Death Defying Acts

Death Defying Acts ended up not really fitting into the blog’s gestalt at all, but I thought it would when I sat down to watch it. It seemed to be in the general vein of The Illusionist or The Prestige, two movies I very much enjoyed, and Houdini is always an interesting historical figure to include in a narrative. Plus, with Guy Pearce and Catherine Zeta-Jones, the casting had promise. (Saoirse Ronan and Timothy Spall, it turned out, were in it as well.)

Where to begin with this movie? To start with the positive, I suppose, the art direction was superb, and the cinematography was pleasant (if not quite spectacular). Pearce does a lot of acting, much of it very interesting, and the other three gamely give it their best.

The fundamental problem is the screenplay.  It begins pleasant, but cliché: a plucky young Scottish girl (Ronan) and her mother (Zeta-Jones) are down-and-out entertainers, posing as psychics in low-budget vaudeville style shows. As an aside, asking an audience to ever believe Zeta-Jones is “down-and-out” is a bit of a stretch, though she does well enough with the accent that “Scottish” isn’t laughable. When Harry Houdini comes to town, Zeta-Jones’ character angles to get the money he offers for proof of genuine supernatural contact with the dead.

So far, so predictable. Ronan is aggressively adorable, Pearce and Zeta-Jones make eyes at one another, and Spall is Houdini’s disapproving manager/agent/assistant… it doesn’t really matter. Pearce sells Houdini as a consummate performer, haunted by his own private demons, and in a different movie could have been quite interesting. Up until this point, very average. There’s not much chemistry in the romance, and things seem to be moving in a very foreseeable direction.

Suddenly, though, almost out of the blue, it’s revealed that Zeta-Jones looks very much like Houdini’s (dead) mother did when she was young. The same dead mother he’s trying to contact. The same dead mother WHOSE WEDDING DRESS HE KEEPS IN A LOCKED TRUNK, creepy.

The same dead mother whose wedding dress he makes Zeta-Jones wear at a public séance. For science! But just when you think he’s about to go all Norman Bates on us, Ronan – whose awkward voice-overs don’t do the movie any favors – has an actual psychic experience, all Little Boy in Ragtime style, throwing the séance into chaos and, presumably, throwing us firmly into an alternate reality, as this would have made some headlines.

That’s fine. It’s historical fiction, and at this point, the creepy movie with a fantastical element was much more interesting than anything that preceeded it. By taking a turn for the macabre and the bizarre, I had hopes that Death Defying Acts would redeem itself. (It even has a near-silent but Hamlet-esque moment where Houdini contemplates suicide following the revelation that he wasn’t there when his mother died.)

But then the story fumbles in the final 15 minutes. Houdini comes to their little hut (in the graveyard), and we endure 10 minutes of terrible dialogue, 2 minutes of unsexy, PG-13 fumbling, and Zeta-Jones’ beautiful tears as Houdini drives off into the sunset. Ronan goes on about losing her psychic ability as she grew up, as Houdini is sucker-punched to death, and it’s all a bit of a trainwreck.

My friend and I theorized that, of the two screenwriters listed on the credits, one wrote the original, bad script, and one tried to fix it, but only really succeeded with a few scenes in and around the séance. We can’t know, of course. But the acting, the costumes, and the general design couldn’t save this from becoming a hot mess, in which a terrible ending dragged down even the likable parts of the beginning.

The real shame of it is that some of the elements of this could have been an excellent movie.  But wasting A talent on D material does no one any favors.

Grade: C- Despite Pearce’s good work and lovely visuals, the storytelling is deeply flawed.

District 9

I’d meant to see District 9 for quite a while (since before it was up for Best Picture in last year’s Oscars), but only got around to it recently. Sci-fi with a political bent sounded up my alley, but it was just never the right time to see it.

Thus, I expected the political underpinnings. I went in knowing a fair bit about what critics had said, just by osmosis. But what shocked me most was the horror aspect of the film.

There’s something intrinsically terrible about the idea of your own body betraying you. This doesn’t only come up in science fiction, of course, but it’s a good arena to explore it on a more extended scale. (See Alien, for example, or even any good werewolf movie.)   The loss of control and familiarity is bad enough, but it also raises questions of the very nature of one’s selfhood.  As such, it suits this film quite well.

But before it gets there, the film wrenches you through a much more visceral sequence of events. The transformation is much worse than, say, a werewolf’s, for a few reasons. First, it’s slow. It presents more like a disease that we’re familiar with than anything magical, and that’s unsettling. Second, it’s repugnant because of the insect-like elements, which are as far from what we think of as “human” as you can get within the animal kingdom. (Insert Kafka joke here.)

Third, there’s the governmental aspect. It’s not so much a conspiracy theory as a reflection of a very believable way that the government might react (especially in the portion of the film before it becomes an extended action sequence). There’s a sort of cold logic to the government’s actions that is unsettling because it is so plausible.

I do have to give credit to Sharlto Copely , for a nuanced performance as Wikus, the film’s anti-hero. He’s not afraid to be cowardly, selfish and unattractive in a variety of ways, and I liked that fear didn’t immediately turn him into a noble champion of the alien cause. He wants his life back, and is willing to do whatever it takes to ensure that outcome.  This isn’t Enemy Mine, and though Wikus and the alien Christopher do develop a rapport, there isn’t time to develop it as far as it might go.

As a film, the gritty style served the tone very well, but my personal preference wouldn’t be for a full mock documentary style. It helps with exposition, but on the other hand, it introduces the question of who and where the cameraman is to the audience’s mind. There are certain sequences that lapse out of documentary and more into traditional narrative film, which was necessary for the plot, but I still found it a bit jarring.

The effects were quite good (the transition for Wikus especially), and the plot moved at a nice clip.  For his first feature film, Neill Blomkamp shows solid directing instincts, though when I found out that District 9 was expanded from a short film, I wasn’t entirely surprised. There’s a sense that the premise is the movie, in many ways, and it struggles now and then with the tension between the plot and the concept.

That said, District 9 was a solid effort, and worth seeing if you’re interested in science fiction, though it’s not a film I’d recommend to everyone. The moral gets a bit heavy-handed toward the end, and the narrative unfolds without a great deal of nuance, but it’s a solid story with good acting and effects.

Grade: B- A rather average plot with solid production values, decent directing, and good acting. Worth a watch.

Winter’s Bone

I had intended to see Winter’s Bone for a long time, and some video credit at Amazon.com finally gave me the nudge. I’m very glad I finally did; it’s an excellent film, and it well-deserves the accolades it’s received. Going in, I knew very little about it, except that it was a small, independent production, and that the acting was apparently very good.

Winter’s Bone is a hard movie to classify.  Oddly (or not), it reminded me most of Chinatown, in many ways, but mainly in the protagonist’s determination to find out what she needs to know, in the face of the clear knowledge it would be safer for her to leave it alone. Though it’s strange to think of a film with a starkly rural setting as noir, its ambivalent morality, unflinching protagonist, crime-laced plot and claustrophobic atmosphere would certainly push it in that direction for me.

Regardless of how you label it (or choose not to), the film is grippingly made. Its pace is slow, yet deliberate, and contributes to a sense of dread and hopelessness which ebbs and flows but never evaporates. Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) is smart, stubborn and resourceful; on the other hand, at 17, she is often over her head, and left without recourse when she’s opposed by people who dismiss her for both her age and her gender. She’s easy to root for, and her emotions are clearly present, but tightly guarded.

John Hawkes, as Ree’s Uncle Teardrop, similarly gives a raw and naturalistic performance. Whenever he’s onscreen, he was worth watching sharply, building his performance on small details and nuance.

I would love to rewatch this movie on a screen better suited to it than my laptop, but even with the limitations I had, the composition and filming were dynamic and interesting. (I’m not sure if it’s Amazon’s fault, or my video card, but the contrast was hard to get just right, and the resolution was  bit fuzzy, even though I downloaded the film rather than streaming it.) The film was not afraid of lighting highs and lows, and director Debra Granik creates a very present sense of space. The setting seems both empty and cluttered, and the cold pervades as a motif leading up to what I would argue is the film’s climax.

It is something of a hat trick to make a film so unrelentingly bleak that leaves the viewer with a sense of hope, but Granik does manage it. Despite the fact that my predominant emotion during the film was something between fascination and dread, I was left oddly optimistic about Ree and her family, despite the huge challenges still left to them.

Winter’s Bone is an excellent argument in favor of the 10-slot Best Picture nomination rule change, a much better one than, say, An Education or District 9 (review forthcoming).  This film is truly excellent, beyond its standout acting or beyond an intriguing concept. Because of the sort of film it is, there’s no real chance it will win, but the nomination may find it a new audience, and is a way of recognizing an achievement that’s less conventional awards fodder than, say, The King’s Speech (much as I liked that movie as well).

With its dark story, intriguing visuals, and riveting performances, Winter’s Bone is well worth seeing, and I suspect would reward a second view richly.

Grade: A- Though I can understand how some might find the pace a bit slow, I felt it suited the film, and overall everything worked for me.

The Wolfman (2010)

There’s no two ways about it; 2010’s The Wolfman is a terrible movie.

I’ve now seen it twice, willingly both times.

It isn’t that the film has no merits. Given the hell of preproduction, it’s easy to see how this could have been a tribute to the classic horror films, evoking them while doing something new. Even now, it is beautifully shot and art directed, almost sumptuously so; Hugo Weaving is fun, Anthony Hopkins underplays so much he’s almost deadpan, and Emily Blunt actresses her way gamely through the movie. Even Benicio del Toro, bizarre casting choice as he is, gives the tortured victim protagonist as sturdy a foundation as he can manage.

And a lot of the film, like Danny Elfman’s score, is serviceable, if not remarkable in any way. Much of The Wolfman is fine. The special effects are not mind-blowing, but get the job done, and the humorous gore is especially nicely handled.

The story, however, is a hot mess. (More of that in a moment.) What redeems the whole is that the good elements are good enough to keep the film from being painful, but not so good they feel wasted. Instead, we’re left with a worse than average werewolf movie that is perhaps an exemplary case of “fun-bad.” Best watched with a friend or two, and maybe some alcohol, it’s the sort of movie where the ridiculousness mounts in such a way that you can’t help but laugh.

There’s a place for movies like this. It can be incredibly freeing to watch a movie you know will be bad. There’s no pressure to engage with it. You lose nothing if you’re distracted by the pizza arriving, or you and your friend get involved in a digression about Emily Blunt’s film career or other werewolf movies. And since you were never expecting it to be good, it’s hard to be disappointed.

I’m not arguing that filmmakers should set out, intentionally, to make bad films. (The results of that are mixed at best.) I’m simply drawing a distinction between those that “fall with style” and those that just lie there, a broken heap.

The Wolfman starts out a little silly, but well enough. Pretty much everything after the protagonist’s first transformation, though, ceases to make much sense. Around the last act, the movie gives up on any sort of narrative through-line; characters appear places for no good reason, new characters are introduced to be killed almost instantly (goodbye, handsome nameless deputy), Hopkins’ character has no motivation except “BE EVIL,” and Emily Blunt’s character just loses any sense of direction at all.

That said, there are some spectacular and entertaining deaths, there’s a lot of fire, and after a slow middle, the film ends at a pretty good clip. It’s at its best when it skips the romance and the soul-searching, and leans on the very horror clichés that, once upon a time, it meant to do homage. When it’s melodramatic and larger-than-life, the movie manages to compliment, if not match, its artistic backdrop. With a sturdier script, and probably a different lead (though del Toro does his best), this could have been a solid B Movie effort.

Instead, largely because of plot and dialogue, it’s fairly terrible. But it fails with style, and if horror/fantasy happens to be the genre that your tolerance is for, it manages to be a lot of fun.

Grade: C+ How pretty a movie it is pushes it a bit higher than it might have been, enjoyment aside; Hugo Weaving is also worthwhile, and should do more in this mode.

True Grit

Remaking True Grit seemed to be a silly idea, on first blush. It’s acclaimed one of the greatest Westerns ever, featuring John Wayne at the top of his game in an Oscar-winning performance. But if anyone was going to do it, the Cohen brothers were a team to raise relatively fewer eyebrows.

Though I’ve seen the original, it has been many years, and I don’t feel comfortable comparing the two effectively without a fresher memory. That said, this True Grit has the feel of a Cohen brothers film right through, and that is both its greatest strength and its biggest weak point.

All the acting is excellent. Jeff Bridges salutes Wayne while making Cogburn his own. Matt Damon and Hailee Steinfeld are both pitch-perfect, delivering the stiff, pseudo-biblical dialogue as if it were the most natural thing in the world. It is Cogburn, not the young Mattie Ross, who seems a bit out of place in his speech, which shifts the alienation to the marshal more fully. The emotional connections are still genuine, however – I was moved by the scene where Mattie begs to go with LaBoeuf (Damon) and the ending was nicely played.

The filming is also, as you’d expect from the Cohen, superb.  Many shots memorably frame themselves, from Mattie entering the boarding house (past a lazily smoking Texas ranger), to the surreal image of a bear riding a horse out of a snowy grove of trees.  The emotional underscoring is also cleverly done; the use of horses to make people look up or down at one another was understated but canny, and the lighting is always more or less natural, but suits the tone of both individual scenes and the film as a whole.

In the Cohen brothers’ films, at least the ones I’ve seen, there’s a recurring sense of emptiness that arises when characters get what they think they want. Though it’s most notable in Fargo, it turns up in films as evidently different as O Brother, Where Art Thou?, No Country for Old Men and Burn After Reading. This film is no exception. It’s never spelled out, but when Mattie gets the revenge she’s after, it doesn’t give her present or eventual satisfaction as far as the viewer can tell. The sorrow of a revenge that doesn’t heal is a subtle undertone of the entire film.

I liked this element of the movie, but the emptiness at the heart of True Grit left some lagging moments on the journey to get there. The pace was variable, and sometimes left me wondering why it lingered or where it was going.  Building character was clearly one of the movie’s greatest concerns, but it also left the plot to start and go as necessary.

This is also completely me, not the film, but the choice of “Leaning On the Everlasting Arms” for the main musical motif distracted me, because all I could think of was Night of the Hunter. The hymn will never be anything but creepy for me.

Iris DeMent does a nice job on the credits version, irony of the choice aside, but it threw me out of the film when it turned up in the score.

Regardless, the film was mostly solid, and did a good job of creating tension and tracing character growth within a relatively slow-moving story.

Grade: B+ Though the pace needed some work, high quality elements combined to make this a compelling and worthwhile film.

 

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

I saw The Adventures of Baron Munchausen once as a young child, and remembered almost nothing about it upon reviewing. Certain images struck me, however, here and there: Oh, yes, this is familiar. I sort of remember this. Terry Gilliam’s films are often called dream-like, and this sense is certainly underlined when one is seen through the lens of half-familiarity.

That said, Baron Munchausen is very entertaining from start to finish and doesn’t suffer from the weird devolution that plagues the end of the otherwise very good Time Bandits.  It feels, however, more like a companion piece to the more recent Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. There are the obvious bits he steals from himself; both movies open with a show, and there’s the blending of theatre with reality that underpins both.

Munhausen, however, is mostly light and stays comedic throughout, even in its darker moments. There are plenty of those, though. The friend with whom I was watching commented that, as a child the Angel of Death figure scared her… well, I was going to say “to death,” but you get the idea.

Good old nightmare fuel.

That is totally fair, of course. The ship of despair inside the sea monster is, in many ways, equally unsettling. And even Jonathan Pryce’s turn as the petty tyrant Horatio Jackson is sobering in its way – he doesn’t let you write him off as a ridiculous figure, as much as you would like to.

Amid those elements however, there are some generally hilarious bits. The sultan’s “opera” had me beside myself, and Robin William’s bizarre appearance as The King of the Moon is predictably but enjoyably nutty.  And the dialogue is strange but fun, reflecting the tales that serve as the foundation of the movie.

One of the highlights of the film is a tiny Sarah Polley as Sally Salt. Sally manages to be neither precious or unrealistic, but is a strong character in her own right. Her endless eyerolling at the stupidity of adults is spot on, and her stubbornness keeps the plot moving in a very organic way. Sally has an almost Roald Dahl-ish quality to her, and serves as a perfect foil for the freewheeling titular character.

The art direction is also worth noting (it was Oscar-nominated, though it lost to Tim Burton’s Batman). The sets and costumes establish a fantastical realm that still stays connected to the characters. Even the movie’s “real world” has a stylized element to it, blurring the line between fantasy and reality pleasantly and at will. Having actors from the initial troupe of traveling players turn up as characters later, perhaps most notably with a young Uma Thurman, gives the film a resonance and a through line it might otherwise struggle for.

I love stories about stories.  The Fall, Big Fish, even Stranger Than Fiction are all some of my favorites, and it was great to re-discover Baron Munchausen in all its quirks. It’s broad, but it’s meant to be, and it succeeds at entertaining throughout.

Grade: B+ A pleasant and funny fantasy that doesn’t mind breaking some rules, but mainly aims to please.

Die Hard

In light of my last entry, it seems a bit strange to actually review a classic Christmas film, but if there is one that exemplifies the spirit of The Exploding Macguffin, that movie is, without a doubt, the original Die Hard.

I hadn’t sat down and watched all of the original Die Hard in quite awhile, but nothing seemed more appropriate for this blog’s Christmas special.  The movie has everything. Shirtless, bleeding heroes. Giant teddy bears. Alan Rickman. What more could you ask for?

In all seriousness, Die Hard is not a masterful piece of artwork. It is, instead, completely entertaining. The screenplay has logical inconsistencies and plot holes big enough to let Santa’s sleigh through, but it’s not a movie that aims for realism.

Instead John McClane is Jack Bauer before Jack Bauer existed, but without the deadly seriousness that suffuses 24.  McClane’s black humor (including his immortal catchphrase) and his clear love for his family are really all the character development we get in this movie, slapped on the generic “loose canon NY cop” stock character. But he’s awesome, and he’s just stubborn in a way that’s completely great.

(I love the scene in which one of the terrorists, angry because McClane escaped after killing his brother, trashes a corner of the office. McClane’s wife hopefully says, “He’s alive! Only John can drive somebody that crazy!”)

Though the look of the movie is a bit dated, its pure simplicity means the movie itself stays reasonably fresh. Sure, the technology is a bit outdated now, but really, it’s a film about a heist, and that trope has yet to be abandoned.

Speaking of thieves, exceptional or otherwise, Alan Rickman is hand-down my favorite part of Die Hard.  I know I’m not alone in this. Hans Gruber is a great villain. He’s a perfect counterpoint to McClane; methodical, civilized, and charming, Gruber is also capable of improvising on the fly and is completely ruthless in a practical way. He’s not a sadist, but if killing someone is more effective than not, well, that’s a necessary cost.

Though it starts a little slow, the pace kicks in as soon as the building is in the theives’ hands. From then on, it moves at a steady clip, alternating banter, suspense and action in a very well-balanced way. Sure, you can sit there and say, “But that wouldn’t work at all.” But for me, at least, I’m happy enough to kick back, suspend my disbelief, and the roof explode.

The movie doesn’t get convoluted, or try to introduce unnecessary subplots. The economy of story, the well-executed special effects (for its time), and the perfect casting of the two lead roles make Die Hard the classic that it is.

I leave you with this (spoilers for all four movies, but…does it really matter?):

Grade: B – Sure, it’s kind of silly, but it does what it wants to do and has tons of fun along the way.

Scaramouche

This is a rewatch, and one of my favorite swashbucklers. Based on Sabatini’s 1921 novel of the same name, Scaramouche is a shameless swashbuckler in the classic studio mode. Clearly a descendant of Errol Flynn films like Captain Blood, the movie tells the story of André Moreau, the bastard son of a nobleman in late 18^th century France. Much less political than its source material, Scaramouche is part revenge story, part romance, with some Commedia dell’arte thrown in for good measure.

Everything in this film works for me. Stewart Granger is like a strange cross between Flynn and Bruce Campbell, which works perfectly for the role, and his chemistry with Eleanor Parker is fantastic. Janet Leigh doesn’t have much to do, but looks gorgeous. And Mel Ferrer is oddly affecting as the villainous Marquis de Maynes, making him a bit more human than a Rathbone-esque villain has any right to be.

It’s also interesting to watch the way the filmmakers used certain techniques, mainstream at the time but almost gone now. Janet Leigh’s soft-focus close-ups, of which there are many, are almost jarring to a modern eye, though you see them all the time in films of the period. The art direction is also clearly working hard to earn the “glorious” in “glorious Technicolor”: everything is vivid almost to garishness.

That said, it really doesn’t date too badly. The story is engaging, and well-written. The dialogue is touched with “Hollywood Period” touches, but not obnoxiously so, and the swordfighting is delightfully theatrical. (The final duel still holds, to my knowledge, the distinction of the longest onscreen swordfight, at nearly seven minutes long.)

What Scaramouche really gets right, overall, is choosing what sort of movie it will be and committing to it. It wasn’t designed to win Oscars, it was designed to entertain, and it does that in spades. In this way, it reminds me of the first Pirates of the Carribbean movie – we don’t speak of the sequels – in that it marries a romance and an adventure into one fast-paced, witty popcorn movie.

The gender roles are, of course, a little problematic now. Leigh’s Aline has a bit of pluck, but is mainly decorative. Parker’s Leonore is much more interesting, but is an actress of loose morals, which of course can’t be rewarded. That said, I’ve always felt he ends up with the wrong love interest, especially as he spends most of the movie convinced Aline is his sister (yes, I know).  The love triangle is very different from the novel’s, and the final joke (Lenore ends up with Napoleon) doesn’t do much to assuage the sense of mis-match.

Whatever the failings of the romance, however, the adventure is first rate. Master fencer de Maynes kills Moreau’s best friend in front of him. Moreau swears revenge, and sets out to become de Maynes’ equal with a foil to carry out his plan. In the meantime, he becomes a comedic star of the stage, finds himself drawn into politics, and discovers the truth about his own parentage. It’s wonderfully melodramatic, and handled just right.

Besides Pirates, the best modern analogue I can think of is 1998’s The Mask of Zorro. But I wonder, without the studio system backing them, how many modern swashbucklers will continue to be made. Between the deadly seriousness of films like Robin Hood and the idiocy of Pirates of the Carribbean: At World’s End, I’m a bit skeptical that most modern studios or directors have a sense of why these movies were (and are) so much fun.

That said, I’m not without hope. As well as both Mask of Zorro and the Pirates franchise have done at the box office, maybe someone will continue tinkering until they figure out what makes it work and  why. Maybe we’ll find our generation’s Errol Flynn. I’ll confess, I would be completely thrilled.

Grade: B+ The best of what classic Hollywood popcorn fare can offer.

The Exorcist

Though it’s a classic, this was my first viewing of The Exorcist. (I watched it on Halloween night, in fact, though this entry is clearly a little backdated from then.)  It had been billed to me as several people as the scariest movie they have ever seen.

I can see why. Instead of going for “gotcha” scares or slasher violence, The Exorcist insidiously gets into your head. There’s no rhyme or reason as to why a sweet young girl should be possessed, why her and not someone across the street, or in another town, or another country. The pure random nature of evil is the most terrifying element of the story, and that comes across brilliantly.

That said, I think I suffered from having seen too many individual portions of the film in clips before seeing the film itself. There weren’t a great many surprises, and that hurt, though the sense of dread defusing the work remained.  I think Regan’s progression deeper and deeper into the grip of the demonic might have been more effective to those who didn’t know where it was going when it began.

The filming, while a little dated, is plain and simple, which serves the film well. There is an element of the ordinary to the horror – I think some of the scariest portions are definitely the hospital visits, partly because of the outdated technology, but more because of the doctors who can’t admit that they just don’t know what’s wrong.

There’s also an interesting interplay with faith in The Exorcist. While Chris MacNeill turns to Catholicism out of pure desperation, Karras’ struggle with his own doubts and guilt was one of the most interesting facets of the movie. Jason Miller delivers a fascinating performance that would have been easy to render one-dimensional.  Instead, Karras is almost as at sea as the woman who comes to him for help.  His final act, depending on how you look at it, is heroic, desperate, or both.

Linda Blair does some excellent work as well, especially in the final scene. When Regan’s mother says, quietly, “She doesn’t remember anything,” the viewer might be tempted to take it at face value except for the shatter, haunted underpinnings to Regan’s expression. Because Blair paints such a normal portrait at the beginning of the film, the ending is a blow. Even if she survived, you get the sense that she has some scars that may never heal.  Again, there’s no reason to why it happened, and the randomness is what makes it frightening.

The theme, Tubular Bells, has become a bit of a cliché, but it really is quite effective, and reflects the movie as a whole. Sparse, almost conservative in its artistic choices, The Exorcist plays with variations on a theme. The score emphasizes a sense of wrongness by simplicity and repetition, not by hijacking the listener’s emotions.

On the whole, though the movie didn’t feel 100% fresh, I could see why it’s so highly regarded. It was well-made, well-acted and illustrated that evil can strike even the most happy and stable of homes. Everything isn’t going to be okay, because even if this demon was driven out, some other person will be possessed in some other place, and the cycle will start again. Nothing is resolved, because it can’t be, and that’s where the true horror lies.

Grade: B It didn’t blow me away, but a lot of solid elements combine to support a classic in its genre.

 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part One

Welcome back to the Exploding Macguffin! Our hiatus is over, and we’re kicking off December with Harry Freakin’ Potter.

It’s hard to review Harry Potter the way you’re review any other movie, because it’s so much a piece of a much larger phenomenon.  As such, I’ll just say right here that I don’t think the movie stands on its own, but I don’t think it’s designed to (beyond just the part one of two issue). At this point, if you haven’t seen the other six movies and/or read the books, you can’t come in at the climax and know what’s going on. And as such, it’s reviewing a chapter, more than a complete work.

That said, it’s a film that’s meant to be watched in a sitting, with a distinct vision related to but separate from the previous six parts. So judging it on those merits is not, I think, off base.

On the whole, it was worlds better than Half-Blood Prince, which was my first worry. The screenplay, while it had an occasional hole and some massive pacing issues, was coherent and had a through line. It was, on the whole, very true to the book (almost too much so at times, which I think might have contributed to the pacing). And David Yates did a great job of creating a palpably oppressive tone.  I came out of the film exhausted.

It’s really remarkable to see how the lead actors have grown in their performances since they were first cast. All three principals were excellent, and I also have to throw out nods to Tom Felton and to the Phelps twins (I don’t know how I’m going to cope with part two, people).  I think the visible bond of friendship between all three of the trio was very clear in this film, and it was one of the film’s strengths. It kept you afloat in the sea of “everything is always terrible.”

I liked the cinematography of this installment quite a bit.  I think we all miss Hogwarts in this film, and making the locations so vivid and distinct makes virtue of necessity. The animation in the “Tale of the Three Brothers” portion was also quite interesting, and I thought it added a nice touch.

I mentioned the pacing above, and it was probably my biggest gripe with the film. There were portions that were heart-pounding, but there’s a lot of sitting around in this movie. I understand it’s establishing the frustration Harry and company feel, but it’s excessive, especially when you’re in a position to cut things anyway. Several sequences were spot on, however; Godric’s Hollow was great, and the whole Ministry portion was well done. The film didn’t feel too long, but I wish the pacing had been more consistent throughout.

The film did succeed in that I was almost physically tired by the end (in a good way), and even knowing how things turn out (or because of how things turn out ), I was full of anxiety on the characters’ behalf. There were a lot of old favorites who we don’t see much of in this movie – yes, thank you for the kickass 30 seconds of Neville, screenwriters – but I couldn’t help thinking of the trio back in movie one, coping with the troll in the bathroom and learning to levitate feathers and playing the living chess game. I give the movie major points for making me face just how much these characters have grown up, and how horrible the war is for everyone.

It’s not a film to see if you aren’t already into the Harry Potter franchise. But if you are, I don’t think you’ll be very disappointed. One of the better efforts as the film adaptations go, and I am definitely ready for Part Two.

Grade: B Despite some flaws, a very enjoyable adaptation of the book and a solidly constructed film

Sunset Boulevard

Recently, I was watching Sunset Boulevard (for probably the fifth or sixth time) with my roommate (who had never seen it before). It’s one of my favorite movies, though I don’t know if I agree with IMDB that it’s the greatest noir ever – maybe the greatest movie that is a noir, which is slightly different. Even there, I’m not willing to commit.

Regardless of such split hairs, though – great movie. Very few people will disagree with that.

My own personal definition of a great movie is one that not only holds up over multiple viewings, but improves over time. Much like a favorite novel, revisiting certain films opens up new avenues of thought and new reactions at different points of my life. Plus, of course, there’s just the advantage of having the luxury of hunting for little treasures.

This time through, it was the mirrors. I’d noticed the plethora of reflected images in previous viewings, but this time they felt inescapable. Norma running up the stairs the mirror while Joe prepared to leave the New Year’s party. The little hand mirror Norma seems to constantly have in hand in the car. The unforgettable scene after Betty leaves in which Norma notices the beauty strips still on her face and removes them before going in to find Joe packing.

In a house filled with images of Norma as she was, it’s intriguing that there are also so many opportunities for Norma to see herself as she is. They’re missed opportunities, of course; her delusions don’t allow Norma to register what she’s viewing. For Joe, the mirrors only amplify his sense of confinement. They continually bar his ability to pretend the situation is anything it isn’t.

Joe fascinates me. He’s a reactive hero, but we’re drawn in, largely because of the voiceover (which here, works beautifully, in part because it’s a film so very conscious of being a film). He’s really not a “good guy,” nor a very terrible one, but he’s complex, and in his way, he’s just as chewed up and spit out by Hollywood as Norma. They’re both damaged beyond repair; the difference, and perhaps the tragedy for Joe, is that he realizes it.  He can see that Norma is cracked beyond fixing but, in the penultimate scene where Betty finds out how he’s been living, his actions show that he realizes he is past the point of no return himself.  Even if he had been able to successfully leave Norma, he can’t go back to Ohio.

Joe is defined as both a writer and someone who is utterly without control.  From the first time we properly meet him, he’s attempting to keep his car from being repossessed; in a very real way, he is trying to cultivate and maintain agency throughout the film.  We see it eroded little by little, and there is an element of horror in the way he slowly becomes an accessory.  His first reaction to finding that all his belongings have been moved in while he slept is the sort of helpless protest that usually attends a very different sort of power dynamic.

(I’d love to talk about gender in this film, but that would be a much, much longer entry that would require quite a bit more rewatching to do properly. Maybe someday.)

There’s a reason Sunset Boulevard consistently makes lists of great movies in the history of cinema.  It is suspenseful, chilling, and ultimately takes the idea of noir and reflects it back through a prism of film’s self-criticism.

Check out the opening, though, to see why it gets firmly labeled noir, even if it is more or less detective-free. Love the score too. It would make a good Halloween movie, I think, in its own way. After all, what’s more scary than the erosion of identity? (My liberal arts education may be showing.)

Grade: A Indisputably fantastic, and one of my personal favorites.

TV Corner

As you well may have noticed, my updates have been spotty for the past couple of weeks.  Mainly, this is because I’ve been seduced from the big screen to the small screen.  The culprits aren’t the new fall season, however, but shows I’d been meaning to watch for ages and have been hooked on since starting them.

The first is Deadwood, HBO’s series set in the old west, loosely based on true events. As with many HBO or Showtime offerings, it’s got a heaping portion of nudity, profanity and violence, so do brace yourself for that if it’s not your cuppa; however, I have little trouble believing that all three happened in spades in the time and place depicted.

Much has been made of the acting, and rightly so.  Ian McShane’s Al Swearington is a tour de force, and would probably carry the series on its own.  Thankfully, it doesn’t have to – Robin Weigert’s Calamity Jane, John Hawkes’ Sol Star, Paula Malcomson’s Trixie, Brad Dourif’s Doc Cochran, and many others are all nuanced, intriguing performances, and the strength of the characters keep me hooked.

The story runs hot and cold; while the dialogue is always varied and textured, the plot can sometimes lag or meander. It’s interesting but sometimes problematic that the two characters who can loosely be termed the ‘romantic leads’ have almost no chemistry at all, and that the crackshot sheriff becomes the unmoving center of events, rather than the protagonist driving them. On the one hand, I do think that it was smart to make the show a series of overlapping arcs, rather than one epic story – it serves what the show is trying to do better. On the other hand, some arcs are more interesting than others, and it risks fragmentation at times.  Still, on the strength of its characters, it does better than most shows.

The production values are strong, as you would expect. The costumes, especially, are beautifully done, though I don’t have the knowledge to comment on their accuracy. There’s a sense of dust and detail and weight in all the design aspects of the show that serves as a vivid backdrop and both ties the series too and disconnects it from classic Westerns.

Grade: B I’m invested and entertained, consistently, even by the weaker episodes

The other show that’s to blame for my lack of film viewing is the BBC’s Being Human. I just finished series one, and I’m well and truly hooked.  I can’t remember the last time I cared so quickly about a character, much less three of them.  It’s the kind show where I constantly change who my favorite is, and I was instantly invested in all three main characters’ happiness and well being.

A classic “better than it sounds,” I expected kitch from a show that’s about a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost as housemates.  And though it is generally a fairly light show, Being Human has a sweet sincerity that is incredibly disarming. The urban fantasy is well handled, neither ignored nor too heavy-handed.  There’s a bit of romance, a bit of suspense, some decent werewolf effects (for once) but the story is the heart of the show.

I can’t wait to get to series two. Being Human is fluff, true, but it’s thoughtful fluff with some genuine heart.

Grade: A- It knows what it wants to do, and does it well.  Hard to ask much more.

 

And, though not a full review for now, I am also rewatching the miniseries Jekyll with a friend. As of this writing, it’s available to stream on Netflix, and I highly recommend it if you enjoy thrillers, genre deconstructions, or just generally being entertained by a modern take on Jekyll and Hyde.