Mud Songs

It Came From Outer Space is one of the few 1950s science fiction B-movies I’ve seen to-date that actually has a coherent story, one that is strong enough to maintain the momentum of the movie without having to spice it up with cheesy special effects every 5 minutes. And it’s always fun to play Spot The Star Trek Actor, or even better: Spot The Professor From Gilligan’s Island. That guy shows up all over the place in these old “sci-fi” classics. So anyhow, a spaceship crashes in the desert and the aliens need time to repair their ship. So they make copies of some guys who work for the power company and tell the one guy who knows where they’re hiding to not tell anyone. They promise to free all the original people they made copies of as soon as they’re done fixing their ship. That’s coherent, right? The aliens don’t show their true selves too much, but when they do, they look like the one-eyed alien blob from Space 1999. All said and done, It Came From Outer Space is a surprisingly half-decent and entertaining B-movie.

The Night Listener features Robin Williams as a radio storyteller who begins to receive calls from a 14-year-old boy whose depressing life story becomes material for a radio story. Williams speaks to the kid and his mother on the phone and notices they have similar voices. Is the mother pretending to be her 14-year-old son over the phone? Does her son actually exist? Does anybody care? More to the point, why should anybody care? What’s the big deal? There’s no reason for the audience to feel intrigued. Nobody with any sense would bother to hunt down the kid’s mother to see if he exists. Nobody with any sense would do half the things that go down in this movie. The filmmakers try to make it creepy and mysterious, and Williams does the best he can with the material, but the story goes nowhere. There is no story.

Cleaners is a low-grade, predictable thriller starring Samuel L. Jackson about a guy who cleans up the blood and guts left over at crime scenes and then one day gets tricked into cleaning up a murder scene before the police are called in. Stylistic touches such as inserting close-ups of inanimate objects, doorbells being pushed and coffee being poured are distracting to the narrative. What narrative does exist is conventional and ultimately melodramatic and stupid. It’s not a good movie.

James Berardineilli’s review of Hancock cuts to the case: “Hancock is a hodgepodge of intriguing ideas that, if developed further or presented as more than throw-ins to a confused production, might have made for a unique superhero film… Hancock is sometimes funny, sometimes clever, and occasionally involving, but it’s never brilliant and its edge is compromised by the neutering that accompanies the teen-friendly PG-13 rating.” Will Smith plays a homeless, alcoholic, belligerent super hero who grudgingly hires a PR man to improve his public image. So it’s a comedy, right? Or maybe an action movie? Maybe it’s a modern day Greek tragedy (I’m serious). Hancock had the potential to be a great movie in a class of its own, but it doesn’t know what it wants to be. So it’s a mess. It’s almost worth watching just to think about how good it could have been.

I watched Fritz Lang’s 1931 film, M, last night. Generally, I’d say it’s not a bad movie (it’s pretty damn good in places), but it’s not likely to have much appeal to a general audience. It’s about a child-murderer and how the madness of crowds kicks in as people try to hunt him down. I had a hard time keeping my eyes open for some of it, specifically the scenes that have no sound. I made it to the end, but it felt like work. It’s the kind of film that’s probably more engaging for people who’ve studied German film history and know what to look for. I’ll have to watch it again some time when I’m more alert.

A disease breaks out that causes mass blindness in an unnamed city. The blind are quarantined, left to fend for themselves in a hospital that’s surrounded by guards who shoot anyone who tries to get away. I kept expecting more from the story than Lord of the Flies in a mental institution for the blind. Written by Don McKellar, Blindness is based on the novel of the same name by José Saramago. If you’ve read the novel, you might get more out of the movie than I did because you’ll know more about each character’s motivation than what’s presented in the movie. But from what I saw on the screen, I couldn’t get into it. It fell just a little too short for me.

Flash of Genius tells the story of Bob Kearns, the guy who invented the intermittent wind shield wiper which was subsequently stolen by the Ford Motor Company. It’s a good movie for what it is, an underdog story that becomes a courtroom drama, but it’s a rental. There is no need to see it on a big screen.

Last Night is written and directed by Don McKellar. It’s about the end of the world and how various people in Toronto decide to live out their last night on earth. Some people want to have sex, or pray, or be with family, or commit suicide before the sun explodes (though we’re never told why the earth is coming to an end). Others want to be alone. The film moves along at a calm, quiet, reflective pace that allows the audience to feel for these people who are facing not just the end of their own lives, but the extinction of all life on the planet. Although the main character is too intellectual to engender much sympathy, the final scene makes up for it. Last Night is an usual but memorable end-of-the-world movie, one that might leave you thinking.

The French Connection is one of a handful of classic crime thrillers that does nothing for me because the acting is dull or the story is either non-existent or just plain dumb. (I don’t like Chinatown either. You gotta problem with that?) The French Connection is supposed to have one of the best and most influential chase scenes ever. I heard the same thing about Bullitt. They both influenced me to go to sleep.

Choke tells the story of a guy, Sam Rockwell, who goes to Sex Addicts Anonymous meetings to hook up with other sex addicts. He also visits his free-spirited but crazy mother, Angelica Huston, in a hospital where she is slowly dying from dementia. The movie starts off as a comedy and gradually eases into a more dramatic (but still entertaining) mode as we learn why this guy became a sex addict. That may not sound like a fun movie, but it made me think about all the crazy stuff people deal with as children who are then expected to grow up and be “normal” functioning adults. You might like this one if you’re a fan of an obscure 1996 movie called Box of Moon Light. Not everyone will go for it, though. It’s not exactly mainstream, which is probably the reason I like it so much. I’m beginning to think if a movie gets anywhere between 50 and 60 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s likely to be something I’ll appreciate. (This has been an extremely informative commentary. I know.)

Cassandra’s Dream is Woody Allen trying to get back in form as a writer-director, but not quite making it. It’s the story of two brothers, Ewan McGregor and a mis-cast Colin Farrell (he sunk Terrence Malick’s The New World for me) who get tangled up in a criminal situation where people end up getting hurt. One brother struggles with his conscience; the other brother doesn’t. Certain scenes are well directed and affective, but there are too many elements of the movie that don’t work. Still, I admire Woody Allen for the attempt to present a story with both style and substance. I might like this one more if I get around to watching it again, but I’d rather just watch Crimes and Misdemeanors, which is pretty damn close to a masterpiece; same deal with Match Point. All three films deal with a similar subject manner, only the last two do it brilliantly.

Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds is a B-movie that’s no more sophisticated or frightening than The Blob. It has a few good shots, but it’s boring and over-rated. If you bother to watch it (I don’t plan to see it again), let me know if you think the guy who plays Mitch, Rod Taylor, looks and sounds like Robin Williams’s father. I was convinced the two must be related. They’re not.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona is Woody Allen’s most satisfying movie since 2005’s Match Point. It’s an enjoyable and thoroughly entertaining story about two young women (Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson) on vacation in Barcelona who become involved with a local painter (Javier Bardem). The painter also has a love-hate relationship with his ex-wife (Penélope Cruz) that creates a dynamic tension within all their relationships. Scarlett Johansson plays a Barbie doll again, which is passable for her role. Rebecca Hall, Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem (the psycho killer from No Country For Old Men) give performances that are solid, right on the mark, energized but nuanced in a manner makes their characters seem like real people. Well-acted and well-written, Vicky Cristina Barcelona is neither an outright comedy or drama. Neither is it a masterpiece, but it’s fun.

I saw Traitor and liked it, though I have a feeling I’ll have forgotten all about it by Xmas. From James Berardinelli: “As a thriller for adults who don’t require manic chases, frenetic shoot-outs, and ten cuts per second, Traitor is smart, effective, and at times suspenseful. It’s one of a very few terrorist-themed movies that presents its situation without resorting to exploitation or oversimplification.” Don Cheadle has become an actor whose movies I’ll see even when I know the movie isn’t the greatest.

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’ve watched all three incarnations of King Kong in the past two weeks: The 1933 original, the best of the bunch for my money; Peter Jackson’s 2005 CGI-heavy remake which — although bloated with nearly 90 minutes of subplots about characters no one cares about — kicks ass when Kong is on screen; and now the 1976 version that presents us with a guy running around in an ape suit. If you’re going for camp value, then okay, maybe it works. But let’s be honest: The Kong scenes are boring. There’s no drama or intensity to any of the action. If you were 9 years old watching it on TV sometime in the ’70s and loved it then, the nostalgia factor could cloud your judgement enough that you might have fun watching it again as an adult. That’s the case for me with The Poseidon Adventure, but not here.

1h 09m. Peter Jackon’s version of King Kong begins at that point in the DVD, which marks the first appearance of Kong. You can start the movie there and not miss anything important, because just like the original 1933 version, the loneliness of this scary, fierce, misunderstood giant gorilla is the drama of story. The humans are window dressing next to the pathos that pour out of that big ape. If Jackson had cut at least an hour of the running time, kept his focus on Kong, and waited about 10 years to the point where CGI technology could do justice to his vision of Kong, he would have made a great movie. Still, it’s not hard to overlook these flaws during the Kong scenes, which are pretty damn spectacular. (I didn’t see the extended edition.)

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.

The Savages has Philip Seymour Hoffman doing a version of William Wharton’s Dad, the story of a brother and sister (Laura Linney) coming together to take care of their ailing father. It seems almost lightweight compared to Hoffman’s performance in Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead, but it’s a good story.