The Standard Version

Japan engages in naval warfare in 1981's Imperial Navy (連合艦隊). Despite weak special effects and an unimaginative screenplay, this World War II film manages some effective scenes, particularly in its bloody climax.

The movie begins by showing the top brass of Japan's Navy being informed of the decision to ally with Germany and Italy in going to war. Admiral Yamamoto (Keiju Kohayashi) is furious and feels such an endeavour is doomed.

The movie carefully avoids depicting any enthusiasm for the object of the war, instead depicting all passions focused on the people and vessels involved, particularly the battleship Yamato.

That's the same ship that gets turned into a space vessel in the great anime Space Battleship Yamato, a much more effective work.

The year 1981 will be familiar to cinephiles as the year Das Boot was released, a World War II film with a German submarine crew as protagonists. Das Boot gained worldwide renown but Imperial Navy remains obscure. It's not just that Das Boot had better special effects. Wolfgang Petersen's film succeeds at portraying the realistic, messy humanity of that group of men. Imperial Navy portrays types. Everyone, from the stoic admiral to the eager young soldier to the kamikaze pilot who cries out for his mother, everyone behaves as most people would expect.

I was pleased to recognise some locations, including the beautiful gates near Todai-ji in Nara.

Imperial Navy is available on YouTube.

Ballet Ghosts

Season three of Angel has a fairly decent string of episodes before Joss Whedon suddenly steps in and knocks one out of the park with "Waiting in the Wings". This 2002 episode features the characters going to a ballet that of course turns out to be haunted.

At this point, Cordelia had already begun to slip into being a boring moral paragon. Whedon, who wrote and directed the episode, reminds us we loved the character because she was also shallow and sometimes brutally blunt. Wesley, who was also morphing into a new character, a brooding lone hunter, is in this episode also believably the awkward dweeb he was back in season three of Buffy.

This is also the introduction of Summer Glau to viewers. Here playing the doomed ghost of a ballerina, the real life ballerina Glau would then become a star of Whedon's Firefly series and then of the wonderful Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. In her one scene of dialogue in "Waiting in the Wings", complaining about the sorcerer who keeps her imprisoned despite not even understanding ballet, is lovely. Whedon's catty dialogue is paired nicely with a sense of genuine torment in Glau's performance.

Angel and Cordelia making out in the haunted dressing room is really sexy and the ambiguity over how much of it is the possession talking is really nice.

Angel is available on Disney+ in many countries.

Twitter Sonnet #1707

The talking wheel of cheese has turned around.
The thoughtless world has jumped the lunar train.
With larger skulls, the heads collected sound.
So noise assumed the office held for brain.
The clouds were hair before the blue was bald.
You mention time as planks of splintered wood.
For fear of piers the waves were shortly called.
Beside the bad let's scribble something good.
A summer man is made of stacking suns.
Extempore, the songs delight the deer.
Collected dots were gobs of baby ones.
A finer bread could cut in twain the beer.
Entrancing wings concealed the spotless gloves.
With foreign cards she stacks collected loves.

Going the Wrong Way

We all trust the elevator, the elevator is safe. But what if it isn't? 2001's Down presents the nightmare scenario of an elevator that becomes sentient and homicidal. Director Dick Maas directs this remake of his own 1983 movie, De Lift, and I suppose much of the genuinely inventive concepts in Down must come from the earlier film. Down is intentionally funny at times, unintentionally funny at others. It's not quite as bad as its 20% Rotten Tomatoes score suggests.

Having been shot almost entirely in the Netherlands, its screenplay, by Maas, was clearly written by someone for whom English is not their first language. It's especially funny because he attempts to imitate a New York vernacular, where the film's set. Maas is very fond of having actors say, "Fuck up," especially Naomi Watts.

Watts stars in the film along with Twin Peaks alum James Marshall. It seems Maas had a real admiration for David Lynch though he doesn't make any attempt at a Lynchian atmosphere, the tone of this film coming off as closer to Sam Raimi with its over the top, cartoonish characters, like the Frau Blucher-ish overseer at a daycare center.

Marshall plays an elevator mechanic and Watts plays a reporter investigating the suspicious elevator deaths. The supporting cast is pretty impressive, including Watts' Mulholland Drive costar, Dan Hedaya, as well as Ron Perlman, Edward Herrmann, and Michael Ironside. The inventiveness of some of the elevator deaths is kind of great, especially the scene where the floor gives out under a dozen people crammed in. Other times, the film is just plain silly, like the moment in the climax where James Marshall suddenly has a bazooka with absolutely no explanation. It is nice to see he had one starring role, though, according the trivia on Amazon Prime, the American actors were never paid residuals, the producers of the film turning out to have been swindlers.

For a movie released in 2001, before 9/11, the film has a surprising amount of references to terrorist attacks.

Down is available on Amazon Prime.

The Treacherous Lists

Is honour but "a mere scutcheon" as Falstaff would say, an inevitable road to hypocrisy and madness, or is it a manifestation of what's truly fine and beautiful in the human heart? Sir Walter Scott offers a balanced argument ultimately in favour of the latter in his 1819 book, Ivanhoe.

I've already talked about the love and care Scott took in conjuring a late 12th century England in his prose. There's tremendous, evident love in his descriptions of Rotherwood, a manor house, of the jousting tournament, of the characters, from swineherd to king to none other than Robin Hood himself.

Despite the title, the character called Ivanhoe plays a relatively minor role in the book. There are many characters and conflicts which are only loosely connected but if I were to name one plot as more prominent than the rest, I would say it's the relationship between the Templar knight, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, and the young Jewish woman, Rebecca.

Bois-Guilbert is portrayed as simultaneously zealously committed to knightly codes of conduct and habitually negligent of them. It's a fascinating contradiction that makes his character easily the most interesting in the book as well as likely being an insightful portrait of many hypocrites. Despite his vows of chastity and even his commitment to fighting or persecuting heretics, he develops an obsession with the beautiful Rebecca, whom he kidnaps with the intention of forcing her to become his lover. When he takes her to a Templar stronghold, he's surprised to find the head of his order present, a tyrannical enforcer of dogma with the harshest of interpretations. He wants to burn Rebecca at the stake as a witch because she's renowned for her healing abilities.

As a pure, innocent victim, Rebecca is a simple character and perhaps not an interesting one. Yet, her dialogue with Bois-Guilbert is captivating. As she awaits a champion to appear for her in a trial by combat, her arguments in the face of Bois-Guilbert's steadfast hypocrisy are exquisitely beautiful constructions of logic and poetic language. He is destined to appear as her opponent, required to do so by Templar rules, despite obviously not wishing her death. Rebecca is not reluctant to point out how the strictness of his adherence to Templar rules tends to vary.

". . . If I appear, then thou diest, even although thy charms should instigate some hot-headed youth to enter the lists in thy defence.”

“And what avails repeating this so often?” said Rebecca.

“Much,” replied the Templar; “for thou must learn to look at thy fate on every side.”

“Well, then, turn the tapestry,” said the Jewess, “and let me see the other side.”

“If I appear,” said Bois-Guilbert, “in the fatal lists, thou diest by a slow and cruel death, in pain such as they say is destined to the guilty hereafter. But if I appear not, then am I a degraded and dishonoured knight, accused of witchcraft and of communion with infidels—the illustrious name which has grown yet more so under my wearing, becomes a hissing and a reproach. I lose fame, I lose honour, I lose the prospect of such greatness as scarce emperors attain to—I sacrifice mighty ambition, I destroy schemes built as high as the mountains with which heathens say their heaven was once nearly scaled—and yet, Rebecca,” he added, throwing himself at her feet, “this greatness will I sacrifice, this fame will I renounce, this power will I forego, even now when it is half within my grasp, if thou wilt say, Bois-Guilbert, I receive thee for my lover.”

“Think not of such foolishness, Sir Knight,” answered Rebecca, “but hasten to the Regent, the Queen Mother, and to Prince John—they cannot, in honour to the English crown, allow of the proceedings of your Grand Master. So shall you give me protection without sacrifice on your part, or the pretext of requiring any requital from me.”

“With these I deal not,” he continued, holding the train of her robe—“it is thee only I address; and what can counterbalance thy choice? Bethink thee, were I a fiend, yet death is a worse, and it is death who is my rival.”

“I weigh not these evils,” said Rebecca, afraid to provoke the wild knight, yet equally determined neither to endure his passion, nor even feign to endure it. “Be a man, be a Christian! If indeed thy faith recommends that mercy which rather your tongues than your actions pretend, save me from this dreadful death, without seeking a requital which would change thy magnanimity into base barter.”

Bois-Guilbert piles his weak arguments higher and higher but with such conviction, augmented by the customs of his environment and companions, it's quite plausible that a thin, shaky foundation can be rationalised by him as firm and immutable. Yet, truth is truth, and Rebecca consistently shows his tangled rationalisations for what they are.

This conflict is the sharpest example of one Scott presents in various forms between different characters. The loose morals of Friar Tuck are presented as charming and to the advantage of the heroes, yet even he is ultimately not portrayed as a purely good man. King Richard is portrayed as a saviour and yet Scott is critical of Richard's lack of commitment again and again.

Scott gives the reader ample food for thought in a deeply pleasing package. It's a lovely book.

Fresh Method

This month, The Criterion Channel has a method acting playlist so I watched 1967's The Graduate. I'd say Dustin Hoffman's performance is certainly the most crucial component of the film's success.

The first half of the film, from Anne Bancroft's famous initial seduction of Hoffman, through the beginnings of their relationship, is the best part of the film. It's mostly due to Hoffman's timing.

His awkwardness is just so authentic. His quick responses when asked simple questions show a young man out of his depth, vacillating between obvious lies to hide it, and adorable, innocent honesty that shows he's unaware of just how naked he is. It's the kind of timing I don't think you could get outside of method acting.

The second half of the film isn't so good. Katherine Ross isn't very interesting, certainly never as believable as Hoffman. She's kind of a stock pretty girl. It seems like Anne Bancroft's character was originally meant to have more depth. There's a scene where she alludes to studying art in college and there's a faint suggestion that maybe she was attracted to Hoffman's character because he reminds her of how she used to be the innocent young graduate whose dreams were snatched away. But then she just becomes a simplistic villain.

The Graduate is available on The Criterion Channel.

Twitter Sonnet #1706

A wooden foot awaits the iron leg.
What meaning's found in plastic clocks at night.
'Twas only games that changed the chick to egg.
And boiling peace could turn to feathered flight.
Adjusted lists confirm researcher games.
With idols sold, the melting can was bought.
Accounted red, the berries changed their names.
With fluttered eyes, the serpent cord was taught.
With courage fingers buttoned coats depart.
A summer sleeve cold saunter back to town.
With feet for hands, the crawling pieces start.
The chosen card has named a weepy clown.
Constructing weeping cows amassed the farm.
Nutritious meals require frequent harm.

That Old Satellite

As a self-respecting cinephile, I don't divide my attention between movies and anything else. If I'm watching a movie, it's in a dark room, with headphones if I don't have a good sound system/environment. I certainly don't sew or text or play video games while a movie's on. The only exception I make to this rule is Mystery Science Theatre 3000. A show I started watching in junior high school, in the early 1990s, MST3k is a show about a man and two robots showing outright disrespect to bad movies. I don't usually sit down and give it a dedicated viewing anymore but I like to have it on as atmosphere when I'm cooking dinner. I've been doing that for years. Last year, I discovered something really marvellous. On YouTube, people have been uploading "Broadcast Versions" of the series. That is, people are uploading their old VHS recordings of episodes complete with commercials.

I haven't had a TV with channels since 2013, and even then, I hadn't watched regular television for years. Listening to these broadcast editions, I'm reminded of a time when they were a normal part of life. When stars could come out of commercials, like Rebecca Gayheart became a star after appearing in Noxzema commercials. They were such a normal part of the public consciousness.

There are so many '90s movies I've totally forgotten about that I see trailers for on these broadcast editions. A few days ago, I saw a trailer for a stupid comedy about a kid and a gorilla called Born to be Wild. I noticed Peter Boyle's name in the credits and I thought, "Wait, he's dead, isn't he?" before I remembered I was watching a commercial from 1995.

Maybe it's bad I'm indulging in such nostalgia. I guess it's pretty Japanese. People love nostalgia here. One of the most common words I hear people say is natsukashii, "How nostalgic!" It reinforces my feeling that I'm not exactly homesick but timesick. I don't want to go back to San Diego where gentrification is gutting parts of town I liked and other parts of town are getting boring, ultra-expensive restaurants. I guess you can never go back home again. But you can see it on YouTube.

The Sad Life and the Imaginary Fiend

A middle aged man and his young daughter go to live by the woods in upstate New York. Tragedy follows them, though, in 2005's Hide and Seek. Robert De Niro and Dakota Fanning star as the man and his daughter in this movie with a 12% Rotten Tomatoes score. I wouldn't say the film is nearly as bad as that score suggests though I would say many of the specific criticisms are valid.

At the beginning of the film, De Niro's wife, played by Steven Spielberg's ex-wife (and Jessica Rabbit's singing voice) Amy Irving, is found dead in the bathtub. Dakota Fanning witnesses it and she remains traumatised afterwards, as you might expect.

De Niro's a psychologist and in his opinion the move to a distant house in the cold, gloomy woods is just what Dakota Fanning needs. His colleague, Famke Janssen, disagrees, but he calmly overrules her. How nice it was to see Famke Jannsen again.

This was back in the period when everyone thought it was a good idea to be the next M. Night Shyamalan so Hide and Seek has a twist ending. Most people will see it coming even though, as many reviews point out, it doesn't make sense. I wouldn't use the word "silly", though, because the movie is actually very dour. Whatever psychological weirdness and thriller stuff is happening, the bottom line is that there's this profoundly unhappy little girl who experiences trauma after trauma and every shred of hope for a better life is systematically taken from her. It's an extremely depressing movie, especially since Dakota Fanning gives a great performance.

The Young Someone Chronicles

With Disney about to release the final Indiana Jones film, they've finally managed to get the rest of the film series onto Disney+. I doubt Paramount was willing to let it go so Disney must have paid a fortune and it's likely temporary. But along with the films is something Paramount doesn't seem to care much about, at least not enough to put on their own Paramount+ service, and that's The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. Disney+ really feels like a logical home for it, too, since it's always kind of felt like a Disney Channel series--a watered down, slightly more moralistic version of a popular franchise.

The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, produced sporadically throughout the '90s by George Lucas, who struggled to keep the expensive series alive, is a lot better the better you succeed at getting the Indiana Jones movies out of your mind. As a series about an adventurous lad who happens to run into nearly every prominent historical figure alive in the early 1900s, it's not bad, and sometimes excellent.

A few days ago I watched Love's Sweet Song, which combines the episodes "Ireland, April 1916" and "London, May 1916". The Ireland segment shows Indy in his early '20s, portrayed by Sean Patrick Flannery (who always seems more like a young Mark Hamill than a young Harrison Ford), in Ireland witnessing the Easter Rising. This was shot in 1993, three years before Neil Jordan's Michael Collins. The episode features John Lynch playing the real playwright Sean O'Casey along with a few other prominent figures in Ireland at the time, even a brief cameo from Yeats. Indy is able to discuss similarities in the Irish Revolution to the Mexican Revolution he took part in in the previous episode. And if that's not enough of a whiplash for you, Indy goes from dodging British troops in this story to the gentle romantic episode of "London, May 1916" in which he falls for a young Elizabeth Hurley playing a suffragette.

What a difference a month makes. Don't get me wrong, the episode's really sweet and genuinely effective. Both episodes are good, especially if you can forget about the first when you're watching the second. And all the episodes are better if you can forget Sean Patrick Flannery is supposed to be Indiana Jones. And I think that's the central problem of the series. For a story that's supposed to be partly inspired by 1930s serials, it's almost an anti-serial. Every episode really needs to be taken in isolation, which makes Lucas' decision to re-edit the originally 45 minute episodes into feature length television movies particularly unfortunate. It doesn't help that Flannery is noticeably older in the linking segments, his hair is longer, and his hat looks cheap and stupid.

What, did you get that at Disneyland?

And as good as the London segment is, it feels rushed to fit his great romance with Elizabeth Hurley into the time span allowed. If only this were a story that could continue from episode to episode. It would have been better if Lucas had kept to the original format with an elderly Indy framing the stories as his recollections. You could blame any problems on his faulty memory, then. Even the idea that he used to look like Sean Patrick Flannery could've been put down to his modesty when we all know he actually looked like River Phoenix.

The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles is available on Disney+ in the US.

Twitter Sonnet #1705

Rebounding bottle horns could doink the fight.
And how's the bull to stop a poignant prim?
Decode a flipping pocket crime to light.
And squirrelly shops enjoy the sexy trim.
Perplexing tinsel rafters drop the house.
Devalued shorts display the wealth of borg.
Excessive ears destroy the living mouse.
A lazy hill defends the puppy warg.
Reveals of knifes could cut the scene in half.
Reproofs in idle moods condemn the tongues.
Repenting witches crack the golden calf.
A breathing bounty graced the sailor's lungs.
Abridging stars connects the burning gas.
Redemption false confers a phony pass.

Animals are Worthy Musicians

Japanese animation used to be famous for being astonishingly weird. An example from those good old days is 1981's Bremen 4, a feature length TV special from legendary creator Osamu Tezuka (Astroboy, Kimba the White Lion). For this fascinating piece of work, Tezuka takes a Brothers Grimm story about four travelling animals and adds in an alien, a robot war, and a whole lot of violence to make an engrossing, dreamlike spectacle.

An alien woman who looks like a deer with antennae on her nose and puffy round nipples contemplates an image of a human woman with puffy round nipples. She transforms into a human woman with no nipples.

She learns one word, the English word, "Peace", before landing in an Earth forest. The animals she encounters are peaceful enough but she's just so happened to have arrived in Germany while a handsome robotic general is conducting a campaign to exterminate the populace. Men, women, and children are slaughtered and the alien is cast into a river. A little boy's mother is killed and he's separated from his beloved cat.

The cat eventually meets a donkey, a dog, and a chicken and then the four of them rescue the alien from the river. As a reward, she transforms them into humans and they continue their adventures across a war-torn, sci-fi fantasy Germany.

This is one of those rare movies that's liable to make a child of any open-minded viewer as you sit there wide-eyed, wondering just what the hell could happen next. By the end, you've been through so much with the animal heroes, they feel like your friends. I can imagine many children watching this movie repeatedly.

Now Into the Medical Fray!

Say you're grievously injured and you need to get to the ER, stat. But maybe the ER is ten miles away. Luckily for you, if you're in Tokyo there's Tokyo MER, or "Mobile Emergency Room". A team of hotshot doctors and nurses are ready to perform intensive surgery on wheels in this hit series. It's a bit cartoonish for a medical drama but that's par for the course in just about any television or film genre in Japan lately. The emergency scenes are filled with a good energy, though, and are genuinely exciting. I watched just the first episode last night.

Ryohei Suzuki stars as Doctor Kitami, a brilliant, eccentric young gentleman with an upbeat personality. As a child, he was caught in a mass shooting where his parents died due to the lack of doctors among the emergency personnel. This occurred in the US and the show scrupulously avoids implying such a thing could ever happen in Japan. Nonetheless, Kitami was compelled to spearhead the Mobile Emergency Room in Tokyo.

Assisting him are several upbeat nurses (three beautiful young ladies) and a surgeon called Otowa (Kento Kaku). Otowa is the black sheep of the group. He's not upbeat and he conferences with the series villains, a few bureaucrats who are so over-the-top in their performances, they're practically twirling moustaches.

They'd like nothing better than to see the MER shut down. However, they're humiliated in the climax when live video footage shows Kitami rescuing a number of people from a collapsing building. Foiled again!

Tokyo MER is available on Disney+ in Japan.

Twitter Sonnet #1704

A plate of mugs was never tipped to fight.
With damage due, collected glass abides.
A vicious shell could cut the foot for spite.
So sandy beaches curse the boiling tides.
The fighters split as soap begins to reign.
Abusing solid steel the water drips.
Confusing lions lights the brainy mane.
The kitty's rank was marked with seven pips.
The famous sandwich tooth was split in two.
Containers tipped to spill the morning fish.
Assertive bugs could eat a pint of glue.
A flower pattern graced the noodle dish.
A moving speed adopts important rooms.
Creative beans begin replacing dooms.

That Old Swamp Magic

Kate Hudson takes a job caring for a paralysed John Hurt in 2005's The Skeleton Key. If she'd seen Dark Waters or Sister, Sister or any number of movies in which an innocent young lady goes to live in a large house deep in the Louisiana bayou, she might've thought twice about taking the job. But she straps in for all the familiar twists and turns in this predictable, formulaic thriller that's nonetheless moderately entertaining.

Peter Sarsgaard plays an estate lawyer who takes Hudson to the property where she meets Hurt along with his wife, played by Gena Rowlands.

Hudson starts to suspect something's up when Rowlands won't explain the absence of mirrors throughout the house. Rowlands gives Hudson a skeleton key and soon she's exploring every nook and cranny of the place, discovering a secret Hoodoo room in the attic.

The usual skittery editing and intermittent sepia tones are used for bits about the house's past which includes a couple witch doctor servants. The film ends up making a commentary on racism oddly reminiscent of Get Out.

Most of the interiors feel like soundstages although parts of the film were apparently shot at a real Louisiana plantation. Kate Hudson is fine as an average young woman. John Hurt manages to deliver a good performance despite being paralyzed most of the time.

Forty-Seven as One

A samurai attempts to kill a wealthy lord. He fails but his 47 friends rally to the cause in 1978's The Fall of Ako Castle (赤穂城断絶). One of the many film adaptations of the The 47 Ronin, this one's a pretty straight forward celebration of collectivist thinking. The highlight is Sonny Chiba as the wayward fighter who comes back into the fold, though it takes quite some time for his best action sequences to commence.

The action is mostly led by Yorozuya Kinnosuke who leads the forty-seven after Asano, the man who attempted to kill the lord, is ordered to commit seppuku. Yorozuya was a popular actor in Japan, though he's not as well known as Chiba is in the U.S. He has a majestic enough presence in the film.

Chiba plays a Fuwa, a man with wild hair who apparently lives in the woods, eating his meals by campfire. He's turned his back on the group, yet the situation gradually draws him back in until he finally joins his brethren, another limb functioning in tandem, for a final, long, extravagant fight sequence. It's pretty glorious.

Those seeking something more intellectual will prefer Kenji Mizoguchi's 1941 version of the story called Genroku Chushingura (I reviewed the film back in 2014 here). That movie has almost the opposite philosophy to that expressed in The Fall of Ako Castle and is much more insightful and intelligent. However, it has almost no action, something that truly distinguishes The Fall of Ako Castle marvellously.

Magic and Soul

What once was fun, sexy, and romantic has become painful, violent addiction in "Wrecked", a 2001 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This is the episode where Buffy and Spike finally have sex and Willow's compulsion to use magic becomes a full blown After School Special.

Willow's Magic Addiction is a sterling example of how bad allegory can be. Willow meets a dealer, she starts losing track of time when she gets high--in this case, literally getting stuck to the ceiling.

She loses her sense of priorities and gets Dawn in danger just to get a fix. It all ends with a car crash and a summoned demon. Magic, which just last year was the symbol of Willow's bond with Tara, has now just become drugs. Tara no longer has anything positive to say for magic, she's basically a different character. Wouldn't this all work better if they'd made Willow literally a drug addict? Yes, it would.

However, I quite like the Buffy/Spike plot. I heard the network insisted on the pairing but I think this actually works to the show's benefit. You can sense the writers trying to justify it as they go and they struggle as much as Buffy does--which makes her dialogue much more natural. Life isn't often a neat and tidy allegory, people do things that fly in the face of their self-perception, things that contradict how other people perceive them. Though, actually, it's not so out of character for Buffy who for several seasons has been built up as having a carnal side, and as having increasing trouble forming and maintaining emotional attachments.

It's also another interesting route for the show's premise of vampires not having souls. We can't help sympathising with Spike a little, even when he's being a jerk. It's almost like the concept is propaganda designed to make the Slayer more comfortable with genocide.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is available on Disney+.

Twitter Sonnet #1703

A watching ghost arranged a sheet to walk.
By just a beard the being was spotted late.
For here the restless dead at times may talk.
Such pretty spectres want a special gate.
Another place displays her face for me.
Projected thoughts or maybe flesh and bone.
The forest hides beneath the fossil tree.
A treasure's safe beneath the mossy stone.
"The Devil's Way"'s a song of darkened frames.
Disordered art was pushed at ev'ry side.
In hasty blood, his claw records the names.
A budget movie set's a place to hide.
Another bug absorbs the sugar sky.
Another wing's tattooed with how to fly.

Make Way for Mitchum

A frontier town is ruled by a murderous gang. Robert Mitchum comes to sort them out in 1955's Man with the Gun. It's not a bad film but I'd put it pretty far down the list of good '50s Westerns. It's always nice watching Robert Mitchum anyway.

He plays Clint Tollinger who rides into town wearing what looks distinctly like a modern sport coat.

Costumes are certainly one of the weak points of this film. Alex North's score is also pretty weak, or at least its juxtaposition with the action is.

Director Richard Wilson fragments the scenes too much with excessive close-ups but there are nonetheless decent action sequences. Mitchum shows he can mount and ride a horse quickly while giving a performance and I readily believe he's a marvellously quick draw.

Tollinger is a "town tamer", a hired gun whose job is to clean up towns like this. In this case, though, he was visiting just to see an old flame, the manager of a dance hall troupe of girls and possibly the madam of their brothel. She's played by Jan Sterling who's moderately attractive and gives a moderately good performance.

Man with the Gun is available on ScreenPix.

Of Fighters and Drinkers

I've been watching Henry IV, Part I piecemeal over the past couple weeks, the BBC Television Shakespeare version. It just kind of happened, I never have time to watch the whole thing but I've been itching to watch it again so I watch a little bit here and there. It occurred to me there's a sequence of scenes in which one guy does a verbal take down of another guy. There's Hal and Falstaff, then Hotspur and Glendower, then the King and Hal.

Although Anthony Quayle plays Falstaff as just starting to get some inkling of Hal's ultimate betrayal of him, and he acts indignant at first, the beauty of Falstaff is that eventually he takes it all in good humour. What really matters to him is coin in his pocket and sack in his belly. Hotspur unwisely makes his rebel ally, Glendower, the butt of a series of very funny but vicious jabs. The King is deeply disturbed by his son's loose living. The rashness of youth and the bitterness of political responsibilities hang over the latter two. It's easy to see why Falstaff was such a popular character, he longs for the human comforts we all do. Few of us appreciate the gravity of the King's preoccupations and only a few more people will have experienced Hotspur's profound restlessness.

I was watching the Hotspur and Glendower scene last night. One sympathises with Hotspur and his disdain for pomposity but it's astonishing how little thought he gives to the precariousness of his situation and his need for allies.

MORTIMER.
Peace, cousin Percy, you will make him mad.

GLENDOWER.
I can call spirits from the vasty deep.

HOTSPUR.
Why, so can I, or so can any man,
But will they come when you do call for them?

GLENDOWER.
Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command the devil.

HOTSPUR.
And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil
By telling truth; tell truth, and shame the devil.
If thou have power to raise him, bring him hither,
And I’ll be sworn I have power to shame him hence.
O, while you live, tell truth, and shame the devil!

MORTIMER.
Come, come, no more of this unprofitable chat.

GLENDOWER.
Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head
Against my power; thrice from the banks of Wye
And sandy-bottom’d Severn have I sent him
Bootless home and weather-beaten back.

HOTSPUR.
Home without boots, and in foul weather too!
How ’scapes he agues, in the devil’s name!

Storm and Murder

These old Stephen King miniseries directed by Craig R. Baxley are consistently enjoyable. They always look cheap and Baxley has little to no creative flair, which I think may have been a good thing in King's opinion. But it's fun watching King's characters play out on screen in long form. Yesterday I watched the first episode of 1999's Storm of the Century.

Tim Daly stars as a sheriff in a small, northeastern coastal town bracing for a massive storm. Meanwhile, a sinister man with monster teeth comes to town and starts killing people.

This guy somehow knows about all the secret crimes people have concealed in their pasts. King gets a lot of nice tension out of the hazardous situations involving people who might deserve a comeuppance.

It's a nice, cosy watch. I think I might have enjoyed it more on a long, lazy day during winter vacation.

Twitter Sonnet #1702

A line of ghosts invade the hidden train.
Besiegers settle not for partial terms.
Museums amount to ancient grinning pain.
Escape we never shall from many germs.
The human heart was stuck in liver town.
For after schnapps, the belly shook a boast.
Frames abide to chop the forest down.
The risk returned to bread, you're eating toast.
No cake was shaped of only syrup yet.
Determined eggs return the flying pan.
With safer yolks your breakfast's sooner bet.
A bigger meal attracts a larger fan.
Surrounding trees conceal the lives of birds.
The heart was washed away with heartless words.

The Men are Bad

Some women may be manhaters but I've always said few women can hate men as deeply as men can. It shows in a lot of movies and television, an example being Robert Altman's 1993 film Short Cuts. A three hour film that weaves together nine short stories and a poem by Raymond Carver, Altman offers portraits of malicious and cruel or pathetically selfish men from all walks of life and the women who love them and suffer for them. The incredible ensemble cast give good performances and some of the punchlines are funny but too much of the film sinks under a shadow of a cynical, sexist diatribe.

The characters are mostly grouped as married couples; Tom Waits and Lily Tomlin, Andie McDowell and Bruce Davison, Matthew Modine and Julianne Moore, Chris Penn and Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tim Robbins and Madeleine Stowe, Robert Downey Jr. and Lili Taylor, Peter Gallagher and Frances McDormand, Fred Ward and Anne Archer, and Lori Singer and Annie Ross play a daughter and mother. Jack Lemmon, Lyle Lovett, Buck Henry, and Huey Lewis play supporting characters.

Fred Ward along with Huey Lewis and Buck Henry provide the most egregious caricatures of male rottenness. The three go on a fishing trip and find a beautiful young woman's nude corpse in the river. Unable to decide what to do, they end up carrying on fishing for a few days before reporting her. Altman skirts over a lot of logistics in order to portray these men as terrible as possible, most notably the issue that it occurs to none of them, or to the authorities to whom they eventually report finding the body, that they may face legal troubles for not immediately reporting an apparent crime.

I'm not saying there aren't a lot of guys who would be stupid and selfish enough to react like these three guys but Altman has nothing in particular to say here beyond, "These men are horrible." They're like cartoon characters. The crowded cast may be partially responsible for the fact that most of the characters feel two dimensional but by the nature of the story showing how all these lives are intertwined, Altman could have taken the opportunity of showing how people show different sides to themselves in different situations. Which would have been a lot like Twin Peaks, which I suspect was an influence on this film. It's as though Altman heard about men crying over Laura Palmer's corpse washing ashore and said, "No. Men would react like monsters if no women were there to witness them." The time frame would've been right, even if it's true, as Wikipedia says, the script for Short Cuts was completed in 1989--Twin Peaks was first pitched to ABC in 1988. Altman could have then chosen the Raymond Carver stories that would best suit his rebuttal to Twin Peaks.

One portrayal of simplistic, selfish, horrible men is one drop in a sea of portrayals of simplistic, selfish, horrible men, blurring together in a dull catechism of self-flagellation.

Robert Downey Jr. plays a guy who brags about drugging women to have sex with him. Matthew Modine is nursing a grudge because he thinks his wife may have kissed a guy at a party a few years ago. Tim Robbins cheats on his wife with Frances McDormand, who's separated from her husband Peter Gallagher, who nonetheless is so enraged by the fact that she's dating that he breaks into her house when she's away and destroys all her clothes and furniture. Bruce Davison is a Bill O'Riley style TV demagogue, Lyle Lovett makes harassing phone calls to Davison and McDowell while their son is dying, and so on. Out of all the men, only Tom Waits comes off as kind of okay, I guess because he's basically playing Tom Waits. He wears a suit and goes to the bar and drinks against Lily Tomlin's wishes while he listens to Annie Ross sing.

A lot of reviews noted the surprising amount of female nudity in the film and essentially no male nudity. Julianne Moore has a dialogue scene where her vagina is exposed for almost the duration, Madeleine Stowe poses nude, Lori Singer goes skinny dipping while Chris Penn peeps at her, and Frances McDormand and of course the corpse are also naked in the film. Altman isn't doing this on accident, he's clearly making a point, the point being, I suspect, "Look how beautiful and vulnerable women are while men are morally ugly and aggressive."

One moment I thought was effectively funny was when Buck Henry, who took pictures of the corpse, goes to get his photos developed at the same shop as Robert Downey Jr. and Lili Taylor. Downey Jr. plays a movie makeup artist who did a photoshoot of Lili Taylor made up like a murder victim. Henry, who can see Taylor is very much alive, must have assumed it was some kind of kink and he decides to write down the couple's license plate, presumably to report him, while Taylor and Downey Jr. write down his, due to the photos of the real corpse. That one made me laugh. That and Tom Waits were some of the few bright spots in this generally grim exercise in cynicism.

Death Rides a Clown Car

Those who narrowly escape death may find it is only to suffer a sillier fate down the line. So it is for the doomed souls of 2000's Final Destination. I'd heard how goofy this film is but I guess fate finally tapped me to watch it. It is fun, in an unintentionally whimsical way. Young Ali Larter is pretty cute.

A young man boards a flight to Paris with his 39 classmates. Dozing off, he has a vision of the plane exploding. He makes a scene and is escorted off the plane along with his teacher and a handful of other classmates. Then the plane really does explode.

It seems the boy and his friends are granted a reprieve. Little do they know the ghost of Loony Tunes lurks in the shadows. One kid is strangled by a lively shower cord than the phone cord in Detour. The teacher is caught in a deadly cycle of bloody slapstick in her kitchen to rival the opening cartoon from Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

My favourite, though, is when the boy gets pinned under a tree, his face somehow forced down into a puddle. We're meant to believe that the tree is so heavy that he can't even turn his head but he's somehow able to escape from it without any apparent injury. I guess Toons are governed only by the laws of comedy.

Final Destination is available on Netflix.