House

1986 horror-comedy

Rating: 13/20

Plot: A writer struggling with the loss of his son and break-up of his marriage moves into his late aunt's haunted house and has to battle both literal and psychological demons.

Entertaining horror-comedy here, but I kept getting distracted. First, it was good to see 80's sitcom superstars George Wendt and Richard Moll. But with Wendt, I found myself wondering how much he weighs now and had trouble focusing on the plot of House. Speaking of Wendt, if I were the director of House, I would have been a little more over the top with the horror and violence and included a scene where William Katt's character enters a hole in the house, stumbles around a bit, encounters a few ghosts, and emerges from George Wendt's rectum. That that scene wasn't in this movie shows that we're dealing with amateurs here. The second distraction was William Katt's V-neck sweater worn with nothing underneath. I'm talking about a deep V here. I suppose there's nothing wrong with the style choice, especially for 1986, but I was distracted because I was wondering whether or not I could pull that off in 2013. The third source of distraction was the appearance of a Masters of the Universe action figure, Buzz Off. I started thinking about the height of popularity of these toys and wondering if I was too old to be playing with them back in the mid-80s when I was entering my teens or when I was in my 20s. Luckily, I didn't need to focus too hard to get this. It's your typical haunted house movie with decaying fiends and silly shocks, but there's the missing child thing and a few Vietnam flashbacks to give this a bit more story. Things are a little too commercial, but the special effects are grotesque enough. A monster in an upstairs closet drips with ridiculousness, a reanimated giant fish, a bunch of tools, and a purple-dressed ghoul all recall Evil Dead 2. I wish that purple-dressed thing wouldn't have spoken though. I also wish "You're No Good" wouldn't have been used during one of the movie's better moments--a dismemberment montage. The music for most of this could have been lifted from any horror movie, and the Vietnam scenes seem artificial. But this has some creepiness and a few laughs. Just not George Wendt's rectum.

Ju-On: The Grudge

2002 J-Horror movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Ghastly shenanigans in an apparently haunted house.

No, I have not seen the American remake of this or one of the other Ju-on movies. I didn't know this was a sequel until after I watched it. I'm not sure what I'm missing (if anything) by not watching the first two. This is six connected short stories that aren't even displayed in chronological order. I'm not sure why movie makers do that. I consider myself of average intelligence with maybe a slightly above-average movie IQ, and I had trouble making connections between the stories. I had trouble remembering who each character was supposed to be though, and that probably has more to do with being American than anything else. I mean, if Kirk Cameron was in this, I would be able to recognize and remember him and know how he was attached to other characters in this thing. I ended up liking the structure even if I didn't know why it was necessary. I think it added a little mystery to the proceedings, and a bit of mystery injected into this kind of creepiness was a natural fit. This movie--and again, it might be because I didn't watch the other Ju-on movies--kind of leaves you hanging about what is going on and what has previously gone on, adding to this chilly, semi-surreal flavor. The imagery's enough to grab you, but there are more than enough effective jump-out-and-scare-you moments. Sound effects are also used effectively. I may have thought this was scarier than it was because of the use of kitties. I think I prefer my horror movies to end completely hopelessly. Who wants a happy ending for a horror movie? This one definitely ends bleakly enough, probably so they can make a dozen more of them. And like all good horror movies, this is one that scares you on levels you don't even understand.

Hillbillys in a Haunted House

1967 horror comedy country western musical

Rating: 3/20

Plot: The titular hillbillys [sic] have car problems on the way to something called a jamboree and have to stay the night in the titular haunted house. Songs are performed. Spies and a gorilla harsh their mellow.

So in the first shot, they're traveling in Boss Hogg's car with slightly more ornamentation, and they're singing a song about being "on [our] way to Nashville, Tennessee." I should have taken it as a warning, ejected the dvd, and hurled it at a chicken. If you like bland old-timey country and western music, you're in for a treat. There's really about 30 minutes of movie here, and the rest of it consists of musical performances. In fact, the final 20 minutes of the movie is the jamboree, so it's just a series of songs that have nothing to do with the haunted house. You get to hear Ferlin Husky, the guy who plays Woody, sing "Livin' in a Trance," a song which sounds like it was recorded in a cave or something but is at least more awkward than it is terrible. Some random people then show up to tell the hillbillys [sic] that they never come near the house even though they are standing inside the house while saying that, and they perform a couple impromptu songs because the movie's plot wasn't quite ready to get started. They do "The Cat Came Back" which features two gitfiddles, a couple guys just standing around, invisible drums, and a guy hitting a small shovel with a brush before complying with the woman's request for a love song, a song that has her twitching in a way that made me wonder if she was reaching orgasm. That gal--Boots, played by a very fetching Joi Lansing--gets her own random song later during a fantasy dream sequence. "Gowns, Gowns, Beautiful Gowns" might be the most pointless things I've ever seen. Later, a character watches television, and Merle Haggard gets a song. There are probably over 15 songs in this motherfucker! And if you don't like country and western music or don't enjoy laughing at terrible film-making, there's nothing for you to see here. I've seen this on a couple "Worst Movie Ever" lists, and it probably deserves to be in consideration. It's very poorly written. I believe this chunk of dialogue is supposed to be humorous:

Woody: Where are we?
Gas station guy: Sleepy Junction.
Woody: Sleepy Junction.
Boots: Where are we?
Woody: Sleepy Junction.
Boots: Oh.
Jeepers: Hey, Woody, we're in Sleepy Junction.

Jeepers is an actual name of a hillbilly, and he's played by Don Bowman who was the host of some country music countdown show. His only other acting credit is the movie this is apparently a sequel for--The Las Vegas Hillbillys. He plays "Don Bowman" in that though, and not Jeepers. As Jeepers, he gives a performance that manages to still seem like one of the worst performances ever even though the movie is a complete disaster anyway. That first shot with the hillbillys [sic] singing in the car? He isn't singing, merely sitting in the back in what seems to be an illegal way. And he can't even get "just sitting there" right! He looks bored. That's actually the best he gets in this movie, too. Most of the time, he looks like he's got ADD or is some kind of tweaker. He spends most of the movie twitching and squinting, but he does get a moment to shine when he starts yelping about seeing a "weirdwolf" in the closet. Oh, and he does get his own song during the jamboree--"Wrong House Last Night" and it is a thing of beauty, one of those things that has to be heard to be believed. Bowman can't even sit still during a fifteen or so minute scene where he just needs to watch television. That, by the way, is one of those "What the hell?" moments as the country music he's watching is interrupted by the faces of Carradine, Chaney Jr., Rathbone, and Ho--the four bad guys. Why their faces start appearing on the television screen to stare at Jeepers is beyond me. Speaking of those guys. You would probably never expect Lon Chaney Jr. to be any good, and he isn't. Neither is Basil Rathbone, though he's the best of the bunch. John Carradine might be the worst of them all, but somebody named Linda Ho isn't far behind. Her acting consists of reading lines phonetically. I did like this conversation:

Woody: We're entertainers.
Ho: What kind of entertaining do you do?
Woody: I sing and pick a guitar.
Ho: How nice. (With this absolutely disgusted look on her face that I'm not sure was supposed to be there.)

The best performance is by George Barrows as Aniatole the monkey. John Carradine's character really hated that gorilla. It was never actually explained why these spies traveled with a gorilla, but I've never been a spy and don't know much about how these people operate. I guess having a gorilla around would make perfect sense. Anyway, George Barrows is the guy who plays one of my favorite movie monsters of all time--Ro-Man in The Robot Monster. Ro-Man is a gorilla suit from the next down and a deep sea diver's helmet for a head. Barrows has one of those acting careers I love looking at. He acted in 108 titles, and he played 16 gorillas. At least! Some of his roles were just names, and those might be gorillas, too. He also played Monstro in a movie and Slouchy McGoo in the Adventures of Superman television series. And he played "henchman" a lot. Barrows and his suit (I'm going to go ahead and assume he owned his own gorilla suit) are actually the best special effect in the movie. Some wobbling skeletons, bats on strings, and the "weirdwolf" mask are nothing short of embarrassing. There are also some lightning effects in a night sky when the action is clearly taking place in daylight and a couple visible boom mics, but if you have problems with that, you're nitpicking. I almost feel bad criticizing something that I'm sure was made by very nice people for very nice families to sit around and enjoy, but it's one of those works of art where everything just came together so imperfectly to make something so magical and deserves to be seen by connoisseurs of crappy movies, even those who don't like gorillas or country and western music.

Dark Shadows

2012 gothic vampire soap opera

Rating: 7/20

Plot: 18th Century vampire Barnabas Depp is violently exhumed in the 1970s where he desperately tries to get his family back on track and stick it to the witch who cursed him in the first place.

I can't remember being this bored while watching a movie. Maybe Tim Burton needs Winona Ryder back or something. Or maybe Tim Burton just needs to come up with original ideas. He seems to be a creative fellow and his movies are a lot better when they're straight from his imagination (Edward Scissorhands, etc.) than when they're from somebody else's (Planet of the Apes, etc.). I've not seen the 60s/70s soap opera this is based on, and thanks to Tim Burton, I don't really have any interest in seeing it. After a narrated prologue that is typical Burton, all stilted and faux-dark, I almost wanted to shut this off. I didn't because I thought there would be a few funny moments. Unfortunately, this was about as funny as being attacked by an actual vampire. The out-of-time character humor seemed cliched, and the screenwriters hit the 1970s references so hard that it just gets annoying. I lost interest in the story since I was fairly sure how it was going to end. That's not a problem if the journey there is entertaining, but this isn't. This movie does have a few things going for it. The house is cool, and it's good to see that Christopher Lee is still kicking around though his role here is very small. Best of all is Eva Green who is absolutely gorgeous here. The sex scene with Johnny Depp is all kinds of wrong though.

The Ghost and Mr. Chicken

1966 Don Knotts funk

Rating: 16/20 (Dad: 18/20; Dylan: 14/20)

Plot: Don Knotts isn't asking for a lot in life. He wants to make it as a newspaper reporter. He wants the pretty girl. He wants a little respect. He gets his chance on the twentieth anniversary of the crime that made the local "murder house" infamous when he agrees to spend the night in the supposedly haunted abode and write about his experiences. Some creepy things happen during his stay, and once his ghost-written article is published, he becomes an overnight sensation. But when the owner of the house threatens his story's authenticity and sues him for libel, he's forced to fight to protect his reputation.

Had to entertain my step-father while the women folk went to the ballet, and this was about all I had that would interest him, a fan of the oeuvre of one Jim Varney. And the inimitable Don Knotts did not disappoint. From his first moment on the screen in this, he's funny. His mannerisms and his goofy deliver in a lovable loser role are pitch perfect. Knotts was born to play these sorts of roles (and Mr. Furley, of course), and everything he does in this is hilarious. It's a simple appropriate-for-families tale, one that wouldn't have made Disney execs uncomfortable. And it's filmed pretty much exactly like one of those wacky, dated Disney comedies, too. No, this isn't the most intelligently written comedy. Any movie with a tag line that starts with stuttering ("G-G-Guaranteed") and ends with a promise that you'll "be scared until you laugh yourself silly" isn't going to be. But there's something hilarious about watching Don Knotts practice his karate moves, moves that like Indiana Jones with his whip or Luke Skywalker with his lightsaber were impossible for me not to imitate, and say more than once that his "entire body is a weapon." And a repeated gag, an offscreen "Attaboy," starts funny, gets old, makes you groan, and then becomes side-splittingly funny once again. Delightful fun!

One of my goals for 2011, by the way, is to found a religion based on the worship of Don Knotts. Who's in?

The Private Eyes

1981 comedy

Rating: 14/20 (adjusted for Don Knotts bonus)

Plot: Inspector Winship and Dr. Tart have been sent from Scotland Yard to a sprawling mansion to investigate the murders of Lord and Lady Morley. Occupying the secret-passageway-ridden mansion are the adopted daughter of the Morleys and a motley assortment of hired help including a samurai, a hunchback, and a guy with no tongue. They encounter ghosts with bombs, buzzard puss, cleavage, a torture chamber, and a few murders as they investigate the case.

Quite possibly the funniest movie ever made, The Private Eyes benefits from the chemistry between Knotts and Conway and top-notch old-school humor. I'll come clean and admit that I can't look at Don Knotts without laughing. All Don Knotts has to do to get a laugh from me is be present in a scene, and he's present in many scenes in this movie. Conway, who co-wrote the script, is also good. Screwiness, horror, an intriguing story, twists and turns, cleavage, mystery. This film's got it all! An undeniable masterpiece!

Buster Keaton Saturday on Wednesday: Two Shorts

Buster shorts from 1921 and 1922

Rating: n/a

Plots: In "The Haunted House," Keaton plays a bank clerk who gets accused of trying to hold up his employer and winds up mixed in with some real bank robbers and the cast of a terrible production of Faust. Goofballery escalates as they all wind up in a supposedly haunted house. In "Cops," Buster must evade the po-po after accidentally stealing all the possessions of a police officer and his family and then crashing a policemen parade.

A good but not great Buster Keaton Saturday (on Wednesday). Both have a few laughs, but "Cops" is clearly the better, and more coherent, of the two shorts. Most of what happens in "The Haunted House" is just an excuse for the sight gags, some very clever. The running gag involving the stairs, the glue mix-up, and the encounter with the devil are funny, but I really like the subtle stuff more. "Cops" has some terrific acrobatics (especially in the incredible ladder scene), and while it's always fun to watch Buster being chased in his movies (by cattle or policemen or just one guy he's ticked off), watching him being chased by hundreds of policemen is even better. Rapid action and great slapstick. What else could a family* want on a Buster Keaton Saturday on Wednesday? This also served as a great way to cleanse my mind of 4.

*Jennifer was working on homework and unable to fall asleep during these shorts.

Mon Oncle

1958 French satire

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Hulot meanders back and forth between two worlds. His is a raucous antiquated life in town, drenched in the traditions and sweat of the working class. His sister's is an ultra-chic, ultra-modern world with fish fountains, electronic gadgets, and gimmicky [dis]comforts. Much to her husband's dismay, she continually gets Hulot's help with their son who adores his uncle. She also tries to get him a job at her husband's factory or hook him up with the neighbor lady.

Thought I'd revisit this to make sure I didn't like it more than I thought I did. And I'm not sure if it's because this was the first film de Jacques Tati that I saw (I think it was anyway) or because I just didn't pay any attention, but I was way off on this one. This is right up there with his best with sight gag after sight gag and some of those trademark delicate satirical stabs. It's a funny movie, maybe even funnier, if not as poetic and playfully artistic, as Holiday. Favorite gags: the house's eyes watching Hulot's escape from the garden, the footprints at the interview, chaos at a garden party which would amuse Bunuel, Hulot's attempts to figure out the kitchen, the shot of Hulot's serpentine walk to his apartment, and the ingeniously choreographed dance number at the end. I'll always insist that the best thing about these movies is all the stuff that doesn't matter--the subplots that go nowhere, wandering dogs, fringe characters, the distractions.

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dreamhouse

1948 comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: The Blandings live in a stuffed New York City apartment with not enough bathrooms and not enough closet space. While Mr. Blandings is shaving one day, a thought crosses his mind--he should kill his family for the insurance money. His wife is cheating on him with a 17 year old kid who dresses up like Uncle Sam and waves to people, and his two daughters, he suspects, are secretly plotting his death. The only thing stopping them, he imagines, is that they haven't found a method that will be both clean and excruciating. By the time he's finished shaving, he's abandoned the idea to kill his family and realizes that what the they actually need is a goat. A really good goat. Then he abandons that idea as well (for a while) and decides to buy an old fixer-upper in Connecticut. A house that needs fixed up. Not a goat. Problems with the new house and property arise and snowball, leading to what can only be described as a cliched 1940's Hollywood comedy murder/suicide. R.I.P. Mr. Blandings. R.I.P. goat.

This is one of several movies my father claims is his favorite. It's cute enough and there are some mildly funny moments. I thought the entire subplot involving his suspicions of infidelity were superfluous. If my neck didn't hurt, I'd give this movie a 15.

The Littlest Rebel

1935 confederacy propaganda film

Rating: 4/20

Plot: (Warning--Spoilers!) Sweet little Virgie lives with her mother and father on a southern plantation. Her existence is a perfect one--she hosts her own birthday party with her young friends, bosses around the family's slaves and chastises them when they do wrong, and lives it up in the luxuriant comfort of her father's mansion. But then war breaks out and her father must run off to help the southern cause. Virgie has to deal with her father's absence, the burning down of her house, her mother's death, and her father's eventual execution in the only way she knows how--tap dancing and singing!

I had promised somebody that I would watch a Shirley Temple movie by Christmas. I thought it was my first, but she's apparently in Fort Apache. But this is my first time seeing Shirley Temple in her prime, when she was six and tap dancing and dimpling her way into America's hearts. And I've got to say that it was a worse experience than I ever could have imagined. This is a movie seemingly made in a topsy-turvy America, one where the Southerners have the moral high ground; where Northerners are arrogant, cruel brutes; and where slaves are perfectly content with the hand they've been dealt. Maybe the best compliment I can give this movie is that it is Birth of a Nation-esque. Because of the way black and white relationships work in this movie, I don't think it's appropriate for children. There's the stock clown character (a slave, of course, portrayed in a fashion that looks like it's straight off a minstrel show stage) who falls in holes he's dug as traps, contemplates why shoes are called shoes, says the Union can make the weather change because whenever they's around he don't know if it winter or summer out cause he's a-sweatin' and a-shiverin' at the same time, and is told to shut up by multiple characters. And there's something almost shocking about watching Shirley Temple verbally abuse slaves although, admittedly, she seems to be friends with them throughout most of the movie. More offensive to anybody who likes good realistic movie fiction would be scenes in which the soldiers interact with each other, the range of emotions Shirley Temple displays when her mother dies, and the melodrama displayed when Shirley Temple's character shares an apple with Abraham Lincoln. The dated humor will make you cringe rather than laugh, and the dated story might make any intelligent viewer physically ill. But the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae? Five words for ya: Shirley Temple in black face. That's right. Check it:

The Desperate Hours

1955 drama

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Three cons--a smart mean one, a a thuggish stupid one, and a nice quiet one--escape from prison in none-other than Terre Haute, Indiana. I was born there, but not in the prison. They make their way to Indianapolis/Broad Ripple (I live near there!) and visit the home of the Cleavers soon after Wally's sex-change operation. They weren't invited, but luckily, there's enough chicken in the fridge for everybody. While waiting for a shipment of money from his woman in Pittsburgh (I've never been there!), Griffin and his two cohorts say mean and threatening things and quickly wear out their welcome. Waving guns around will do that. It looks bad for the Cleavers as they struggle with whether action or inaction is the best move. There seems to be no way out. Oh, snap!

Good flick with terrific mounting tension (so many loose ends add to it--the boyfriend, the cops, the girlfriend's traffic violations, the dumb little kid, the conflicts between the criminals, the trash man's arrival) and great acting. Really, even the brat isn't all that bad even though I couldn't get past my initial "Hey! That's Beaver Cleaver!" thoughts. Like a lot of 40's/50's thrillers, you know pretty much what's going to happen, but it's the stuff that goes out of the range of that pretty much that moves this from the pedestrian to the pretty great. Also impressive is the very realistic range of human emotions on display here. There might be moments where the characters are acting like movie heroes, but it's always due to their vulnerability and faults rather than the whims of a Hollywood screenwriter. I like Bogart here, and he gets some good lines. He does hold a gun like an old man though.

This was a Cory recommendation.

The Cat and the Canary

1927 comedy thriller

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Twenty years after the death of a millionaire kook, his relatives arrive at his creepy mansion for the reading of his will. Due to a stipulation, the relatives are forced to stay the night at the mansion. An escaped lunatic, a milkman, a murdered lawyer, a pair of envelopes, diamonds, and quite possibly incest find their ways into the story. Mystery!

I guess you have to call this influential since the makers of Scooby Doo used the exact same structure (and even some of the gags) in about 80% of their stories. The humor doesn't work for modern audiences, and the thrills don't really either. Still, there's some nice texture starting with an opening shot of a lunatic hand wiping away cobwebs to reveal the title card and continuing with ominous shadows and a camera creeping over dark details. This doesn't have the experimental playfulness of Paul Leni's Waxworks but there's enough clever directing and camera work to make up for a sub-par story and characters that are nothing more than cliches. It's definitely got more than enough style for its time. I love how they felt the need to throw the movie's title into the dialogue twice. "The escaped lunatic tears apart his victims. . .like a cat claws apart a canary!" Dum dum dum!

Yet another picture of what the back of my head looks like when the front of my head watches a movie:

Vampyr

1932 silent (?) vampire movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Allan Grey, a wandering soul obsessed with the study of demons and witches and other occult interests, travels to a creepy castle. He begins seeing weird things that may or may actually be happening--shadows move around by themselves, old men deliver packages to be opened after their deaths, a grave being un-dug, general creepiness. Einstein and a woman somehow become involved, and characters read excerpts from a dull book about vampires.

First off, I really had trouble following the plot of this one. It's dreamy, wandering, and hallucinatory, so I eventually shut off the part of my brain that tries to figure out what's going on and just let it soak in the imagery and ingenious special effects. I imagine these are images that hadn't been seen by people when this came out in the early 30's. There are some odd camera angles and movements, most notably in a scene where characters are carrying a coffin with a glass window in the lid out of the castle mostly shown from the perspective of the corpse within. The effects--dancing disembodied shadows, "backwards" digging, wandering lights--work with the use of lighting and almost no sound (there's some barely audible music and a tiny bit of German [?] dialogue) to create an absorbing atmosphere that make this a genuinely creepy experience. My only complaint would be the middle third of the movie in which there's far too much plot development (and confusion) and the interjected reading from a vampire book which disrupts with an almost documentary feel, but the first and last thirds move like a slow-motion dream with lots of images that would work without the narrative as individual artistic achievements. Cool horror movie.

Here I am enjoying Vampyr in the last picture before my favorite hat was further molested by the dog:

Kill, Baby. . .Kill!

1966 Italian horror film

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Inspector Kruger is in a cursed village investigating some mysterious deaths--women impaled, that sort of thing. He calls a doctor to perform an autopsy on the latest fishy death. Kruger dies, somebody else dies, another person dies, somebody else is threatened, and another person dies. A creepy little girl wanders around and touches people's windows. She just wants somebody to play catch with, and gets mad enough to kill, baby, kill when she can't find anybody. A bell rings by itself! Scary music plays very loudly. Fog comes on little cat feet. Kill, baby, kill!

This atmospheric, stylish no-budget horror film is genuinely spine-tingling stuff. Call it horror noir, reminiscent in mood of The Wicker Man. The new one, of course, with Nicholas Cage. Sure, the plot is a little goofy (although the slowly unfolding mystery is interesting), and the acting and soundtrack are pretty over the top, but it's all easily forgiven with scenes authentically creepy and stylishly artistic. Really, every single shot seems perfect--fog moves in at the exact right moments, characters situate themselves perfectly against backdrops that look like sets from 1920's German horror films, angles become disorienting and then more disorienting. Creative cheap special effects and cinematography make an uncomfortable mood. This is the first movie I've seen from director Mario Bava. It's hypnotic and beautiful stuff, and I can't wait to see more. Honestly, I'd never heard of him before, but I can see a direct influence on the work of Tim Burton or maybe even David Lynch. My only real gripe--annoying little girl laughter that I think took away some of that mood and just made things a bit too silly.

Note: This movie is also known as Curse of the Dead, Curse of the Living Dead, Don't Walk in the Park, and Operation Fear. All of those titles are just as bad (the last three make just as much sense) as Kill, Baby, Kill or, as it is also known, Kill, Baby. . .Kill!

Here I am:

Modesty Blaise

1966 spy satire

Rating: 10/20

Plot: Honestly, I'm not sure. The title character is a thief-turned-spy or a spy-turned-thief. She's assigned by somebody who might work for the government to oversee a transaction involving diamonds, a transaction that might involve Arabs. A suave wealthy Englishman wants the diamonds. Modesty recruits a sidekick, the British equivalent of Silver Spoon's Rick(y) Schroder. A bunch of old guys (also mostly suave) drift in and out of the movie, and it's quite possibly that Modesty Blaise slept with all of them. She's both clever and slutty!

I liked the style--lots of color flaunting and some really stupid camera choices like shooting scenes through wine glasses. Things are kept disorienting, and most of the movie looks fun. Terrence Stamp (General Zod in Superman, a voice in Halo 3, and also the main character in The Collector) is also in this, and he just might be the greatest actor of all time. Some of the Bond-esque weapons (most notably, an umbrella and a seagull the characters put together during a pivotal scene [although once again, I couldn't really figure out what was going on there. . . signalling the Arabs?) were cool. My biggest problem with this, other than the confusion about what the hell was going on, was that I couldn't figure out what it even was. Satire? Dry comedy? More straight spy stuff? It doesn't sustain a cohesive mood or voice, and that gives it a real scattered, clunky feel. Cheesy in the wrong places. Not goofy in the right ones. I'm not sure what I expected from this since I've never even heard of the comic books this was based on, but I still managed to wind up disappointed.

I wasn't born until 1973.

Beauty and the Beast

1946 French version of fairy tale

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Belle is a complete whore. Magic gloves! And they all lived happily ever after.

I liked Cocteau's surrealist Orphic Trilogy (especially the first two-thirds) better, but this had the same sort of dreamy, atmosphere and ingenious special effects--backwards filming, tricky mirrors, moving statues. Memorable imagery works, but unfortunately, some old-time overacting and a goofy script, the latter which could actually be more of a problem with translation, keep this from being really great. Cocteau was a poet, and the majority of this looks like the work of a poet. After an extended exposition, slowly unfolding melancholic scenes of Beauty lamenting her situation in the Beast's castle, and a believably paced romance, the end feels a little rushed, almost like the director got bored and just wanted to end things. Choppy ending. I don't really care for the fairy tale's ending anyway.

My wife, a beauty, took this photograph of beastly me watching Beauty and the Beast:

Being There

1979 comedy


Rating: 16/20


Plot: Chance is a gardener working at a Washington D.C. property which he has never left. His only knowledge of the world comes from watching television--news shows, Sesame Street, exercise programs, commercials. His elderly employee dies, the maid leaves, and Chance has to enter the world for the first time. Shirley MacLaine's limo backs into his leg, and he's taken to the mansion of her rich dying husband to recover. The movers and shakers of Washington mistake his peaceful simple ignorance and ramblings about gardening (the only topic he knows anything at all about) for peaceful Zen-like profundity and political/economic metaphor and accept him into their world. Then Shirley MacLaine touches herself.


If the idea of Shirley MacLaine masturbating excites you, this is your movie. Peter Sellers' performance was quietly exceptional, and although the movie is far from perfect (for one, it's too long; for two, there are scenes that seem written for televised sketch comedy), he brings it much closer to perfection. There's a great, unexpected ending which leaves everything completely open to interpretation, and the satire (on television, on politics, on projection) makes this a thinking-man's comedy. I, of course, didn't get any of that; I only laughed at the conversational slapstick and at Shirley MacLaine pleasuring herself while Chance watches television and stands on his head. Good performances and a great script.


I watched this in my bed:

Eyes Wide Shut

1999 drama

Rating: 37/20

Plot: A well-known scientologists attempts to convince the world that he is not a homosexual. Everybody ends up naked. Masks are worn. Furniture is abused.

Ok. First off, I have to make it clear that this one doesn't actually count toward the 365. The host of a weekly poker game inexplicably put it on while we played, and even though I was facing the right direction and watched quite a bit of it between hands, it didn't have enough of my attention to really give it a fair rating. It's as mysterious and creepy and sensual and audacious and beautifully shot as I remember it. It also still seems unfinished though, like Kubrick never got a chance to edit the thing. When I saw this the first time, it was a little before I had started obsessively rating movies. I'll have to watch it within the next couple years to give it a number. Or maybe six or seven times.

Special note: This is a weird movie for me to sort of watch with a bunch of guys. All my attempts to discuss the cinematic value of Eyes Wide Shut were met with comments like "Nicole Kidman's got a nice tail" and "Look at him pound that one". To be completely honest, however, that guy was really pounding that one.

There is not a picture of me watching this artsy-fartsy parade of flesh.

The Haunting

1963 horror

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Dr. Markway, a researcher in psychic phenomena, gathers together a group to spend several nights in the supposedly haunted Hill House. It's a house with a violent history, described as one character as a "house that was born bad." Skeptical Wally (Beaver's brother), a lesbian with esp, and a woman who may have had experience with poltergeists meet so that they can overact and say witty things to each other. Paranormal activity ensues which gives the four actors an excuse to overact even more. Seriously, just check out the poster to the left. It's motionless overacting. That can't be easy! Based on a Shirley "The Lottery" Jackson novel.

Let me start with this--I hated every single character in this. I hated their voices, their facial expressions, their rapport, their gestures, and (in the case of one woman) their audible thoughts. The story was dopey, and the music score and pacing dated this considerably. In fact, I would have guessed this was produced five to ten years earlier than it was. I'm not good at guessing people's ages either. All faults can be nearly forgiven, however, because of two things: the technique and the setting. The latter, a creepy mansion shown in exterior shots against eerie blueish clouds (note: the movie is not color), is almost a character itself, and camera tricks--puzzling angles, artistic effects, and swooping movement--add to the creepiness of the characters' situation. There's plenty to see in the architecture and decor of the house, and the director Robert Wise takes advantage of all the available sights both exterior and interior. The source of the haunting is never really palpable. The characters and audience never see anything concrete, although I guess they do hear noises and see a rubbery door and feel cool breezes or, in one scene that should have been great, feel something else. So I suppose there's palpability, but it's not the typical scare tactics of traditional horror flicks. Nothing jumps out at you or bleeds or oozes or growls. I don't have much horror film background, and I wonder if The Haunting is unique in not showing the ghosts or monsters or martians or murderers or what-have-you that is threatening the characters. This is psychologically intriguing but ultimately misses. Also important to note: There was a subplot involving lesbianism. No nudity though, Jen.

Here I am with my own special effect: