I’ve been watching various versions of Dracula over the past few days. It’s fascinating to me how the original 1931 version was gradually chipped away at and “wimped down”. It apparently still managed to freak out audiences in its day, but you can see the progression downhill from
Bram Stokers original novel
Hamilton Deane stage play
John Baldeston’s rewrite of Deane’s play
The 1931 movie as filmed
The 1931 film as released.
Bela Lugsi’s makeup got less weird. Lucy’s role as a secondary vampire was practically removed. The staking of the Count, which was the big showpiece for the stage plays, got moved completely off camera, and Edward Van Sloan’s warning about vampires (“There ARE such things”) got cut out of the movie entirely before its 1938 re-release. Watching the 1931 Spanish-language version helps fill in the blanks a bit – you can see where some things were going, and got cut. The whole Lucy-as-vampire story is in the Spanish version, including at least a mention of her getting staked.
I just picked up a copy of the original version of The Big Sleep, with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Neither Pepper Mill nor I had ever seen it before, so that was an entertaining evening last night.
Come and See, a 1980s Soviet movie about the Eastern Front atrocities. Upon typing that, it sounds a little antiseptic. A “holy crap” movie if there ever was one. It gets a bit surreal, as it focuses on a Belorussian teenager trying to make sense of it all. He doesn’t, especially the aftermath of the Germans in his hometown, and then we watch them brutally massacre another village.
It shook me up so bad that I wanted to pop in a John Wayne movie or Patton, to remind me about glorious World War II. It’s like Spielberg watched that movie, said “This gives me ideas for Saving Private Ryan and Schindlers List… but let’s tone it down a bit”
I just watched this last night. I wasn’t blown away (mentioned only because this movie had an enormous amount of indie buzz around its release) but I liked it well enough. I personally wouldn’t use the word “bleak” because it seemed like a pretty accurate portrayal of life for a somewhat awkward person at that time in their life. And the ending could be construed as hopeful? It was pretty good overall.
Definitely can’t argue with this assessment but this movie still stuck with me after I watched it. It’s so… different? Definitely nails a specific kind of vague, slow, creepy vibe.
The director’s (Osgood Perkins, son of Anthony!) other movie, Blackcoat’s Daughter, is a real trip.
Anyone else have a problem on deciding on what to watch? I’ve seen thousands of movies from almost every decade, almost every country that had cinema, but it’s been tough lately. The latest “thing” I got into were some Egyptian movies from the 60s…
First Man
A downbeat, depressing biopic about Neil Armstrong. Some great space scenes but the Apollo 11 Moon landing is almost an afterthought; the movie is mostly about Armstrong’s marriage. The last scene between Armstrong and his wife is a stunning misfire IMHO (some people in the theater actually laughed out loud - not at all the reaction the director was going for, I’m sure).
Keanu
Uneven Key and Peele comedy about two square suburban guys trying to pass for bloodthirsty gangstas as they try to recover an adorable kitten. Meh. Not nearly as funny as it wanted to be.
The Lodger
Saw this silent Alfred Hitchcock B&W 1927 thriller, loosely based on the Jack the Ripper murders, with a live improvised organ score, which was fun. Not Hitchcock’s best, but worth a look.
Logan*
Terrific near-future superhero action flick with Wolverine and Prof. Xavier facing a new enemy and their own mortality. Just possibly the best X-Men movie yet.
The Evil Dead
Classic low-budget horror gorefest. Not nearly as entertaining as everyone told me it would be.
Saw it in the theater when it first came out. As a big Vampire fan, I couldn’t miss it.
Some people have made the claim that there are no pictures of Max Shrek out of his Nosferatu makeup. Not true – David J. Skal has at least three different stills of him without makeup in his various books. There’s another on his IMDB page, and the man made 45 other movies. And I know some of them aren’t “lost”.
22 July, about the 2011 terrorist attack in Norway that saw a car bomb explode in a government building and scores of kids gunned down at a youth camp.
Very intense. Hard to watch, but not because the gore factor - we’re spared most of that. It’s essentially presented in three parts: the attack, the recovery of one kid who survived and the trial of the killer. Excellent performances. It must have been a particularly difficult role for the actor who played Breivik (the killer). It spoke to me about the danger of the far right, in light of the current state of affairs in the States. I couldn’t help but think of the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh while watching the first act.
Recommended, but maybe have stiff drink or a Xanax nearby, just in case.
Willem Dafoe appeared at our local art-house cinema a few years ago and spoke about the film. His makeup took a loooong time to apply, but he liked it, because then he could completely disappear into the character.
Meh, at best. Too noisy and hyper. Glamorizes rich (stupid) people and their idiotic, wasteful, discriminatory practices. A predictable storyline. I mean, very predictable.
Constance Wu and a few of the other women actors were quite good. But the big problem is that there are a few boring, stolid people and a metric ton of “wacky” people. I think the goal was to differentiate the cast by having almost all the secondary characters be … “characters” and then some. Plus there are way too many of them.
A pared down cast with moderate styles would have been better.
The way things wrapped up basically did not make sense at all given what preceded.
Game Night (2018) Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams. It’s pretty good. I mean, it’s ridiculous but I think that’s sort of the point. It tries to be too “real” sometimes to justify the, “oh come on” moments, but who cares. There were a few parts where I was just crying laughing. Jesse Plemons as Gary the cop is hysterical in that he plays it absolutely straight - never cracks a smile - and crushes.
I doubt it’s a future classic, but if you’re into those types of movies (Horrible Bosses, Game Over, Man!, anything by Judd Apatow), you’ll probably enjoy it.
Eighth Grade (4 stars) – A realistic and brave performance by Elsie Fisher as a 13-year-old navigating adolescence. Josh Hamilton plays her single father, with not much to do aside from trying to be a caring, cool dad without jumping the line into awkwardness. Other than Fisher’s genuine characterization, I didn’t feel I was seeing much of anything original here.
Tully (4 ½ stars) – Charlize Theron never disappoints. She plays Marlo, an overwhelmed mother of three who hires a “night nanny” to do overnight duty (doody) for the newborn. The less you know going into this one, the better.
Baby Driver (3 stars) – Entertaining, but too slick for its own good. Ansel Elgort is a getaway driver for bank jobs, Kevin Spacey is very good as a crime boss. The coolness deteriorates into silliness and corniness.
Hearts Beat Loud (3 stars) – This is about a single dad and his going-off-to-college daughter who demonstrates an above average musical talent. She wants to go to med school, Dad wants to jam. My expectations were high and I came away mildly disappointed.
mmm
The Long Riders (1980). Very Peckenpah-ish, directed by Walter Hill of The Warriors fame (my favorite all-time movie). Highly fictionalize story of the James-Younger Gang featuring four sets of brothers playing four sets of brothers (Keaches as Jameses, Carradines as Youngers, Quaids as Millers and Guests as Fords). I hadn’t seen it in a long time and it wasn’t really as good as I remember it. I still like … I’ll watch it again some time. I like a good hokey, violent western.
Funny People (2009). An Apatow joint, between Knocked Up and This is 40. Adam Sandler plays, basically, Adam Sandler, except this version sees him single and lonely and dying of a blood disease. Seth Rogan plays the up and coming comic who works for him as his assistant. The sub-story is how Sandler’s character wants to get back with his ex, who’s now un-happily married and he winds up almost ruining her life. I don’t think it’s a spoiler at this point - he ends up cured and thinking he’s winning his ex back when it all falls apart on him and he’s back to square one, just not dying anymore. Anyhoo … the opposite of The Long Riders, I remember not liking it that much the first time I saw it, but I really enjoyed it. Sandler puts in a good acting job. The stand up in the movie is some of the best I’ve seen in a movie, as is the general comedian subculture portrayed.
Saw the new Fantastic Beasts movie. I don’t know Harry Potter by heart enough to get all the references (I watched each HP movie once) but still a quite enjoyable movie. Some big things happened and there are definitely plot points to be resolved in future movies. I definitely liked seeing Hogwarts again and some old characters in their younger days.
Orson Welles’ unfinished last film finished by others was overlong and full of pretentious dialogue. Much of the film-within-a-film was beautifully shot and seemed predicated on showing as much of Oja Kodar’s ass as possible - an aesthetic conceit I found unassailable. These sections also contained 3 or 4 inventive bits that actually looked like they had been directed and edited by Orson Welles. Unfortunately, the rest of the flick can fairly be called the worst of (cinematographer) Gary Graver: distractingly jerky handheld camera work (not always in focus) and rapid shifts between color and b&w stock… made all the more unpalatable by fragmented, sea sickness-inducing editing. The thin story gets buried under the heavy technique.
More critically, the story hinges on the possible homosexuality of the main character. That may have had some dramatic impact in early-mid-70s when the film was originally shot, but not in 2018. In this and other ways, it is a movie very much out of its time (i.e., dated).
It does have a remarkable cast, few of whom distinguished themselves to any significant degree. One notable exception (for me) was the appearance of legendary dwarf actor Angelo Rossitto. He played a dwarf.
I am very glad I finally got to see this movie, even though it contained less than a modicum of entertainment. I think it will probably look better in 5, maybe even 10 years, but it will never be able to overcome its aesthetic and thematic shortcomings.
