeral is the funniest movie I’ve seen since Shaun of The Dead. It’s about a funeral that goes horribly wrong, wrong and wrong. Once it gets going, it never lets up. It’s all about letting the actors do their thing — reacting to events and situations that, even if these things happened in real life, you’d have to laugh. By the time I got to the end, I missed half the jokes because I was laughing too hard.

Oct. 21/08 post script: I tried watching it again tonight and couldn’t get into it. It takes about 20 minutes for things to kick into high gear, anyway, but it didn’t work for me even after waiting out the 20 minutes. Still, it’s worth taking a chance on. I laughed my ass off the first time I saw it.

It’s best not to read any reviews or watch any trailers for this movie. They give away too much.

The King of Kong is a documentary about two guys going for a world record in Donkey Kong. One of them, Billy Mitchell, comes off as such a conceited jerk, you want punch him in the nose and knock him down in the mud. It may not be an important documentary, but it presents an engaging story of good vs. evil and it’s entertaining. The editor deserves an award for piecing together a compelling, exciting and entertaining story, just as good — if not better — than most dramatic feature films. I couldn’t believe the people in it are real. I wouldn’t have been surprised to discover that they’re all actors and the whole story was scripted. But it’s all real. And thus surreal.

The Lives of Others is one of the most compelling, intriguing and eye-opening films I’ve seen in years — and sadly, it’s relevant too. I can’t add much to the linked review, so here are some quotes: “The Lives of Others is an excellent German film about life in the East German GDR before the fall of the Berlin Wall, when the population lived in constant fear of the secret police known as the Stasi. Writer-director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s story of artists under surveillance by merciless, corrupt officials is gripping from beginning to end… [We learn] something about the arrogance, corruption and twisted psychology that result when “security” bureaucracies are given special powers.” It’s difficult to shake the impression that Stephen Harper, the current Prime Minister of Canada, would love to have this kind of power in his government. The amendment to Bill C-10 is just the beginning. This guy has got to go!

If The Catcher in the Rye was a movie, The Graduate would pretty much be it.

Crimes and Misdemeanors is one of several Woody Allen films that’s pretty damn close to a masterpiece. From Roger Ebert’s original review: Crimes and Misdemeanors “is a thriller about the dark nights of the soul. It shockingly answers the question most of us have asked ourselves from time to time: Could I live with the knowledge that I had murdered someone? Could I still get through the day and be close to my family and warm to my friends, knowing that because of my own cruel selfishness, someone who had loved me was lying dead in the grave? This is one of the central questions of human existence, and society is based on the fact that most of us are not willing to see ourselves as murderers. But in the world of this film, conventional piety is overturned and we see into the soul of a human monster… Actually, he seems like a pretty nice guy.”

In Quest for Fire, a group of Paleolithic humanoids travel across dangerous country in search of fire. Along the way they meet up with a sabre-toothed tiger, woolly mammoths, cannibals and a more technologically advanced species (homo sapiens). The story is compelling and entertaining — and probably the most accurate depiction of early humans on film. Watching Quest for Fire is like jumping into a time machine. It’s fascinating.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind is one of the best science fiction films ever made, and worth revisiting if you haven’t seen it for a long time. Steven Speilberg’s directorial style quickly became what you might call obvious later in his career, but in this early film he allows plenty of room for interpretation. He shows us but doesn’t tell us anything. The final encounter with the aliens is spectacular and mysterious (communicating through music is pretty darn cool). Too bad they don’t make movies like this anymore.

Movies like The Diving Bell and the Butterfly are why I love movies. It’s a motion picture that takes hold of you from the first frame and doesn’t let go until the end credits are rolling. It’s a true story of a guy who has a stroke that leaves him unable to do anything except blink one eye, and from that one blinking eye he writes a book and communicates with people. In the opening shot (and for the first half hour of the film), we see what he sees after the stroke. His waking up. His distorted vision. We hear his voice — but no one else does because he’s unable to speak his thoughts. We hear his thoughts as he reacts to seeing his reflection for the first time, as orderlies clean his body that he can’t feel, as his children come to visit him, all of it. The experience of seeing what he sees is immediate and affective. (It’s also funny because he has a better sense of humour than most of the people around him.) I’ve never seen anything like it. I sat in my seat until the theatre lights came back on. It’s an extraordinary film.