Wednesday, January 28, 2009
1944 - COBRA WOMAN Starring Maria Montez "When I look at myself, I am so beautiful I scream with joy!"
The quote in the header is supposedly from Maria Montez after she saw herself on screen. Supposedly a "camp classic". But is it anymore stupid than 2008's Indiana Jones meets Space Ghost, or the Kinda Incredible Hulk? Both of which I sat through this summer.
The young lovers are torn apart on their wedding day when on a beautiful south seas island the bride is kidnapped by members of the cobra cult. It seems that the bride is actually descended from royalty and has a very evil twin sister who resides on Cobra Island. Here her evil twin, rules in terror. As an appeasement to the "fire gods" which is a model volcano, the evil sister dances around her subjects choosing sacrificial victims like she was picking people for her grade school dodge ball team. She wears some sort of glittery snake dress outfit while she struts her stuff, all very cool.
Our hero sails to the rescue of the nice twin sister along with help from his sidekick Sabu, who is armed with a lethal blow gun. The action really doesn't let up for the entire running time of the film.
This movie is only 70 minutes, written by Richard Brooks and Gene Lewis.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
1999 - EYES WIDE SHUT, Kubrick;'s final film.
This film is about SEX. It has major stars in it, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Since it was directed by a male director, guess which star gets to take her clothes off, a lot. But this is in an odd way a very anti sex film. Apparently all of the critics are in agreement that the movie kicks into gear with the confession by the wife to her husband of a sexual fantasy. This freaks the husband out and sets him off on a night of supposed sexual debauchery which he never fulfills.
The night reaches a climax in a high class orgy where men and women run abound in cloaks and masks. Correction, the women run around with no clothes on while the men run get to wear their clothes. After this scene we still have another half an hour of red herrings. It seems that Kubrick was trying to build some suspense but it just seemed to add length to an unfocused story. The movie ends with the husband confessing his wild night to his wife (or lack of it) and the implication is that they will have a stronger marriage. There's no place like home I guess
Kubrick was in his 70's when he made this, but it's no masterpiece. As an older filmmaker was this his attitude towards relationships at the end of his life? Is he just a voyeur sending the Tom Cruise character through a series of weird sexual situations staring at lots of naked young women, only to have him running to his wife at the end of the film? So what, what's the point? Maybe the point is Kubrick gets to film "neeked" women.
Kubrick kind of lost his way after 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. It seems to me that his later films lacked a clear structure. I like Barry Lyndon, but Barry Lyndon is pretty slow moving. His films were always very well made, but somehow they always seem to be lacking something. I can't put my finger on it yet. He has been described as a cold filmmaker. The films are fun to watch for their technique but it's really only on a movie nerd level that a film like this can be appreciated.
159 minutes, screenplay Frederick Raphael and Stanley Kubrick.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Watching THE NINES-while making carmelized onions
Sunday, January 25, 2009
2008 - HAPPY GO LUCKY - Happy is one thing!
To quote Pauline Kael (see above). This is one of those "slice of life" things that are made to illuminate the lives of the ordinary "little people" and give us insight into them.
Lots of short musical interludes with a clarinet signals the audience that the character of Poppy is cute, quirky and spunky and is about to do some cute, quirky and spunky thing.
Sally Hawkins is funny, but to hang a movie on her entire character's shtick and personality, is asking a lot. She is either a genuinely positive person or a complete goofball you decice.
Hate to sound like a crude American, but man those accents make it pretty hard to understand the actors at times.
The director Mike Leigh also wrote the story probably using his technique of improvising with the actors before actually settling down to write the screenplay.
Running time: 118 minutes.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
2008 - STEP UP 2 THE STREETS is 3 Margaritas + Mexican food
My wife and I went out for happy hour last night at the local Mexican place. After we weaved back home I put on a movie I have been hearing about since I listened to the/film podcast last summer. I drifted in and out of this movie in an alcoholic haze, while my wife yelled at me throughout the movie, "are you awake."
But let the people speak:
Step Up 2 has only a few points of correlation with its predecessor. It’s also probably the single most racist movie that will be released by any major American studio in the first 10 years of the twenty-first century
With a script cut-and-pasted from every other dance movie, this film is shockingly corny.
Completely predictable.
Somehow Streets is even more loathsome than its predecessor...offers gaudy choreography more reminiscent of a Kenny Ortega masturbation session than awe-inspiring foot magic.
Evigan might have an attractive midriff, but she sometimes starts to give a William Shatner-like delivery of lines with odd pauses and exaggerations.
98 magical minutes.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Surviving the James Bond/Martin Luther King Weekend Marathon
Thursday, January 15, 2009
1968 - HELL IN THE PACIFIC, disappointing sort of war film from John Boorman.
Hell in the Pacific is a rather dreary disappointing film, Toshiro Mifune and Lee Marvin the stars of the film were WWII veterans, but they must have had more interesting stories to tell than this time waster of a film.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
1977 - EXECUTIONER FROM SHAOLIN-Hong Kong fighter action
Monday, January 12, 2009
2008 - GHOST TOWN / 1999 - GO
Ghost Town-a sort of rehash/remake of that Demi Moore movie (whose name escapes me) except it's not as corny and sappy this time. Ricky Gervais plays a dentist who has the personality of an asshole. He is chased around by Greg Kinner the dead husband of Tea Leoni, because the spirit of the dead husband is not at rest etc etc. It's a decent movie, made by professionals. Tea Leoni is typecast as the wife of a guy who likes to screw around on her. Ricky Gervais obviously added a lot of jokes to the final screenplay. I enjoyed it.
Go-I'm not the first to mention this, but Quentin Tarentino is the influence all over this one as we follow multiple stories around the sale of some ecstasy tablets. Everything gets very screwy. The actors are all pretty good, the stories are fairly interesting. The movie sort of runs out of steam towards the end, but I enjoyed it.
Friday, January 9, 2009
1961 - John Ford's TWO ROAD TOGETHER
Two Rode Together an even darker version of The Searchers is a grim story.
Ford, wrapping up his long career when he made this, was working on material that was often well below his standards. Ford just liked to work and he had a hard time pulling together projects that interested him.
The script starts out with some humor and a light tone but it quickly gets serious with the arrival of Stewart and Widmark at the army fort. Stewart and Widmark, sent on a mission to negotiate with an Indian tribe to return some white captives taken years ago, find is that the captives are now fully integrated Indian society. They return some of the captives to the fort and their waiting families with disastrous results.
Ford lost interest towards the end of the film and the scenes of the Indian captives being reintegrated into white society seem kind of rushed. He wants to make a point about the two different cultures, but is conflicted himself on what direction he wants to take the story.
The idea of Stewart as a greedy vain opportunist doesn't work. Stewart worked a lot better with Anthony Mann who always managed to keep his Jimmy Stewart caricatures under control. Richard Widmark has to adopt himself to the usual Ford low humor stuff which he does pretty well. Shirley Jones plays the tomboy love interest a character completely unnecessary to the story.
Ford's contempt for white society seems pretty evident throughout Two Rode Together. Ford has a more complex view of Indian society than usual in a early 60's Hollywood film. It's usually a given that Ford became very pessimistic about America towards the end of his life. The bottom line on this, the film is only OK.
A disappointment, Two Rode Together looks pretty good compared to a bloated self righteous piece of film like Dances with Wolves.
109 minutes.