Welcome back for Day 7, the final day of our week of Clint Eastwood movie spotlights! To close things out, let’s talk about another modern success for Eastwood: Gran Torino (2008).
I feel a bit like a broken record this week, but I can’t help myself– these movies have all been great, and Gran Torino is yet another example of Eastwood bringing his A game.
Torino is the story of a prejudiced, angry Korean War veteran named Walt Kowalski (Eastwood), who despises the changes overtaking his small, Michigan neighborhood. His wife has just passed away, and it seems Walt can’t find solace in anything anymore– he can’t relate to his 2 grown sons, disdains the youthful priest who attempts to keep an eye on him, and is in a state of constant grumble regarding his new Hmong neighbors. Eventually, he forms something of a begrudging attachment to one of the young Hmong women, Sue, after she repeatedly demonstrates to him that A. She isn’t put off by his grumpy, curmudgeonly ways, and B. He might actually have more in common with traditional Hmong culture and his new neighbors than he does with his own spoiled family. It’s an eye-opening revelation for Walt, to say the least, and these factors (as well as his undeniable desire for companionship) cause him to go easy on Sue’s brother, Thao, when he tries to steal Walt’s prized 1972 Gran Torino. Racially-motivated gang violence is a looming problem in the neighborhood, and Thao is unfortunately on the cusp of being pulled in by forces outside of his control. Even Sue says of the neighborhood that “the girls go to college, and the boys go to jail.”
Not willing to let Thao waste his potential and throw his life away with the gangs, Walt begins to take the boy under his wing. He teaches him how to fix things, spends time mentoring him, and even helps Thao gain the confidence to ask out a girl he likes. It’s incredibly heartwarming to see Eastwood open himself up to caring about someone again (even if he remains a bit of a craggy old so-and-so). In fact, the journey from Closed-Off Grump to Secretly Tenderhearted Father Figure seems to be one of the defining features of post-2000 Clint Eastwood films…and I love it.
Ultimately, Walt finds himself with a difficult decision to make. The neighborhood gang violence reaches a fever pitch when it becomes obvious that Thao has chosen Walt’s friendship over theirs, and Sue is brutally raped and beaten. Walt promises Thao that Sue will be avenged; what form, however, will that justice take?
Gran Torino is a complex, richly layered movie, with A+ acting from everyone involved. At times funny, and at times horrifying, the writing and directing really make you feel for these characters. As the credits roll, you hear Clint Eastwood’s gravelly voice whispering the words to the original music behind him, and you know this is a film that will stay with you for a long, long time.
Thank you so much for being a part of this special Clint Eastwood Spotlight Series! We hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as we have enjoyed bringing it to you. Be sure to join us again later this month for another Actor/Actress spotlight–who will be next?!
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Welcome back for Day 6 of the Clint Eastwood Spotlight Series, where we’ll be talking about one of the actor/director’s biggest modern triumphs: Million Dollar Baby (2004).
First of all, this is an amazing movie. It’s the kind that elicits a physical reaction at the core of your being, like the chambers of your heart might legitimately be torn asunder. Think I’m being dramatic? Watch the movie. You’ll see.
As far as plot goes, Baby seems relatively straight-forward on the surface. Frankie Dunn (Eastwood) is an aging, emotionally hardened boxing trainer who is going through a painful estrangement from his daughter, Katie. We never find out why the two are estranged, but Frankie’s priest, Father Horvak, offers up this comment on the situation:
“Frankie, I’ve seen you at Mass almost every day for 23 years. The only person who comes to church that much is the kind who can’t forgive himself for something.”
This small insight, as well as the fact that all Eastwood’s letters to Katie return to him unopened, are the only semblances of light that are ever shed on Frankie’s separation from his daughter. Yet, oddly enough, it almost doesn’t matter that we don’t know what’s going on there, because Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) soon walks into Frankie’s life, and eventually his heart.
Maggie hails from southwest “Missoura” (among the hills, according to Morgan Freeman’s character, situated “somewhere between nowhere and goodbye”), and somehow manages to be both exceptionally tough and extremely adorable. She is hopeful, hard-working, and all she wants out of life is to become a boxer–she says it’s the only thing she’s ever felt good doing. Her family is trashy and classless at best, and she knows that if she can’t chase down her boxing dream, she will be limited to scraping plates in the trailer park with them for the rest of her days. Frankie doesn’t want to train her as one of his fighters–he never trains women–but eventually, her work ethic and stubborn willpower successfully wear him down. He agrees to take her on.
As the film progresses, we see that both Frankie and Maggie are filling the lonely void in each other’s lives. Neither has realized just how much they needed the other, but as time and training go by, Maggie becomes like a daughter to him. She slowly but surely rises to the top of her boxing class under his tutelage, even though he is initially hesitant to arrange any big fights for her. Finally, after much wheedling and insistence from Maggie that she’s ready, Frankie sets up a match against a top-ranked UK opponent. Right before the fight, he gifts her with a beautiful, green silk robe, embroidered with the Gaelic words “Mo Cuishle” on the back. She asks him what it means, and he gruffly/shyly tells her he doesn’t know. Emboldened by the gesture, as well as some tough-love feedback from Frankie in the middle of the fight, Maggie goes on to win by K.O. that night. She becomes a scrappy, crowd favorite, grinning from ear to ear as chants of “Mo Cuishle! Mo Cuishle!” fill the arena.
Maggie soars higher and higher in the rankings, until she finally accepts a match with Billie “The Blue Bear” (a German ex-prostitute with a nasty reputation for dirty fighting) for the WBA women’s welterweight championship title. It starts to look like Maggie might actually win, but then things take an unexpected turn. If you haven’t seen the movie, I don’t want to go much further and risk spoilers…but suffice it to say that that sound you’re hearing is the sound of hearts across America cracking in two. Oh, and here is a picture of my face when Frankie finally tells Maggie what “Mo Cuishle” means:
Million Dollar Baby took home four Oscars that year: Best Picture, Best Director (Eastwood), Best Actress (Swank), and Best Supporting Actor (Freeman, whom I didn’t talk about much in this review, but he is excellent as Eddie “Scrap-Iron” Dupris). It’s easy to see why, because everyone who was a part of this film clearly poured their heart and soul into its production. Having a close relationship with my own dad, this story and the incredible father-daughter chemistry between Eastwood and Swank really speaks to me. I’m pretty sure I experienced every possible human emotion while watching Baby, and I can honestly say it’s one of the best movies I’ve ever seen.
Tomorrow, join me again for the final day of our Clint Eastwood Spotlight Series! I’ll be discussing Gran Torino (2008), so be sure to come on back as we wrap things up.
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Welcome back for Day 5 of our Spotlight Series on the films of Clint Eastwood! Today we’re going to be talking about a movie that is different than any we’ve discussed so far this week–heck, it’s different than most other films he made in the entirety of his decades-long career. Grab the tissues and get ready to experience a lot of feelings, because we’re diving into the 1995 romantic drama (adapted from the novel of the same name), The Bridges of Madison County.
Bridges is another film directed by Eastwood, co-starring everyone’s favorite feminine powerhouse, Meryl Streep. The pair have pretty incredible chemistry, and several scenes are downright steamy. A far cry from the “where’d my glasses go?” humor of a charmingly middle-aged Alec Baldwin/Diane Keaton movie, this gem pits two legit movie titans, no longer in the dewy bloom of youth, together against the world. Streep is 46, Eastwood is 65, but both are still incredibly sexy. I don’t fully know how to describe it, but there just…aren’t a lot of movies like this. Hollywood doesn’t tell a ton of nuanced love stories about people over the age of 35, and when those movies DO come along, it’s as if they can’t stop themselves from pointing out how out of touch the couple is with whatever youth culture is popular at the time. Either that, or it’s a Nicholas Sparks adaptation, and you know damn well someone’s going to die in a mudslide or be diagnosed with melanoma. Bridges, however, wastes no time on maudlin deathbed soliloquies, or cheap “come help me figure out my iPad!” jokes (or, you know, the 90s equivalent). What separates this movie from others that people will be tempted to lump it with, is just how serious the film is. There are brief snatches of joy and tender comedy interspersed throughout, but mostly, the word I’d use to describe it is aching. It’s a gorgeous story about two real people who fall into real love. It’s not a tawdry affair between two bored, unhappy souls; it’s two people meeting, expecting nothing, but sensing down in their bones that they’ve met the person they should have been with, had circumstances been different.
The story takes place predominantly on a farm in rural Iowa, where Francesca (Streep), an Italian war bride, lives with her husband and two young children. She is content with the simple life she leads, and while her marriage is not one of joyful camaraderie and earth-shaking passion, her husband is a kind, well-meaning man. Then, when he takes the kids away to the State Fair for a few days, Francesca happens upon photographer Robert Kincaid (Eastwood). Robert is in town on assignment from National Geographic, planning to shoot a series on some beautiful, historic bridges in the area. Without intending anything scandalous, the two get to know one another, and over the course of a few days they fall deeply in love. I know, I know. Four days isn’t enough time, blah blah blah. But there’s just something about these two characters, these two actors, that makes you believe it. They each know they’ve found a life’s companion in the other, but Francesca already has a family that she can’t justify leaving. Robert wants to run away together and seize happiness for themselves, but Francesca believes that she has to prioritize the life she already has–that it’s too late to start again.
I love this movie. The ONLY reason I deducted half a star in my rating is that there’s kind of a stupid framing device running throughout, which rears its head every time you think you’ve forgotten about it. Basically, at the beginning of the movie, Francesca has died and her two adult children are summoned to the Iowa farmhouse to hear the reading of the will, as well as her final wishes for her remains. They’ve lived their lives knowing nothing of their mother’s infidelity, so it’s quite a shock to them when they learn, not only of its existence, but that she wants to have her ashes scattered over one of the famed, covered bridges in Madison County. Two guesses why. All of the interactions we see between Francesca and Robert are taking place in flashback– they’re memories recorded in diaries by Francesca, and serve as a way of explaining her wishes for cremation to her two surviving children. Which brings me to the annoying part of this framing device: Francesca’s son, Michael. I mean, I get that his disbelief and outrage are the catalyst for the story (every time he learns a new piece of information, he’s all like “Whaaaaaaaat?! How could she feel this way/do this thing?!”, and the sister has to placate him with inane comments like “Calm down, let’s just hear a little bit more!”), but it gets extremely tiresome. I think certain parts of the device work–the items Robert leaves to Francesca in his own will, and the fact that they don’t die in each other’s arms, but instead pass on separately, of natural causes, many years apart– but mostly, the kids just make me want to punch them.
That aside, if you haven’t already, do yourself a favor and seek this movie out. Yes, it’s a romantic drama, and yes, you might need a few Kleenex to sustain you. But this is a beautiful, extremely well-crafted movie, and if the man in your life won’t watch it with you…WATCH IT WITH YOURSELF. As Richard Corliss from TIME Magazine puts it: “Madison County is Eastwood’s gift to women: to Francesca, to all the girls he’s loved before– and to Streep, who alchmizes literary mawkishness into intelligent movie passion.”
Tomorrow, join me again as I delve into the film that won Eastwood his second Oscar for Best Director: Million Dollar Baby (2004). This one’s a doozy, so don’t miss it!
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Welcome back for Day 4 of our Clint Eastwood Spotlight Series! Today I have the privilege of discussing with you (what I consider to be) the greatest modern western made to date: Unforgiven (1992).
According to Eastwood at the time, Unforgiven would be the last western he made, because he did not want to risk repeating himself or imitating someone else’s work. Boy, did he go out of the genre in style.
Not only did the film win Best Picture that year, but it also earned Eastwood his first win for Best Director. He wasn’t exactly working with untested unknowns–when a cast includes Morgan Freeman, Gene Hackman, and Richard Harris as supporting characters, you know the movie cannot possibly be subpar– but you can still feel Eastwood’s distinctive hand guiding the film. It has all his signature touches: the underdog vs. the many, the visceral pull of the scenery, the minimalistic (yet lovely) musical score, the rawness of the emotion his characters feel. Eastwood’s films stay with you long after the credits have rolled, and Unforgiven is a perfect example.
It’s a movie about reputation in all its forms, and the questions posed remind me of that internet meme that was in circulation for a while: What My Mom Thinks I do, What My Friends Think I do, What Society Thinks I Do, What I Actually Do, etc. The film is unapologetic with regard to what these characters have already done, but it also explores the idea of whether or not people can change. When you’ve already done a thing hundreds of times, can you really give it up? If you do give it up, will people let you forget about it? What toll has it already taken on you, and when you look in the mirror are you ever fully free of what society thinks?
Eastwood’s character, the grizzled and timeworn William Munny, grapples with the weight of his own legend throughout the entirety of the film. He’s haunted by the evil deeds of his youth, and the fact that all anyone remembers or wants to talk about is his reputation for murder and meanness. He wants desperately for people to see him, not as he was, but how he currently is. In classic Western fashion, he’s been remade by the love of a good woman– he’s abandoned the whiskey, the killing, the ruthlessness. Now, he’s a solemn widower, looking after his two children and a pig farm in the wake of his wife’s death from smallpox. He lives a simple life, and he’s grateful for the change, but when the much-younger Schofield Kid rides into town one day, promising him a hefty reward for partnership in one final killing, Munny can’t help but accept. His farm is limping along at best, and he needs the money to provide for his children’s future. Not to mention, the lethal justice at hand will be in retribution for two men viciously slashing a woman’s face to shreds after she giggled at the size of one’s penis. So…yeah. It’s probably not going to keep him up at night.
Another interesting angle to the storyline (and further evidence to support Eastwood’s love of the underdog) is that the woman whose face was slashed, as well as the collective group of women offering the reward, are prostitutes. The “madam” of the operation, Strawberry Alice (Frances Fisher), is so enraged by the sheriff’s tepid, initial punishment of the offenders, that she pools the girls’ money and offers up a $1,000 reward to anyone who will kill the two cowboys responsible. Usually, and this is especially the case in Westerns, ladies of the evening aren’t necessarily part of the protagonist set. They play minor roles, or they tempt the wholesome cowboys to ruin. Yet, strangely, the gaggle of prostitutes and the craggy, old cowboys are the heroes of this movie. I love it. It drives home the fact that Clint Eastwood was constantly searching for ways to freshen and reinvestigate old cliches. He didn’t make a movie about women “keeping their place” and allowing injustices to be perpetrated around them; he didn’t even make a movie about two white men attempting to get away with harming a prostitute. He made a movie about two humans harming other humans, and getting their just deserts.
If you think you’re not a big fan of Westerns in general, I highly recommend that you seek out this movie and give it a chance. It’s poignant, beautiful…dare I say majestic? No matter what other adjectives you put in front of it, it’s just a good, good movie. One of Eastwood’s best, and deserving of the Oscar win.
Tomorrow, join me again as we take a look at Eastwood’s softer side in the Meryl Streep weepie, The Bridges of Madison County (1995). You won’t want to miss it!
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Welcome back for Day 2 of our Spotlight Series on Clint Eastwood! Today we’ll be discussing Mr. Eastwood’s directorial debut: a fascinating, eye-poppingly uncomfortable little thriller called Play Misty For Me (1971).
I use the word uncomfortable, not because the acting or directing is poor, but because Jessica Walter (whom you may recognize from Arrested Development) is REALLY good at playing a woman unhinged. Her character, Evelyn Draper, calls to mind Glenn Close cooking rabbits in Fatal Attraction, and even possesses shades of the hapless Barbra Streisand in The Way We Were (guess it’s a good thing K-K-K-Katie wasn’t a p-p-p-psychopath). It’s just…eesh.
But, alas, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Misty opens with the effortlessly cool Eastwood cruising along a gorgeous, rocky stretch of California coastline. His character, Dave Garver, is a disc jockey for a local jazz radio station (which, by the way, I’d totally believe with a voice like his), where he whisperingly croons poetry and takes on-air calls in between spinning Duke Ellington records. Garver is, in many ways, a typical Eastwood character: wolfishly handsome, aloof, a loner by day and…not a loner by night. He fills his midnight hours with women, and yet he still finds himself pining for one so-called “nice girl” that no amount of recreational love can replace. Shortly after reflecting upon these secret dreams of monogamy, his ex-girlfriend and archetypal One That Got Away, Tobie (Donna Mills), suddenly breezes back into his life– but not before Dave unwittingly becomes involved with a beautiful female fan of his show.
Evelyn Draper, the aforementioned craz-o, meets Dave one night (ostensibly by chance) in one of his favorite bars. She’s attractive, he’s attracted, and before you know it they’re stoking a fire and sipping whiskey cocktails at his place. She coyly drops a few hints, and Dave correctly guesses that Evelyn is the woman who has been calling the radio station every night, requesting he play the Errol Garner classic, “Misty”. This is the first in a litany of red flags, but it’s also a perfect example of what Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris) refers to as the “Hot/Crazy Scale” on the show How I Met Your Mother. According to this scale, a woman can be a certain amount of crazy, as long as she is correspondingly hot. Evelyn is pretty hot, so, unfortunately for Dave, she gets away with a lot of seriously questionable behaviors that I suspect she would not have pulled off with slightly less enticing lounging pajamas.
From this point onward in the story, things get a bit hairy. Evelyn takes their casual sexcapades to mean that they are now romantically entwined forevermore. Dave, on the other hand, tries to brush Evelyn off in favor of pursuing a real relationship with Tobie, to which, as you might guess, Evelyn does not respond well. She’s been teetering on the precipice of a complete mental breakdown for some time, and when she spies Dave growing googly over Tobie’s icy blue eyes and Carol Brady hair…well, it’s curtains for Tobie, and anyone else who stands in her way. Cue Psycho stabbing music.
Here’s the thing about Play Misty For Me. It’s not a great movie–some of the dialogue is a little stilted, the blood isn’t the least bit realistic, and I think the chemistry between Eastwood and Mills as Tobie could have been better–but it IS very suspenseful and well worth your time. It’s obvious that Eastwood has a natural understanding of the camera, and he knows how to set up his shots well. Particularly for a first crack at directing, it’s a really good movie. I’ve seen it multiple times now, and each time I have to watch certain scenes in between my fingers. As I mentioned before, Jessica Walter is downright compelling as the scorned-woman-turned-killer, and it is hard to look away from any scene she is in. There are scares a-plenty, and if you’re looking for a good, eerie slasher flick on a Saturday night, this one’s a great choice (especially if you’re interested in exploring Eastwood’s early career).
Tomorrow, Charles will be reviewing perhaps Eastwood’s most well-remembered and quotable role, in the film that launched the “rogue cop” genre: Dirty Harry (1971). Be sure to come back and check that one out, as well as the rest of our 7 essential Clint Eastwood movies for this month’s Spotlight Series!
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Welcome back for the second monthly Spotlight Series from ItsJustAwesome.com! This week, to honor his birthday on May 31st, we’ll be reviewing 7 essential films starring everybody’s favorite outlaw: the inimitable Clint Eastwood.
Kicking things off in style, today we’ll be discussing one of Eastwood’s most iconic roles in the Sergio Leone classic, The Good, the Bad & the Ugly (1966).
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly is the third, and arguably the most famous, installment in Leone’s “Man with No Name” trilogy. Throughout the trilogy, Eastwood’s character is never named– he is identified only by nicknames others have given him. In this film, he’s referred to simply as “Blondie” by his reluctant frenemy, Tuco Ramirez (Eli Wallach). Don’t let that fool you; what he lacks in personal identification and elaborate backstory, Blondie via Eastwood embodies a new kind of American cowboy. He is the clear protagonist of the story, but he is somewhat morally ambiguous himself. Unlike many of the more common cowboy archetypes we’re accustomed to, Blondie is not necessarily goodness incarnate. It’s more like he’s good…ish. He shows himself to be compassionate towards his fellow man on more than one occasion, BUT he is also a bit of a mercenary, and has no problem with shooting first and asking questions later. It’s a fascinating combination of traits that makes Blondie much more an anti-hero than a traditional hero, and this type of role would become the trademark of Eastwood’s career.
Sergio Leone loved his sprawling, Western epics, and GBU is no exception. Clocking in at a whopping 2 hours and 58 minutes, this is not a brief film. It manages, however, to captivate the viewer’s interest right from the opening credits, aided spectacularly by an amazing original score from Ennio Morricone. Truly, this movie has one of the best, most iconic scores of all time–right up there with The Godfather, Gone with the Wind, The Third Man, and basically everything penned by John Williams. The music is almost a character in and of itself, and it supports the rest of the film with unforgettable panache. Listen to the clip below, and I guarantee you’ll immediately recognize the main theme, even if you haven’t seen the actual movie:
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly is set against a backdrop of the American Civil War, and focuses on the tenuous partnership between Tuco (the “Ugly”) and Blondie (the “Good”), who each possess one half of a secret. Before dying, a fugitive named Bill Carson bequeaths an enormous cache of stolen Confederate gold to Tuco (a tidy sum of $2,000), which he has buried somewhere in the desert. Unfortunately for Tuco, Carson only tells him one piece of the puzzle to the gold’s location– he tells Blondie the other. Realizing that neither of the two outlaws will be able to find the gold without the other, they warily strike up an alliance. Along the way, they encounter a brutal, sociopathic Union officer known as Angel Eyes (the “Bad”, played by Lee Van Cleef), who is also attempting to track down Carson’s illicit fortune. Tensions mount as the bizarre trio essentially race each other to the remote cemetery where the gold is buried, culminating in a three-way duel and one of the best movie endings I can recall seeing in quite some time.
This is a great movie, despite some minor stylistic quirks inherent to Spaghetti Westerns. For instance, because it was filmed in Spain and Italy with mostly non-English-speaking actors, much of the dialogue is actually dubbed over in English. It’s a bit jarring at first, but surprisingly it doesn’t really bother you for long. The story, the cinematography, the Ennio Morricone score, and even the gunfighting scenes are all so well-done that it’s easy to let yourself get sucked into Leone’s world, forgetting all about the weird dubbing.
It goes without saying that Eastwood’s performance here is a classic…but I’ll say it anyway, because it is. His trademarks are all there: the squint (apparently a sexy, sexy byproduct of his horse allergy mixed with the ever-present cigarillo), the laconic wit, the gravelly voice, the quiet confidence. Eli Wallach does chew his share of scenery as Tuco Ramirez, but it’s Eastwood’s picture from the get-go. If you haven’t already, check this movie out– it’s a much snappier take on the Western, and it’s easy to see why the “Man with No Name” trilogy is credited with reinvigorating the entire genre.
Tomorrow, I’ll be back again with Eastwood’s first foray into the world of directing: Play Misty For Me (1971). Be sure to join me for that one, because who would want to miss Eastwood dodging the knife-waving antics of a deranged Jessica Walter?!
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Welcome back! For Day 6 of our Marlon Brando spotlight series, we’ll be talking about the racy, NC-17 film from director Bernardo Bertolucci: Last Tango in Paris (1972).
You may be wondering why a movie we’ve named as one of Brando’s 7 most essential would garner a measly two-star rating from me (which is a fair question). In my defense, I found this film is incredibly difficult to rate. I think it deserves to be included in the list for its sheer infamy, and because Brando’s acting really does sear itself onto the back of your brain here. AND YET.
I have to be honest– I kind of hate this movie. Hate may be too strong a word, but I just…don’t get its appeal. Yes, I understand that Bertolucci is known for his raw, voyeuristic shooting style, and that there’s something to be said for the uniqueness and gutsiness of the concept. I can even appreciate the artfulness of it (though whether it is “high art” or “low art”, I am still unsure). But, those things aside, it’s just gross. Not in a prudish, “gasp, they’re naked!” kind of way, either; it’s legitimately disturbing. Unspeakable, butter-related moments aside (I don’t know if I can even bring myself to comment directly on that), the relationship between Paul and Jeanne is just plain abusive. Brando, as usual, gives a bold performance filled with gravitas and gusto, but I loathe his character.
But let me back up. Paul (Brando), an American expatriate living in Paris, finds himself swimming in rage and confusion after the tragic suicide of his wife, Rosa. She’s left him utterly alone, struggling with the knowledge of her previous affair with a man living in their hotel. They seem to have had, at best, an unconventional marriage, but in the wake of Rosa’s death, Paul is so shaken that he seems to blame all of womankind for his wife’s transgressions. This is one of the aspects I do appreciate about Last Tango— Brando pours himself into the role, as he always does, and it’s really quite chilling. Excuse for his actions or not, this is a sad, sad person. It is at this point, during the height of his depression, that Paul encounters a young Parisienne (about 25 years his junior), Jeanne, with whom he strikes up an immediate, carnal relationship.
I have to admit, Brando still looks great in this movie, despite pushing 50 and being so much older than his female co-star (Maria Schneider). At first, you can understand why Jeanne would be magnetically attracted to Paul– he’s sexy, he’s mysterious, and then there’s the Florence Nightingale-flavored desire to be the balm for his tortured soul. So, I get it. I really do. BUT it’s at this point that the film starts to lose me.
By the way, Jeanne is engaged to an extremely goofy, aspiring filmmaker. I don’t even remember what his name is, and I’m not going to bother looking it up because he’s such a blip on the plot radar. Clearly, he’s the kind of weak romantic rival that is supposed to make us sympathetic to the fact that she’s cheating on him with Brando. “Who wouldn’t?”, they imply. “His biceps are so scrawny!”, says Bertolucci.
At any rate, it’s just awkward. Whatshisname is shooting some kind of strange, ambiguous biopic about Jeanne– an idea which she could not be less into. There are so many scenes where he’s chasing her around a shrubbery, or dramatically following her as she traipses, listless, through an empty apartment. To me, the movie could have easily been solely about Jeanne and Paul (there is more than enough conflict to spare), and The Fiancé wouldn’t have been needed at all. But, I digress.
As Jeanne silently confronts her sexual dissatisfaction with Monsieur Filmmaker, she is presented with his polar opposite in Paul/Brando. The perhaps too-virile Paul tells her repeatedly that their relationship will based exclusively on sex. They will meet in this dingy apartment, they will hop on the good foot and do the bad thing, and they will UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES reveal their names, or anything personal, to each other. It’s hypocrisy at its finest, because 20 seconds after shrieking at Jeanne for accidentally mentioning something about HER childhood, Paul launches into a five-minute monologue about his OWN childhood. He yells at her, he shoves her naked body onto the revolting mattress; he so clearly uses her as a physical outlet for his own pain. He doesn’t want to hear what she has to say, he doesn’t want to venture outside the apartment together, but he DOES want her available to serve as the vessel for his every perverted whim. He violently curses at her, and rape is a regular occurrence in their “relationship”. It’s disgusting and inexcusable, no matter what personal turmoil he’s going through.
Bertolucci tries to counter these horrifying scenes of abuse with bizarre moments of levity: Brando and Schneider cackle and caper around the room like patients of an insane asylum. They make zoo animal noises to each other, and we get the distinct sense that it’s supposed to be funny and heartwarming. Maybe it is for some, but it didn’t land at all for me– it just comes across as weird and uncomfortable.
So…I don’t know. I don’t know what to do with this movie. Robert Pattinson cited Last Tango in Paris as one of the films he repeatedly watched to get into the role of Edward for the Twilight series, and to that I say: You would. Before I watched this movie, I just thought he was being pretentious, but now that I’ve seen it all I can do is laugh nervously to myself.
What are your thoughts about Last Tango? Do you agree? Disagree? I’d love for you to let me know in the comments below.
Tomorrow, we will be closing out our Brando spotlight series with a review from Micah on the wartime classic, Apocalypse Now (1979). Be sure to check that one out, and stay tuned for more Spotlight Classics at ItsJustAwesome.com!!
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Welcome back for Day 4 of our Marlon Brando spotlight series! Today we’ll be talking about one of my favorite movies, the film that earned Brando his first Oscar win: Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront (1954).
I waxed on about the merits of A Streetcar Named Desire in Day 1 (another Kazan/Brando pairing–clearly they knew how to complement each other’s strengths) and Waterfront is just as good, albeit for different reasons.
In a role completely different from the hot-headed Stanley Kowalski, Brando’s Terry Malloy is quiet, introspective, and only fights when he’s pushed to his limits. Malloy is a former boxer, and was largely “sponsored” in his short career by the shady dealings of his older brother, Charlie The Gent, and the corrupt boss of the dock-worker’s union (laughably nicknamed Johnny Friendly). Charlie is Friendly’s right-hand man, and together the duo controls the cash flow of imports/exports along the waterfront. As the story unfolds, we learn that Malloy’s boxing career was incredibly promising until Charlie and Friendly started paying him to take dives in his fights. Friendly’s greed is limitless, and unfortunately, what Friendly wants, Friendly gets. You’ve all probably heard some portion of Brando’s “I coulda had class, I coulda been a contender!” speech (*chills*), chastising Charlie for choosing Friendly over family. As a result of the mob’s betting, Malloy’s rising talent is wasted and he resigns himself to working on the waterfront as a longshoreman: bitter and alone.
Despite his own personal misgivings, Malloy can’t seem to shake the influence of Friendly and the mob. They essentially run the town, and particularly with his brother’s lofty position in the ranks, Malloy remains a reluctant participant in their schemes. To that effect, the film opens with Malloy unwittingly leading a young longshoreman, Joey, to his death at the hands of Friendly’s flunkies. He thinks they merely plan to rough Joey up a bit (to keep him from testifying to the group’s unsavory activities in court), but much to his horror, Joey is pushed from the rooftop in cold blood.
While he’s still processing his own role in the murder, Malloy meets Joey’s sister, Edie (played touchingly by Eva Marie-Saint). This is a turning point for him, and while the “I coulda been a contender!” speech is indeed fantastic, I think the best part of the movie for me is the burgeoning on-screen relationship between Brando and Saint. One of my favorite classic movie bloggers, Anne Helen Petersen, perfectly describes the change that comes over Edie during the course of the movie: “A woman made of Catholicism, shrillness, pointy edges, and buttoned up jackets becomes sexy before our eyes. Part of the transformation can be credited to good directing, lighting, costuming, etc., but as Brando falls in love with her, the way he looks at her — all lusty with those eyelids that fold over on themselves — somehow becomes the way we look at her.” It’s SO true, and you can see a glimpse of the transformation in the clip below:
Brando’s friendship and tender attentions soften her, and while they don’t diminish her thirst for justice on her brother’s behalf, they do open her eyes to the fact that situations in life are rarely black and white.
With the help of Edie and a local priest named Father Barry (Karl Malden, who also co-starred with Brando in Streetcar), Malloy finally gathers the grit and the courage he’s needed to take on Friendly’s organization. He knows the cost of such an action, but he’s come too far to turn back now–redemption awaits by doing the right thing.
The final scene of this movie is one of the most powerful in all of cinema, and makes On the Waterfront a must-see classic (along with, you know, all the other amazing things about it). If you haven’t come across it before, seek it out. Now. Today. Right this minute. It’s one of Brando’s absolute best, and exemplifies the subtle, emotive acting that made him such a one-in-a-million star.
Tomorrow, Charles will be reviewing another stone-cold classic: Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972). I can already hear the mandolins. Don’t miss it!
The post Day 4: On the Waterfront (1954) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>
On this day in history, screen legend Marlon Brando was born. The world didn’t know it then, but here was a man (/baby) who would shake up Hollywood to such an extent that the “rules” for what constituted a performance would never be the same. Brando didn’t care two figs about what was expected socially or professionally– he wore dirty jeans instead of then-fashionable high-waisted trousers, had three children with his housekeeper, bought a South Pacific island (?!)…the list goes on. In other words, he charted his own path, and steamrolled through the studio system like the bull-in-a-china-shop that he was. In later years, his hubris and laissez-faire attitude about his health and professional relationships would cause his star to dim a bit, but none of that can take away from the genius of his work.
To celebrate the life and impact of such an American movie icon, we at ItsJustAwesome decided to dedicate an entire week to reviewing (what we consider to be) his 7 most essential films. Today, on Day 1, we’ll be talking about one of Brando’s earliest triumphs: Elia Kazan’s take on the Tennessee Williams play, A Streetcar Named Desire (1951).
Aptly named, Streetcar is a sultry, sticky, bourbon-soaked doozy of a film. You can practically feel the stifling heat rising off the pavement of The Quarter, as bawdy New Orleans jazz floats through the open window of the apartment where Blanche and Stanley circle one another like cage fighters. Gone are the moonlight and magnolias of earlier Southern films like Gone With the Wind and Jezebel—Streetcar is an onion of emotional and psychological traumas, and it’s not until the final scene that we realize just how many layers must be peeled away and tearfully dissected to reach the core. Nobody can pen a seedy, disturbing family drama quite like Tennessee Williams, and, if nothing else, his story makes you thankful that you have the family you do.
This is an incredible movie, there’s no question about it. It won 4 Oscars, and was nominated for another 8. Vivien Leigh is pitch-perfect in her role as the emotionally fragile, high-minded Blanche DuBois, and she absolutely deserved her Best Actress win. If you ask me, Brando should have won for his explosive performance as Stanley Kowalski as well (sorry, Humphrey, I still love you–and The African Queen), but alas, it was not his time yet.
The film opens with Blanche arriving in New Orleans, by way of the titular streetcar named Desire. She has taken a leave of absence from her job as a high school English teacher in Auriol, Mississippi, and plans to stay in The Big Easy with her sister Stella…indefinitely. Unfortunately for Blanche, she knows nothing of Stella’s living situation before she arrives in town– or of Stella’s husband, Stanley, for that matter. As we’re caressed by a decadent horn soundtrack, we see the city of New Orleans through Blanche’s eyes: torrid, dirty, baked in sin. The aristocratic Blanche is horrified even further when she sees Stella’s graceless, ground-floor apartment in the the French Quarter. She can’t fathom why her sister would live in such a place, until she meets the equally graceless, animalistic Stanley.
Enter a sweat-soaked, T-shirt-clad Marlon Brando. Brando’s Stanley Kowalski is brutish, bull-headed, volatile…but DAMN, is he sexy. I say this because, not only is it difficult to deny as a person with eyes and the ability to see, but it is also integral to understanding the hypnotic hold he has on Stella. He shoves people around, rips his clothes under the agony of his own emotions, hurls dishes against the wall (“Oh, Stanley has always smashed things”); he’ll be tender and caressing one minute, then savagely dangerous the next. Yet, Stella has no interest in leaving him. She is utterly mesmerized by the magnitude of his sex appeal, and powerless to resist her own desire for him. This photo pretty much says it all:
In one of many examples of Streetcar‘s excellent dialogue, Blanche gets up the gumption to comment on Stella’s abusive relationship:
Blanche: You’re married to a madman.
Stella: I wish you’d stop taking it for granted that I’m in something I want to get out of.
Blanche: What you are talking about is desire– just brutal Desire. The name of that rattle-trap streetcar that bangs through the Quarter, up one old narrow street and down another.
Stella: Haven’t you ever ridden on that streetcar?
Blanche: It brought me here. Where I’m not wanted and where I’m ashamed to be.
Stella: Don’t you think your superior attitude is a little out of place?
Blanche: May I speak plainly? If you’ll forgive me, he’s common. He’s like an animal. He has an animal’s habits. There’s even something subhuman about him. Thousands of years have passed him right by, and there he is. Stanley Kowalski, survivor of the Stone Age, bearing the raw meat home from the kill in the jungle. And you– you here waiting for him. Maybe he’ll strike you or maybe grunt and kiss you, that’s if kisses have been discovered yet. His “poker night”, you call it. This party of apes.
Therein lies the central conflict of the movie. Blanche is immune to Stanley’s charms (if they can be called that), and sees him for the brute that he is. On the other hand, Stanley also sees through the carefully-crafted backstory that Blanche has invented for herself. She’s clearly hiding the true reasons she has for being in New Orleans, and he won’t rest until he has brought them into the light. At first, the cracks in her story seem innocent enough, but as time wears on and the threat of discovery looms, Blanche’s neuroses become more and more apparent. Stella, in dismay, finds herself torn between defending her husband’s actions and protecting her sister’s fragile grip on reality.
Again, this is a fantastic movie. The one con for me personally is that it feels very much like a play at times (which I guess it should, because it is), and I’m not always in the mood to watch that type of film. With that said, however, I do revisit this gem every 1-2 years, and it gets me every time. The performances from everyone involved give me chills, but I think my eyeballs would need to be surgically removed from the screen during any scene with Brando. It’s no wonder at all that this became one of the most iconic roles of his career–it’s a truly unforgettable performance.
Tomorrow, Brando trades a T-shirt for a toga in his performance as Mark Antony in Julius Caesar (1953). Be sure to come back for Charles’ review on that one, as well as the rest of our Brando reviews this week at ItsJustAwesome.com!!
The post Day 1: A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>Is it in the same league as It’s A Wonderful Life or Miracle on 34th Street? No, of course not. It’s silly, it’s zany, and it’s more than a little outrageous…yet this is a movie that is close to my heart. I usually have to be in the right mood to watch something in the Chevy Chase/Steve Martin/John Candy slapstick oeuvre, but I think I could watch Christmas Vacation just about any time. Go figure. Maybe it’s the additional influence of John Hughes’ writing, or the presence of Beverly D’Angelo and the rest of this specific supporting cast, but regardless: this movie makes me happy.
This is the third installment in the National Lampoon’s Vacation series, and starry-eyed Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) is back at it again with his idealistic dreams of the perfect family holiday. This time, however, his expectations seem slightly more attainable– rather than trying to trek across the country (or Europe, for that matter), all he wants is for his family to enjoy a fun, good-ol-fashioned Christmas at home together. Unfortunately for Clark, even that simple goal seems to slip further and further out of reach with one piece of bad luck after another. The tree (which, in direct proportion to Clark’s grandiose ideas about what family gatherings should be, is so “full” that it can’t be contained even by the walls of the house) shatters several windowpanes when released from its bindings, extended family descends upon the Griswolds from all sides, and Clark’s expected company bonus is mysteriously absent. Add to this a few more Chevy Chase-ian mishaps (i.e. falling off/through numerous surfaces, and the meticulous installation of 25,000 twinkle lights–none of which seem to want to work), and Clark finds himself at the end of his rapidly-fraying emotional rope.
Thankfully, though, Clark and the Griswolds DO get their joyful family Christmas in the end (even if there are a few more dead cats and sewer explosions than they bargained for).
I’d wager that when most people think of this movie, they think of Clark’s obsession with the twinkle lights, or Cousin Eddie cutting back on his squirrel consumption because it’s “too high in cholesterol”. It’s true that those scenes are both funny and memorable, but the scene that always sticks with me the most is when Clark accidentally gets trapped in his attic. He gets conked in the head by several loose floorboards, as well as having to don his mother’s mink wrap and gloves to stay warm, but then something unexpected happens. In the middle of all this successful slapstick comedy, he finds an old film reel of Christmas memories from his childhood. Sitting in the floor of his drafty attic, dressed in women’s clothing, Clark watches the reel as Ray Charles croons “The Spirit of Christmas” in the background. Suddenly, we’re not laughing anymore. We see Clark’s eyes misting up (and if you’re me, and you get emotional over Folger’s coffee commercials at Christmas time, your eyes start to mist up as well), and it becomes all too clear what his desperate holiday antics have been trying to recreate. It’s such a powerful scene. Here is a person who, unlike so many of us, has never lost his grasp on how magical the Christmas season can be– even when he’s engrossed in seemingly insignificant minutia, like his 25,000 decorative twinkle lights, it’s all in service of making the holiday special for his family. He wants them to have the same warm memories that he has of Christmas, and at the end of the day, I think that’s what makes the movie so relatable. Yes, it’s a comedy, so everything is exaggerated to the Nth degree. But really, we’ve all been through a semi-dysfunctional family Christmas where you think everything is going to be covered in pillowy snow, pearls, and the dulcet tones of Bing Crosby…and the reality is that your cousin Kurtis stands too close to a candle and lights his sweatshirt on fire.
It’s very nearly impossible to create a “perfect” Christmas for yourself and your family, but none of us will ever stop trying. To me, that’s part of the fun of the season–the memories we make, and the stories we accumulate, while celebrating each other and doing the best we can.
Tomorrow, Micah takes the wheel to review another family classic: Home Alone (1990). Be sure to come back for that one, as well as the last few days of our 12 Days of Christmas review series!!
The post Day 9: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>Santa Claus (1959), directed by Rene Cardona, is quite possibly the worst movie ever made. It has 2.4 stars on IMDb…NOT EVEN TWO AND A HALF STARS, people! We are morbidly, unaccountably obsessed with it at IJA, and have cried tears of mirth (on more than one occasion) while discussing it on our podcast. As such, I thought we could escape its siren call this year, but alas, I drew the short straw and it looks like the task of finding a way to review it in a written format shall fall to me.
It’s…I…I legitimately don’t know where to start. Santa is an alien? He’s friends with Merlin? There’s a lactose-intolerant demon named Pitch who is trying to thwart Santa by corrupting the children of Mexico City? You tell me.
I guess we’ll start with the basics. This was originally a Spanish language film, but the copy we’ve all seen at IJA is the dubbed-over English version. I’m not sure if the producers didn’t quite have the budget to pull it off, or if they just didn’t care about the English version enough to devote more time to its creation, but the result is laughably absurd. The horrible dubbing and bizarre voiceovers work in tandem to set an incredibly low bar, right from the opening sequence (which, by the way, is a ten minute head-scratcher of Santa just pumping his arms up and down on the organ and listing the countries of the world).
On top of the hashed-together quality, the storyline makes NO SENSE. In this version of the Santa legend, Saint Nick isn’t a magical human or an elf, but is instead a festive, jolly alien who spends 364 days a year circling the planet in his wintry spacecraft. He also has several helper children aboard the ship, all from different and specifically-mentioned countries, but then later we start to wonder if they might actually be aliens as well (they have no idea what Earth customs are or what humans eat). Basically, the story boasts more plot holes than I would have thought possible for a movie that made it all the way through production, and it’s kind of hilarious how glaring most of them are. If we were to discuss all the gaps and oddities in detail here, however, this review would be 78 pages long. So, I guess I will refrain. But…wow.
Santa’s main mission throughout this gem of a film is, of course, to fly down to Earth on Christmas via his animatronic reindeer sled. In addition to these creeptastic deer-bots that he winds up with The World’s Largest Key, Santa has a few other tricks up his sleeve as well. Courtesy of his friend Merlin the magician (?!), Santa can harness the powers of an Invisibility Flower, some Dream Dust, and a vibrating, waistline-reducing, workout belt that I can only assume he or Merlin bought from a space infomercial at 3 a.m. Seriously. All of these things are real in the movie. Unfortunately for Santa, his gift delivery process is impeded by the antics of Pitch–one of Satan’s minions, who has been threatened with chocolate ice cream if he fails to corrupt enough children to keep Santa from giving out presents (yep, that’s real also).
It’s a weird, awful, train wreck of a movie. Oddly enough, I think Santa Claus would have made a better stage production. It reminds me in many ways of a nightmarish Nutcracker ballet, and I wonder what could have been done to that end with the right director and budget. The costumes (Pitch is dressed in a spandex/Shakespearean pantaloon combo throughout), the song and dance numbers, and the theatrics in general all lend themselves much more to a ballet than a film, if you ask me. It will probably never happen, and it likely shouldn’t, but if Santa Claus ever DID make it to the stage…I have to say, I’d be intrigued. Hamilton happened, so the sky is apparently the limit with what can be successful on Broadway!
Tomorrow, be sure to join Micah for Day 5 of the 12 Days of Christmas series, as he reviews A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965). Now that we’ve gotten Santa Claus out of the way, things can only go up from here!!
The post Day 4: Santa Claus (1959) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>This timeless, Christmas classic is a movie that is appropriate to watch all year long, because it’s really not about Christmas. It is, however, about many aspects of the human experience that we all reflect on a bit more during the holiday season. It’s about family dynamics, the karmic wonderment of selfless deeds being repaid, compassion for your fellow man…the list goes on. Frank Capra is often known for the unabashed and over-the-top wielding of sentiment in his films, but It’s a Wonderful Life tugs on your heartstrings in all the right ways.
In an “aw shucks” casting match made in heaven, Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed (#Pearlz4Dayz) star as sweethearts George Bailey and Mary Hatch. The story mainly follows George as he grows from boy to man in the small town of Bedford Falls; Mary, too, is an integral part of both the story and George’s happiness. As their life together unfolds, we see that George is a very special person with a tender heart. He saves his brother from a deadly fall through thin ice, stops a bereaved pharmacist from accidentally pouring poison into pill capsules instead of medicine, and takes over his father’s struggling Building & Loan company even though it means putting his own college dreams on hold. Time and time again, George thinks of others before himself, but a lifetime of doing so eventually starts to wear him down.
He becomes frustrated that despite his best efforts, his family lives in a drafty house and has so little money with which to make ends meet. Meanwhile, the power-hungry Mr. Potter (who has Bedford Falls squarely in his pocket) makes money hand-over-fist by exploiting the townspeople George fights so hard to take care of. He feels defeated, insignificant, and crushed beneath the weight of a world that’s moving too quickly to appreciate him. When his uncle misplaces a large sum of money needed to balance their business accounts, George finally loses any shred of hope he had left, and believes he is worth more to his family dead than alive. He goes to a nearby bridge to jump, thinking that his debts can at least be wiped clean with his life insurance policy, but he is stopped by the appearance of his guardian angel, Clarence. George is skeptical at first, but Clarence is able to show him the life his family and friends would have had if he had never been born (suffice it to say that their Georgeless lives are much worse). Much to his surprise, George realizes just how much of an impact he has had on everyone he knows, and he urges Clarence to let him go back to living again.
It’s a Wonderful Life has been parodied and referenced frequently in pop culture over the years, but it’s impressive how well the film holds up today. There is great acting all around, and I defy you not to tear up a little when the citizens of Bedford Falls come out en masse to show George how much his friendship has meant to them. If you remain stone-faced during this final scene, I think you might be dead inside…and we probably can’t be friends anymore.
Even during the dark times, it is indeed a wonderful life, and this is a wonderful movie.
Tomorrow, be sure to join us again for Day 2 of our 12 Days of Christmas series! Charles will be reviewing another beloved family classic: Miracle on 34th Street (1947). You won’t want to miss it!
The post Day 1: It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>I first saw this movie about 4 years ago, when my friend craftily talked me into watching it by taking advantage of my deep and abiding love for Sarah Michelle Gellar (there is no greater Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan than yours truly). In retrospect, I’m still a little surprised that I allowed myself to be hoodwinked in this manner, but I had convinced myself at the time that all adults should be able to watch scary movies. I have since abandoned that notion, as the years have proven that watching scary ghost movies never works out well for me. They absolutely always keep me up at night. On the evening in question, however, I foolishly thought maybe this time will be different!, even though I knew, KNEW, that it wouldn’t.
The always-hilarious Allie Brosh of Hyperbole and a Half says it best in her blog post about Expectations vs. Reality. The entire post is fantastic, but these two sentences resonate particularly strongly with my Grudge-watching experience:
“Immediately after I turned off the TV, a feeling of apprehension welled up inside of me. I could feel my psyche organizing what I had just seen into a highlight reel that will be freely embellished by my own imagination and then called upon to torture me for the rest of my life.”
So. True. While I was actually watching the movie, I was fairly proud of myself for how well I was handling it. The Grudge isn’t what I’d call a great film (a theory supported by its meager 5.9 stars on IMDb), so it was easy enough to write off what was happening on screen as being silly or unexplained while it was unfolding before me. But the visuals, you guys. THE VISUALS! That’s what gets me about this movie. The visuals are ridiculously disturbing, and they spring unbidden into my brain every time I close my eyes. Even my sweet, adorable dog, who follows me wherever I go, looked at me from a weird angle just now and made me want to run screaming from the room. So, despite some story-related weaknesses, it is creepy AF and just thinking about it makes every hair on the back of my neck stand up. Any time demon/ghost children are involved, or bloody spirits are crab-walking across the ceiling and making otherworldly creaking sounds, just…nope. Nope, nope, nope.
Instead of ending on that awful note, I will leave you with this fake Saturday Night Live commercial (starring Kristen Wiig, and drawing inspiration from both The Grudge and The Ring):
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/new-disney-show/n36749
Tomorrow, Charles will be reviewing the movie [Rec] from 2007. Be sure to come back and check it out–we’re in the final stretch of 31 Days of Horror!!
The post Day 27: The Grudge (2004) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>I have to say: I’m not a big fan of this movie. I realize that this will be perceived by many as blasphemy (sorry, Charles and Micah…and Mike…and the rest of planet Earth), but I have a sneaking suspicion that I might just not be that into John Carpenter films. They are interesting, and revolutionary, and blah blah blah. The only one I can remember actually liking, however, is Halloween, and I even have certain beefs with that! It is admittedly a classic, and helped to pave the way for the Slasher genre…but I digress.
In the Mouth of Madness = thumbs down in my book.
The movie stars Sam Neill (in his best attempt to be Pierce Brosnan) as John Trent, an insurance investigator who believes he smells something fishy about the disappearance of superstar horror author, Sutter Cane. The script both pokes fun at, and pays homage to, the success of Stephen King–a man who has achieved tremendous acclaim by understanding that what most people want, beyond the incomprehensible phenomenon of 50 Shades of Grey, is to poop their pants in fright.
As Trent investigates Cane’s mysterious vanishing act, he enlists (read: is forced to accept) the help of his terrible Girl Friday, Linda Styles (played by a hopelessly lackluster Julie Carmen). Styles is Cane’s editor, as well as a fervent champion of the author’s work, and she assures Trent that Cane’s disappearance is no orchestrated PR stunt. As the pair wend their way through the creepily quaint town of Hobb’s End, Styles and Trent begin to realize that certain aspects of Cane’s novels are coming to life around them. To go a step farther, they believe that the entire TOWN has been forged from the sinister depths of Sutter Cane’s mind, and anybody foolish enough to remain will surely be a page-bound prisoner forevermore.
As the movie stares down one eerie rabbit hole after another, we are given to understand that anybody who reads Sutter Cane’s novels (or sees the movie adaptations) goes stark raving mad. There are some interesting things said here about our perception of reality, sanity, and what is normal…but it’s not enough to carry the film for me. It’s too weird.
That’s the word I keep circling back to: W-E-I-R-D. I’m trying to think of other things to say about the movie, or other ways I could possibly describe it, but that’s the word that continually springs to mind. In the Mouth of Madness is not bad, necessarily, it’s just freakin’ weird. I don’t recommend it, as I feel you probably have better things to do with your time; but it could be worth it if you’ve, say, just ingested a boatload of hallucinogenic mushrooms and are currently contemplating how crazy hands are.
Tomorrow, Charles will be reviewing a little film called Ringu (1998), which gives me the willies to even type. So, you’ll definitely want to come back for that one. In the mean time, be sure to catch up on any 31 Days of Horror movies you might have missed, and stay tuned for our final week!!
The post Day 24: In the Mouth of Madness (1994) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>Today we will be talking about Bernard Rose’s 1992 slasher, Candyman.
First of all, I really enjoyed this movie. I wasn’t sure if I would, given that most scary movies past the year 1990 creep me out extensively. Candyman is indeed creepy–there are some excellent jump scares and chilling effects–but it effectively toes the line between scaring me in the moment and giving me nightmares later.
The story begins with graduate students Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen) and Bernadette Walsh (Kasi Lemmons) conducting research interviews on urban legend for their thesis. The two friends gather all kinds of material from their undergraduate interview subjects, but most intriguing is a lead on what appears to be a real-life perpetrator of the “candyman” legend. Cabrini Green, a nearby Chicago housing project, has been the site of several recent, grisly murders–murders committed by a man with a hook, who appears to have come through the walls to slash apart his unsuspecting victims. Even more compelling is the fact that the residents of Cabrini Green genuinely believe that the murders were committed by the spooky, supernatural candyman, not just a flesh and blood man impersonating him.
Meanwhile, Helen is a skeptic (Bernadette is a little less so), and she continues to poke around Cabrini Green in an academic quest for answers. In so doing, she incurs the wrath of the candyman, and becomes a victim of both physical and psychological torment. There are some pretty disturbing scenes in this movie, and Bernard Rose does not shy away from gore when the situation calls for it.
Perhaps the strongest element of the film is Virginia Madsen’s performance. Madsen is classically gorgeous, and the filmmakers find creative ways to highlight that beauty through lighting and shot setup. It lends a very ethereal quality to the film, which I think supports the supernatural tilt of the story. Visuals aside, her character is an interesting combination of qualities that you don’t often see in female horror roles. She’s strong, she’s tough, she’s no-nonsense…but she’s also vulnerable and not immune to the terrors unfolding around her. Usually, in films like these, women seem to fall at one end of the spectrum or the other. In Candyman, though, Madsen is both the heroine and the victim, which I find fascinating.
Unfortunately, much like The Fly, I think Candyman has a significantly stronger first half than second. The beginning immediately reeled me in, and I was invested in the research that Helen and Bernadette were undertaking. I thought it was going to be a suspenseful thriller about a psychopath taking advantage of local belief in urban legend, but instead, we’re given a movie that can’t make up its mind about what it wants to be. (*SPOILERS AHEAD*) Is the candyman corporeal? I’m still not sure. He doesn’t show up on the hospital video feed, but he’s able to alter his physical surroundings time and time again (mostly to implicate Helen for his horrifying deeds). He’s also able to be killed…so does that mean he was formerly alive? There isn’t really an explanation for why Helen’s actions at the bonfire would work, so it just leaves you confused. I do like the final scene of the movie where Helen, as the new candyman, exacts her long-overdue revenge…but why would she have become the new candyman in the first place? After she’s killed the original, why wouldn’t it end there? The way the second half is handled isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I do think they missed an opportunity to take the film in a stronger direction.
With so many of these horror movies, I get the sense that maybe they’re TRYING to confuse and befuddle– and if that’s the case, well done, filmmakers. At times it just feels lazy to me, though. It’s a way to not have to wrap anything up, and to get away with cramming in whatever odd plot tangents they feel like making. It may just be a matter of personal preference, but I prefer stories to have tidier endings. Or, at least, to have purposeful cliffhangers. I find all this “it’s whatever you want it to mean!” stuff to be a little unsatisfying.
Overall, though, I did really like this movie. The art of it is extremely well executed, and the acting is great. You can check it out on Netflix DVD, and I hope you’ll let me know what YOU think about the ending!
Tomorrow, join me again as I review John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness (1994). You won’t want to miss it!!
The post Day 23: Candyman (1992) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis star in this one, and I’ll go ahead and preface my review by saying that I have not seen the original version from the ’50s. Therefore, this won’t be a comparison between the two, and any thoughts regarding the 1986 version won’t reflect positive or negative changes from the other.
With that said, I enjoyed this movie. Jeff Goldblum was a great choice to play Seth Brundle, as he fits the nerdy-but-lovable scientist mold quite well. I guess I’d never seen him in anything as early as this, though, because I had no idea his teeth were so weird. He must have had them fixed afterward, but in this movie they lend even more of a fly-like quality to pre-Brundlefly Goldblum.
Before we get into the nitty gritty, let’s do a quick synopsis:
Seth Brundle is working to pioneer a scientific concept that he believes will change the world as we know it: teleportation. He has managed to procure funding for his laboratory and experiments, but his benefactors don’t fully know what he is up to. He wants to perfect the process first, then blow the lid off the scientific community with his model of disintegration/reintegration. At first, Brundle is only able to transport inanimate objects within his pod system, but the tables turn when he meets saucy journalist, Veronica (Geena Davis). The two are instantly swept up in a whirlwind romance (complete with awkward comments about being “driven crazy” by flesh, which somehow provide Brundle with a Eureka moment as to how he might begin to teleport living matter).
Trouble brews in paradise, however, when inappropriate interferences from Veronica’s boss cause Brundle to become jealous and doubt her commitment. He attempts to drown his sorrows in champagne one night, and, awash in self-pity and lowered inhibitions, he steps into the teleportation pod himself. Unfortunately for Brundle, a fly also sneaks into the pod without his knowledge, and the computer system mistakenly fuses their DNA. As the rest of the film unfolds, strange physical and psychological changes start to overtake Brundle, and he becomes a horrifying hybrid between man and fly.
This movie has a much stronger first half than second; once Brundle plunges into the more gruesome aspects of fly fusion, things start to go off the rails for me. Personally, I wish he had either turned into MORE of a fly, or less of one. As it is, Brundle just looks like a gooey burn victim (with shades of The Thing from Fantastic Four). He does have the course insect hairs sprouting from various parts of his body, and he does use the disgusting acid-vomit thing to break down his “food”…but aside from that, there isn’t much to distinguish him as a fly. He doesn’t have wings, he doesn’t have kaleidoscope eyes–he just looks gross. Cronenberg IS known for embracing weirdness and going down questionable roads in his movies, so maybe that was what he was trying to do here. Who knows. Either way, I feel like the transformation scenes could have been a little more successful, and I really don’t like the Lifetime-esque, “I’m pregnant with a monster’s baby!” angle that they force into the ending. It’s just too much.
Overall, I’d call this a decent movie that could have been better. It makes me want to go back and watch Vincent Price’s original version, and see how the two stack up. I do think a lot of the elements Cronenberg employs in this version could/would not have been used in the ’50s, so I’m curious as to how they might differ. One way to find out!
Tomorrow, join me again as I review Bernard Rose’s Candyman (1992) to kick off the 1990s. If you haven’t already, be sure to go back and catch up on any 31 Days of Horror reviews that you might have missed, and keep on comin’ back for more as we head into the last leg of October!!
The post Day 22: The Fly (1986) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>If you’ve spent much time with me, either in person or via my internet ramblings, you know that I am in a committed relationship with Classic Hollywood. We are not exclusive, per se, but let’s face it–I’m not really interested in seeing other people. Charles may take every opportunity to rib me about my love of Barbara Stanwyck (we even did an episode about her on The Good, The Bad, and the Podcast!) and other 1940s actresses of a similar ilk, but I’m #sorrynotsorry. I’m of the firm belief that they don’t make ’em like they used to, and practically no one validates that theory more than Lauren Bacall.
(I know this isn’t strictly related to The Fan, but bear with me. I’ll get to it.)
For whatever reason, Lauren Bacall doesn’t seem to be as well-remembered today as she deserves to be. She is in certain circles, of course, but I don’t know that she’s a household name like some others from her heyday are: Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, etc. I would venture a guess that, even if you’re not a big classic movie person, you know who those people are. I don’t think a lot of people who aren’t into the classics know who Lauren Bacall is, and that’s a shame. I hope I’m wrong, but there it is.
If you haven’t seen any of her early movies, I want you to to take the next possible opportunity to watch To Have and Have Not (1944). It is one of my top 10 favorite movies of all time, and I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that it will blow your freakin’ mind. The dialogue is electric, and the chemistry between Bacall and Humphrey Bogart is the stuff of cinema legend. Take a look at the clip below, and you’ll see what I mean.
Just, wow. Bogey and Bacall went on to make 3 more movies together, all of which are great, but this one is by far my favorite. It even launched an off-screen relationship between the two stars, despite a staggering age difference (she was 19 when they met, and he was 45). Theirs was one of the few Hollywood romances that actually lasted, and they remained happily married until Bogart’s death in the late 1950s.
I suppose I’ll rein myself in now and get back to the matter at hand, but I do hope you’ll take my advice and check out some of Bacall’s other work. You won’t regret it.
So, The Fan. As you might be able to guess by this point, Lauren Bacall is my favorite thing about this movie. It’s really just an okay film, skippable in the grand scheme of things, but her performance lends enough weight to make it enjoyable if you do happen to come across it whilst channel-surfing.
Bacall stars as Sally Ross, a formerly-glamorous and still-handsome actress of 50ish, who is trying to expand her horizons by breaking onto the stage musical scene. While rehearsing for a new part, she begins to receive a steady flow of passionate letters from one Douglas Breen (Michael Biehn): her self-appointed “biggest fan”. At first, Ross isn’t even aware of the letters, because her secretary responds in her stead. The correspondence grows more and more unseemly, however, and in one racy letter Breen tells Ross that “soon they will be lovers” and he “has all the equipment to make her very, very happy”…ew.
Eventually, Breen becomes impossible to ignore. Mentally unbalanced, furious that Ross will not respond to him personally, and still convinced that they are in a mutual relationship ordained by Heaven itself, Breen commits a series of vicious attacks on Ross’s friends with a straight-razor. When she STILL will not give him the attention he craves, Breen focuses his violent wrath on Ross. If he can’t have her, neither will anybody else. DUN DUN DUN.
We’ve seen similar stories both on-screen and off. The Bodyguard, Selena, the murder of John Lennon…it’s pretty disturbing that this is the kind of thing that really happens. But despite a legitimately haunting premise, The Fan just isn’t quite as powerful as it could be. Bacall does her part, but the rest of the film is missing something–I’m not quite sure what. Even James Garner, who is usually excellent, is slightly one-dimensional here. I don’t know, I guess I just wanted more from this movie. It’s still fairly decent, but it’s better to go in with moderate to low expectations.
Tomorrow, Charles will be discussing the 1982 remake of Cat People, which should be interesting to say the least. Be sure to check that out, as well as the rest of our selections for 31 Days of Horror!!
The post Day 20: The Fan (1981) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>The Shining is based on the chilling novel by Stephen King, and it is yet another movie that has permeated pop culture to such an extent that it’s impossible not to have heard of it. Even if you haven’t seen the movie, there are certain unforgettable moments in it that I’ll wager have managed to filter into your subconscious. To name only a few:
“Heeere’s JOHNNY!”
“Red rum. Red rum. RED RUM.”
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”
“Hello, Danny. Come and play with us. Come and play with us, Danny. Forever… and ever… and ever.”
To say that this movie is iconic would be an understatement. It’s one of the scariest horror films of all time, and also one of the best. In fact, it’s probably one of my top 20 movies in general, horror or otherwise, which is saying a great deal (I’m usually a weenie about truly scary films).
Jack Nicholson stars, in one of his best-remembered roles, as Jack Torrance–a man who is slowly overtaken by forces of unspeakable evil. The film begins with Torrance accepting a position as winter caretaker of the remote Overlook Hotel, where he hopes to find the peace he needs to work on his writing. For five snowy, isolated months, he and his family will be the hotel’s only inhabitants.
At first, the Torrances enjoy the solitary quietude of the majestic Colorado mountains, but Jack’s son Danny soon begins to be haunted by gruesome premonitions. As it turns out, the Overlook has an eerie, unsavory history (to say the least): one of the previous caretakers went mad with cabin fever, and chopped his family to pieces with an axe. Through Jack’s own gradual decline into mania, and Danny’s increasingly horrifying visions, we start to suspect that the hotel itself is evil; it envelops those who enter with a dark, malignant presence.
This movie will creep the bejeezus out of you. It’s a well-executed thriller, yes, but the creepiness is magnified times ten by the stunning visuals and profoundly jarring soundtrack. There isn’t much of a standard musical score to The Shining–instead we’re given something much more terrifying. Throughout the film, a cluster of bows scrape discordantly across their violin strings, and you’re left with the sensation that you might now know what it would sound like to hear someone’s fingernails rake down the walls of Hell. That might seem like an overly dramatic description, but the noise is REALLY FREAKIN’ UNSETTLING. It’s genius, really, because it puts the viewer immediately on edge, and doesn’t release you until the movie is over.
The one thing that I find a little silly about The Shining is minor, but worth pointing out: Shelley Duvall’s cartoonish performance as Wendy Torrance. In both appearance and general movement across the screen, she is a combination of Olive Oyl, Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, and a baby gazelle. I guess it kind of works for a horror movie, but it’s just odd to see when every other aspect of the film is so serious. Anyway, even Duvall’s goofy running and limp-wristed knife waving can’t tarnish this movie for me–it’s that good.
Watch it, if you haven’t already…just don’t do so alone.
Tomorrow, be sure to come back and check out my review of 1981’s The Fan, which features the always-classy star of my heart, Lauren Bacall (To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep). Until then, it’s a great time to catch up on any 31 Days of Horror reviews that you might have missed! See you tomorrow.
The post Day 19: The Shining (1980) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>I have no idea how this is possible, but up until now, I’d managed to go my entire life without ever having seen this movie. It’s not that I purposely avoided it, but I’m not a huge extraterrestrial/space movie person–I suppose I just never got around to it. Suffice it to say that I’m glad I finally did.
Y’all, Alien has 8.5 stars on IMDb, and it earns every single one of them. Do you know what else has 8.5 stars on IMDb? Casablanca. Citizen Kane. Sunset Boulevard. We’re talking some of the most famous, beloved movies of all time. It is unequivocally a classic, and I’d go so far as to say that it deserves to be seen by everyone. If, like me, you’ve been lazy about renting it thus far: Go do it. Right now. I’ll wait.
Alien centers around a 7-person crew aboard the space merchant vessel, Nostromo. At the film’s opening, the crew is prematurely awakened from cryo-sleep when the vessel responds to an unknown transmission from a nearby moon. The transmission is automatically perceived as a distress call, and despite some dissension within the ranks about the proper protocol, Nostromo lands on the moon to investigate and lend aid. During exploration of the moon’s surface, the team encounters a nest of mysterious alien eggs, one of which spontaneously bursts open. The life-form within the burst egg proceeds to penetrate crewman Kane’s helmet, and attaches itself to his face…shudder.
Ellen Ripley, warrant officer of the Nostromo, is deeply concerned about bringing Kane back aboard the spacecraft in his current, compromised state, but the crew defy her orders and bring him aboard anyway (alien still attached to his face and all). After a brief comatose period, Kane ultimately awakens and the creature is nowhere to be found–much to the crew’s dismay. They eventually find the body of the crab-like alien, believing it dead; what they don’t realize, however, is that its life cycle has only just begun.
This movie is just fantastic. The practical effects are amazing, as is the acting from all parties involved. This was Sigourney Weaver’s first leading role, and it’s easy to see why it catapulted her into stardom. Not only did it bring Weaver personal acclaim, but her portrayal of Ripley challenged traditional gender roles in both science fiction and horror genres for years to come. Ripley is not a slinky seductress or a boring do-nothing; she doesn’t wear spandex or makeup, and she doesn’t die immediately following a sexy interlude with her hardier male co-star. In fact, she doesn’t even HAVE any sexy interludes in this movie. It’s not what she’s about. Unlike so many other leading ladies of Sci-fi and horror, she’s not defined by the man she’s helping–she is her own boss, damnit, and she gets things done. Ripley isn’t a simpering yes-woman, and at times she can be rude and abrasive. But, more importantly, she’s a PERSON: a real one. I love when movies give us leads who are flawed as well as heroic; it just rings truer for me. Perhaps this is part of the reason why the American Film Institute named Ripley the 8th greatest hero of all time. Her character feels authentic, and I stand in awe of that even after the movie is over.
As I said before: if you haven’t already seen this film, please, please seek it out. It’s heart-pounding suspense at its best, and I was quite literally on the edge of my seat for the entire second half of the movie (not to mention the goosebumps that refused to recede into my flesh until the credits finished rolling). You can find it on Netflix DVD and Amazon Video, and you will absolutely not be sorry. If nothing else, you’ll feel a little more a part of pop culture, and you’ll finally get about a zillion subsequent TV and movie references. Who can put a price on that?
Tomorrow, join me again as I review Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 classic, The Shining. I have a feeling many of you have already seen this one, so be sure to come back and see if our thoughts line up on Day 19, as well as the rest of our 31 Days of Horror!!
The post Day 18: Alien (1979) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>It’s a modern-day take on the tale of Hansel and Gretel, and Shelley Winters stars as the titular Auntie Roo. Man, poor Shelley Winters. Despite a colorful, decades-long career and numerous Oscar nominations/wins, she never seems to get to play somebody whom you actually like. To me, Winters will forever be the frumpy sad-sack, Alice Tripp, getting kinda-sorta-deservingly drowned by Montgomery Clift in A Place in the Sun. Terrible, I know, but the lady does odious, second-string broads pretty darn well. She plays a kooky weirdo yet again in Auntie Roo, although I will say that she’s much more palatable than usual here.
Something I found very interesting about the role of Rosie Forrest (aka Auntie Roo) in this movie is that she doesn’t quite fit the typical mold for Hag Horror. Yes, Ms. Winters is a formerly glamorous starlet who has been relegated to the Hollywood B Team for the unthinkable crime of aging (although she’s still not very old here, just a bit less physically fabulous), BUT the categorization of the “hags” in these films usually tilts one of two ways: A. The Predatory Older Woman, or B. The Older Woman in Peril. Sometimes, both categories will be filled in the same movie (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte), but such an occurrence is rare. Anyway, in Auntie Roo, the character of Mrs. Forrest does not really fall in either camp. She never actually intends the children any harm–they just THINK she does. Granted, she has some severe mental hangups about the death of her daughter that she absolutely needs to seek therapy for. But as far as being a Predatory Older Woman…I don’t think so.
Alas, I’m getting ahead of myself again. Synopsis time!
Every year, the widowed Mrs. Rosie Forrest hosts a lavish, lovely Christmas party at her mansion for a select group of neighborhood orphans. This particular year, a sweet and sandy-haired brother and sister (Christopher and Katy Coombs) tag along to the party, despite not being selected by their chilly headmistress to attend. Mrs. Forrest, however, is delighted by their courtly manners and innocent presence. She urges them to stay, and to call her “Auntie Roo”. She even ends up taking a particular shine to Katy, who reminds her of her own deceased daughter (also named Katharine).
As the story unfolds, we learn that the late Katharine Forrest died in a heart wrenching accident while sliding down the bannister–an accident from which Auntie Roo has never recovered. We also learn that Roo regularly “communicates” with Katharine in the form of seances, as well as singing lullabies to her daughter’s decayed corpse every night in the nursery. Eesh. There is even a scene towards the end of the movie where Roo lovingly strokes the powdery, skeletal face, only to have it disintegrate into ash between her fingers. Talk about being scarred for life.
The central conflict of the movie is that Roo (a little too tenaciously, I’ll admit) wants to adopt the orphaned Katy and keep her at the mansion as a replacement for the daughter she lost. Unfortunately for Roo, Katy’s brother Christopher is part of the deal, and he is wise to her kidnap-flavored plans (and all the creepy, corpse-related moments he has witnessed while spying on her). He and Katy manage to escape Forrest Grange unharmed, but (*spoiler alert, as indicated by the movie’s title*) the same cannot be said for Auntie Roo.
The main problem with conflating this movie with Hansel and Gretel is that a direct comparison is rather misleading. In this story, Roo is an extremely sympathetic character overall. Her actions are misinterpreted by the children (Christopher, especially), therefore they see her as a force of evil when she is really not. Unlike in the original Hansel and Gretel tale, Roo isn’t a crazy, malevolent witch who wants to snatch up wayward children in order to eat them for supper. She genuinely loves kids. She is sad, she is unbearably lonely, she is perhaps mentally unstable…but never ill-intentioned. It’s a pretty tragic story when you get right down to it, and one that may even have a darker ending than the original fairy tale.
I think I would give this one a solid B grade. Shelley Winters’ theatrics can be a little much at times, but on the whole it’s an interesting spin on a classic story, with decent scares and legitimate suspense. You can find Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? available to stream on Amazon Video–give it a chance and let me know what you think!
Tomorrow, Charles will continue our exploration of the ’70s with a review on 1975’s Deep Red. Be sure to come back to check it out, along with the rest of this month’s reviews for 31 Days of Horror!!
The post Day 16: Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1972) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>First of all, this is a weird, weird movie. There is so much symbolism, and so much psychological commentary, that it leaves the viewer unsure how to separate the real from the imagined. Even after watching, I still don’t know which aspects were exclusively happening inside the main character’s mind, and which aspects legitimately occurred. I’m certain that this is intentional on the part of Mr. Polanski, but it is a bit of a negative as well as a positive for me, personally.
The film mainly revolves around the inner anguish of innocently sensual Carol LeDoux. Carol is played by Catherine Denueve, who turns in a haunting performance as the sexually confused young woman. Something ugly in Carol’s past has clearly made her abhor men (and the idea of sex that they inherently represent), but we are not given any further insight as to the exact origins of her anxiety. Be that as it may, Carol is quite attractive (albeit a little childlike), so she finds herself fending off men’s advances at practically every turn. These repeated romantic stressors, coupled with the departure of her sister (and her sister’s lover, who is a completely separate source of consternation to Carol altogether), cause her to slowly lose her grip on reality and descend into homicidal madness. It is unsettling, to say the least.
Right from the opening credit sequence, Polanski builds an atmosphere of tense expectation– an unshakeable, claustrophobic feeling that something horrifying is about to happen. He never lets that feeling slip, either. The entire hour and forty plus minutes of the film are taut, well-paced, and highly suspenseful (even if a little confusing at times). Also contributing to the sense of anticipatory horror are the subtle, eerie sounds happening in the background of every scene: flies buzzing around the raw rabbit that Carol leaves out in the kitchen; the incessantly ticking clock; water slowly dripping from the faucet; the list goes on.
Repulsion is an extremely artistic movie, and very European in tone. The soundtrack, the heavy French accents of the two leading ladies, and the crisp black and white all contribute to the overall feeling that you’re watching a foreign film. Even the vacancy of Catherine Denueve’s Carol is reminiscent of a sad and beautiful mime. All that’s missing is a bicycle, a black turtleneck sweater, and moonlit shots of the Champs-Elysses. It may sound silly, but I actually favor these technical and mood-related aspects of the film over the story itself. I believe there is such a thing as trying too hard to make a movie open to interpretation, and in my opinion, that’s what Polanski was guilty of here.
Tomorrow, please join me again as we begin the 1970s with another entry from the “hag horror” genre: Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1971). Thanks for reading, and keep on comin’ back for more 31 Days of Horror!!
The post Day 15: Repulsion (1965) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>Here’s the thing about House of Usher, though: it somehow manages to both exceed and fall short of my expectations. Vincent Price is, of course, fantastic as the sinister and hyper-sensitive Roderick Usher– he’s really the main reason to watch this movie. Everyone else…meh. Myrna Fahey as Madeline Usher simply isn’t given enough to do. Her storyline is arguably the most important, but since the tale is largely told from the perspective of her fiancé, she doesn’t even have that many lines. I don’t think she has more than two facial expressions during the first hour of the movie, either (which isn’t a knock on Fahey’s acting, it’s just that for the first few acts, her on-screen purpose seems solely to be embodying a delicate combination of loveliness and rue). Mark Damon, doing his best Ricky Nelson imitation, does have the bee-stung lips and ruffled shirt going on, but even his stylish pompadour and competent axe-wielding prove no match for the evil (and structural deficiency) of the house of Usher.
I’ll keep the synopsis short and sweet: Philip Winthrop (Damon) rides all the way from Boston on horseback to spend time with his lady love, Madeline Usher (Fahey). He has never been to her estate before, and upon entering, finds himself immediately accosted by shrouds of gloom and a melodramatic, lute-playing future brother-in-law, Roderick Usher (Price). After much pessimistic hemming and hawing, Usher explains to Winthrop that both he and Madeline are under a terrible family curse, and will be dying any moment now. Their family tree, he intones, contains over 200 years of bad apples that have resulted in some very poor Usher karma indeed. Winthrop is naturally skeptical of this morbid mysticism, but can’t resist being unnerved by the COMPLETELY TERRIFYING paintings in the family portrait gallery. Seriously, I do not know who was tripping on what when these were painted, but wow. Guess I’m not sleeping tonight.
Winthrop understandably tries to remove Madeline from the house as soon as possible, but an argument with Roderick over their departure causes her to descend into a catatonic state. Roderick believes her dead (or does he?), so he quickly and efficiently buries her while still alive (!!) in the family crypt. Once Winthrop discovers this, the rest of the movie is actually quite suspenseful as he frantically tries to find and free Madeline from her sealed coffin. The scares in this film are largely confined to the latter half, but when they deliver, they deliver big-time.
House of Usher‘s visuals remind me a bit of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 take on Bram Stoker’s Dracula— which is to say that the colors are hyper-saturated times ten, and are practically dripping off the screen. Price wears quite possibly the reddest overcoat ever imagined by man, and everything down to the tiniest minutia seems hellbent on singeing your retinas. It’s kind of cool, but also…ouch.
Overall, this film is good but not great. It’s an important entry in Vincent Price’s filmography, and demonstrates why he is so great in classic villainous roles such as these…but does anyone who doesn’t care about Vincent Price really NEED to see it? No, probably not. It’s entertaining, and the last 20 minutes are actually pretty freaky, but it’s a very stylized film that I don’t know will necessarily appeal to all audiences. In other words, if you are already a fan of classic horror, Vincent Price, or the macabre writings of Edgar Allan Poe (or if you’re just a film nerd like we are here at ItsJustAwesome.com), there are plenty of things to enjoy and appreciate about House of Usher. If you’re a newbie looking to get into the genre, however, I do not recommend this as your gateway movie.
Tomorrow, Charles will be reviewing one of my favorite “hag horror” flicks: Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964). The movie boasts a powerhouse cast in Bette Davis (All About Eve, Now Voyager), Olivia de Havilland (Gone With the Wind, The Heiress), and Joseph Cotten (Citizen Kane, The Third Man). You definitely don’t want to miss this one, so be sure to join us again tomorrow for more 31 Days of Horror!!
The post Day 13: House of Usher (1960) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>There is still a certain B-movie feel to it (the premise is that a gigantic tarantula is terrorizing the town, after all), but for the most part it succeeds where many other monster movies of this era fail. It doesn’t go over the top with kooky, animatronic creatures and silly sound effects, and the movie is supported at its core by genuinely good storytelling.
Tarantula even features a strong, intelligent leading lady in Mara Corday, who, while beautiful, does things to further the plot beyond clutching her graceful cheekbones and shrieking. Imagine that!
Let me back up a bit, though, and give you a synopsis. Our film starts out once again in the Arizona desert– clearly, the most hip-happening place in the ’50s for mysterious, unexplainable phenomena. Young and ever-so-slightly oily Dr. Matt Hastings (John Agar) is urgently summoned to the Sheriff’s office to weigh in on the death of a horribly deformed, roadside John Doe. The Sheriff believes the body to be that of missing scientist Eric Jacobs, but it’s nearly impossible to confirm due to the twisted, diseased state of the face. Dr. Hastings is at a loss for answers, and it’s only through eventual confirmation from another well-known country doctor, Dr. Deemer, that they can positively ID the body as Jacobs. Deemer seems to be harboring secrets, but he assures Dr. Hastings that the affliction which befell Dr. Jacobs was nothing more sinister than acromegaly (even though Hastings knows acromegaly is incredibly rare, and usually takes years to advance to this level, not days).
As it turns out, Dr. Deemer and Dr. Jacobs were research partners at a remote laboratory 20 miles into the desert. Unbeknownst to the townspeople, they were conducting experimental research into human and animal growth hormones as a way to increase the world’s food supply. It’s almost like the inverse of an egomaniacal Bond villain scheme…and even though it will obviously never work, you have to applaud them for trying. Unfortunately, during a struggle at the lab after Jacobs’ death, a fire breaks out and many of the animal test subjects are compromised. Among these, a tarantula (one of the more advanced-stage subjects of the experiment) is able to escape the lab and flee into the desert, where it continues to grow ever larger and more menacing.
I appreciate that the filmmakers didn’t try to BUILD a giant tarantula out of robotics or claymation or papier mache or whatever, but instead used trick photography to make a regular-sized tarantula look huge on the set. It makes the film hold up much better over time. I also thought there was a perfect number of tarantula shots throughout the film–just enough to build suspense and see that it was growing larger and larger (and more bloodthirsty), but not straight-up 80 minutes of bombs going off and the tarantula running amok through the city. It’s a movie largely focused on the events leading up to, and in the wake of, the escape of the giant spider, with occasional cuts to the desert to see what the big guy is up to. I like this approach a lot, and tip my hat to the director for making the call.
Okay, let’s talk about Mara Corday’s character for a moment. Corday plays the sultry female scientist, Stephanie “Steve” Clayton, and her performance is fantastic! She arrives on the scene by way of a streetcar named Desire (thanks, Carol Burnett!), and proceeds to wow her male counterparts with the manly size of her brain. There are several little quips from Drs. Hastings and Deemer at first (“Give women the vote and what do you get? Lady scientists.”), but Steve remains unfazed. She is cool, collected, and well-read; it doesn’t take long for her to win the complete professional confidence of Dr. Deemer. Not only does Steve become an essential part of Deemer’s laboratory operations, but she is also Hastings’ girl Friday when it comes to unraveling the mystery of the tarantula. She seems to be channeling real-life Hedy Lamarr here, and I love it.
This movie is definitely worth checking out, and you can do so via Netflix DVD. I’d say it’s among the better-done monster movies of the decade, carried by an interesting (if fantastic) plot, solid acting, and progressive female roles. Let me know in the comments below whether you agree or disagree!
Tomorrow, join me again as I review our first movie of the 1960s: House of Usher, starring Vincent Price. I hope you’ve been enjoying our 31 Days of Horror series so far, and that you’ll continue to come back for more during the rest of October!
The post Day 12: Tarantula (1955) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>I’m sorry to say it, but I really didn’t enjoy this movie very much. It is a combination of all the worst aspects of ’50s movies: it’s supremely cheesy, xenophobic, flimsy in plot, and just plain boring. It isn’t horrible, or even BAD, necessarily…but it definitely does not stand the test of time. I fell asleep at least twice while watching, and then had to rewind to be sure I hadn’t missed anything. Spoiler alert: I hadn’t.
It might be fun to see with friends at the drive-in for a cult movie night or something, but ultimately It Came From Outer Space is just another goofy alien flick. Or, to put it another way, it’s like a mashup of all the least popular episodes of Star Trek, The Twilight Zone, and The Andy Griffith Show. Read into that what you will.
The movie begins with young couple John Putnam (Carlson) and Ellen Fields (Rush) enjoying a candlelit dinner at their home in Arizona, making carefree jokes about living together “in sin”. They go out onto the terrace for a little late-night stargazing (Putnam, as an amateur astronomer, has a massive telescope set up there), when they see what they believe to be a meteor streaking across the sky. It crashes into the desert nearby, and the two lovebirds race to the scene of the collision. John skitters down into the bowels of the crater to get a closer look (casting aside the frantic remonstrations of schoolteacher Ellen), and what he sees astonishes him. It’s not a meteor at all, but instead an alien spacecraft! Naturally, no one believes him–not even Ellen at first.
Putnam butts heads with Sheriff Matt Warren (who is clearly in love with Ellen as well) time and time again over his theories regarding the crash, to no avail. Even after Putnam has seen and talked with the aliens (which takes a ridiculously long time to occur), Sheriff Warren and the townspeople refuse to believe in their existence. It’s a classic mob mentality situation–they don’t believe in the aliens until they suddenly do, and once they do, they charge in with guns literally blazing, despite Putnam earnestly beseeching them to do the opposite. The filmmakers are pretty heavy-handed with the “humans fear that which they do not understand” metaphor, and, while true, it is incredibly frustrating to watch.
The aliens themselves are pretty hilarious-looking, though. They’re kind of these amorphous blob shapes, with a long, protruding eyeball and…hair? It’s extremely bizarre, and makes me appreciate the lack of screen time they have in their “true” form. I think the sight is intended to be frighteningly grotesque (even the stoic Putnam cheesily recoils in horror), but it’s just funny to me. The aliens also leave a glittering, slug-like trail (reminiscent of bedazzled jeans) everywhere they go, which is pretty much a drinking game waiting to happen. Every time you hear the theremin accompany a slow camera pan along the bedazzled alien sludge, finish your drink. See you in the E.R.
Again, this movie could be worth checking out under the right circumstances…as long as those circumstances involve friends, the ability to throw popcorn at the screen, and a setting where nobody is taking things too seriously. Otherwise, I do not suggest you rent this movie on a Saturday night, hoping for a good time. If you’re a contrarian and want to prove me wrong, however, you can find it available for streaming on Amazon Video and Apple TV.
Tomorrow, Charles will be continuing our journey through 1950s horror with 1954’s Gojira. Stay tuned for this and all the rest of our October reviews during the 31 Days of Horror!!
The post Day 10: It Came From Outer Space (1953) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>The Uninvited is an interesting film to review, because it isn’t quite what I was expecting. It is eerie and suspenseful, yes, but it is also…charming? It’s unlike any horror movie I’ve ever seen, in that it fluctuates between the serious and the lighthearted at the drop of a hat. More importantly, it does this successfully. I admit, I’m still scratching my head over it a little bit. It’s one of those things that feels like it shouldn’t work, but somehow it does.
The film begins with composer Rick Fitzpatrick (Milland) and his sister Pamela (Hussey) vacationing together on the Cornish coast. They are frolicking happily up and down the rocky shore, when suddenly they find themselves chasing after their terrier into an abandoned seaside mansion. As they take in the majesty of the home’s interior, Pamela is immediately starstruck. She suggests to Rick on a whim that they pool their savings and buy the place–after all, you’re not embracing the spontaneity of life until you leave everything you know behind and spend your last cent on an immense gothic manor that you’ve been inside for five minutes. It does seem little odd that an adult (but still in their prime) brother and sister would consider buying a house together, but since it isn’t all that uncommon in these old movies, I guess I’ll let it go without further comment.
Anyway, they purchase the mansion from the elderly Commander Beech and his granddaughter, Stella, and immediately set about making it their own. There are rumors in town about the home being haunted (and Commander Beech is most definitely keeping secrets to himself), but Rick pooh-poohs that notion and explains it away as idle fantasy. It doesn’t take long, however, for the strange “disturbances” to become impossible to ignore/rationalize. In the dead of night, they hear the melancholy strains of a woman sobbing, and goosebumps prickle my arms when Pamela notes that “it comes from everywhere…and nowhere.” There are other disturbances as well, particularly in the upstairs studio: a cold, pervasive dampness to the air; flickering candles; a feeling of unshakable sadness; there are even several appearances by a ghostly, glowing source of light that is terrifying in its shapelessness. The movie does an excellent job of keeping the paranormal indicators subdued–it makes for a much more frightening and believable atmosphere.
The Uninvited is a very well-paced film, and the reasons for the haunting (as well as their connection to the sweet, young ingenue, Stella) unfold in an intriguing fashion that will keep you guessing. There are some legitimately hair-raising moments (including a staged seance that turns out to be not-so-fake after all), but not so many that it will keep you up at night. This is my favorite kind of scary movie, truth be told: it’s spooky while you’re watching it, but the horror factor is tempered by the excellent story-telling and subtle romantic sub-plot.
Speaking of the romantic sub-plot, it’s hard not to be charmed by Gail Russell’s dewey, school-girl portrayal of Stella, who obviously pictures herself sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G, with the much older Ray Milland. They definitely pulled a Rear Window here (see also: To Catch a Thief), because Milland has to be at least 15, maybe 20, years older than Russell. He almost seems more appropriately-aged to be her father, but oh well. It’s still cute.
Overall, I would give The Uninvited two thumbs up. I watched it on Netflix DVD (Netflix’s DVD game is apparently pretty strong–almost all of these old, slightly obscure films can be found there!), but now I may just have to go out and purchase my own DVD copy of this one. I’d love for you to check it out and let me know if you feel the same!
Tomorrow, Charles will be reviewing The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), starring Hurd Hatfield and the inimitable George Sanders. Be sure to come back for this and other juicy reviews during the rest of our 31 Days of Horror!!
The post Day 8: The Uninvited (1944) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>Man, Day 7 already. If you’ve been following along with us this month, we appreciate it so much! Charles and I have had a blast sharing these reviews with you so far, and hope you’re enjoying them as well. Today we’re venturing into the 1940s (my jam!), and the first movie on the docket is 1941’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
This is one of those stories that is so much a part of popular culture that it barely requires a synopsis anymore (although of course I will give you one, because, hey, that’s what we do!). The Robert Louis Stevenson classic has seen more than its share of movie adaptations over the years, but this 1941 Spencer Tracy gem is one of two fairly iconic retellings. The first came in 1931, starring Frederic March (who won an Oscar for his portrayal) and Miriam Hopkins. I mention this tidbit mainly because there are some dramatic Hollywood departures from the novel in the ’31 film, and the ’41 film is essentially a remake of the ’31 rather than a strict retelling of the Stevenson story. Interestingly enough, I actually prefer the 1941 film, though both are excellent movies in their own right.
If you’re not familiar with the specifics of the story, here’s a brief synopsis:
Dr. Henry Jekyll (Spencer Tracy) is a successful and well-respected London doctor in the late 1800s. He is happily engaged to the love of his life, Beatrix Emery (Lana Turner, in a very touching performance), despite continued efforts from her father to drive them apart. The other great commitment of Jekyll’s life is to his ongoing research into the possibility of chemically separating the two sides of a man’s psyche: good and evil. Jekyll believes that there is evil dwelling in all of us, not just those who are outwardly so, and this opinion is extremely contentious among his circle of staid medical colleagues. When he is presented with an encouraging case that seems to support his theories, he begins developing a potion that will sever the connection and “free” the two halves from one another.
No one will take his findings seriously without proof, of course, so Jekyll’s only choice is to test the serum on himself. The effects prove disastrous, as the brew unleashes his cruel alter-ego, Mr. Hyde. As Hyde, Jekyll rains down verbal and physical abuse upon a seductive barmaid (Ingrid Bergman) who tempted him on the street (and whom he refused, as Jekyll) weeks before. She becomes his prisoner, and the psychological torment he inflicts on her is frightening, even to the viewer. Hyde is truly evil incarnate. While at first he is only brought forth by drinking the potion, eventually Hyde is able to take Jekyll over to such an extent that the potion is not needed. Jekyll transforms at random, without any semblance of control, and Hyde ultimately leads him to his doom.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is carried largely by the performance of Spencer Tracy. I absolutely love the casting here, as Tracy is already kind of a lumpy, meat-and-potatoes everyman. His charm lies in his gruff kindness, and the twinkle in his eye when his leading lady enters the room. To me, that makes for a perfect Dr. Jekyll: a man who is extremely loving and dedicated to his craft, but when that goodness is stripped away he’s left with nothing but the same inner ugliness as the next person. One subtlety that I also appreciate about the 1941 version over the 1931 film is that when Jekyll transforms into Hyde, Tracy’s makeup is much more minimal than that of Frederic March as Hyde. There is an obvious transformation, of course, but it just looks like an uglier, baser version of Spencer Tracy. He doesn’t turn into a ghoulish, hairy animal, which I think plays very well into what the movie is trying to say. It’s an interpretation of Stevenson’s story that is much more about inner demons, and the dark and light sides warring within each person, than it is about turning into an actual beast.
Tracy: 
March: 
This is a great movie, and I think Tracy brought a lot of his own personal demons into the performance, which makes it that much richer and more meaningful. He grappled with alcoholism (and its consequences) throughout his entire life, as well as having a very public, decades-long affair with Katharine Hepburn. Playing this particular role, in this particular adaptation of the story, was highly significant; it makes me wonder how much audiences were aware of at the time, or if it’s something that seems more poignant now that the intervening years have shed light on his personal life. Either way, the dimension Tracy brought to the role fascinated me, and it will certainly beg repeat viewings in the future.
I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but my least favorite thing about the movie might just be Ingrid Bergman. It’s an odd notion, because she’s such a wonderful actress (among my personal favorites, and this was just one short year before Casablanca!), but I really think she was miscast here. Her beauty, her voice, her bearing…she’s simply too duchessy and regal for me to ever fully believe her in a role as a tarty good-time girl. Not that she doesn’t have the acting chops, but it’s just weird. Another contributing factor might have been her forced Cockney accent, a la My Fair Lady, which sounded completely bizarre when paired with her natural Swedish lilt. It seemed like they were trying to de-Bergman her by any means necessary, which I feel could have been just as easily (and more effectively) accomplished by casting a different person. To use another example: you couldn’t just give Grace Kelly a gold tooth and say to your audience: “See! She’s unsophisticated!” Girlfriend is still going to rock it, because she’s Grace Bleeping Kelly. Same concept with Ingrid Bergman.
Tomorrow I will be reviewing The Uninvited (1944), which, if the cover art is any indication, will cause me to wet my pants a little. Ray Milland always gives me the creeps (he’s like a poor man’s Jimmy Stewart, without the adorable younger years), even without floating ghost-bodies in repose. We’ll see if that tradition carries on in this film. Until then, thanks for reading, and for continuing to join us for more 31 Days of Horror!!
The post Day 7: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>But first: a summary! The movie begins with two American newlyweds, the Alisons, boarding the Orient Express for a romantic (?) honeymoon in Hungary. Their train compartment canoodling is put to an end, however, when they learn that they’ll be sharing this conveyance to nuptial bliss with a certain Dr. Vitus Werdegast (Lugosi). Werdegast’s presence is at first an awkward and unwelcome intrusion into their banter about papier mache salads, but he earns his keep after preventing a suitcase from whomping Mrs. Alison over the top of the head. Per Dr. Werdegast’s insightful commentary on the incident: “It is better to be frightened than to be crushed.” Well put, doctor. Well put.
As the train hurtles onward through the Hungarian mist, Werdegast divulges a bit of his past to Mr. Alison, along with his reason for the trip. He is finally returning home after 18 years– 3 years at war, followed by 15 years in a Russian prison camp called Kurgaal (“where the soul is killed, slowly”). This information is vital to the story, as the rest of the movie is colored by Werdegast’s memories of the horrors of war and the grim betrayal that took place leading up to Kurgaal. We soon find out that not only was Werdegast delivered into the hands of the enemy by his friend and commander, Hjalmar Poelzig (Karloff), but Poelzig is also assumed to have stolen Werdegast’s wife, Karen. What a scumbag.
In fact, while we’re at it, let’s take a moment to add to Poelzig’s dirty coat of many colors. Through a series of unfortunate events (dare I say FATE?), Werdegast and the Alisons end up spending the night at Poelzig’s formidable, Art Deco mansion. Since being a wartime scoundrel of the highest order wouldn’t have been enough, we discover that Poelzig is also one of Austria’s most renowned architects, and he has designed/built his cliffside stronghold atop the burial ground of 10,000 Hungarian soldiers (in whose murder he was instrumental). Oh yeah, and he is ALSO the High Priest in a cult of Satan-worshippers, so there’s that as well.
Boris Karloff does an amazing job of being sinister AF throughout this entire film, and I’d call his performance a must-see for any classic horror fan. The haircut, the thin black lips, the organ-playing…it’s all incredibly iconic, while still managing to be different than any other Karloff movies I have seen so far. There is a scene towards the middle of The Black Cat where Poelzig tenderly, hauntingly walks among an array of embalmed female bodies in his cellar, which have been carefully suspended within metal cages so that their youthful beauty can be observed and appreciated (cough cough) forever. It is exceedingly creepy, and not something you can un-see.
Again, this movie is not for the faint of heart (what did I tell you about pre-code films?!). The psychological struggle between Werdegast and Poelzig is intense, as is Poelzig’s determination to sacrifice Mrs. Alison on the alter of the Black Mass. I won’t get into any more plot twists here, because it is my hope that you will all watch this movie and find out for yourselves! You can rent it from Netflix DVD or Amazon, and I seriously recommend that you do. If you like Lugosi’s Dracula and/or Karloff’s Frankenstein (or, hell, even if you’re new to the genre!), you need to add The Black Cat to your queue ASAP.
Tomorrow, Charles will close out our journey through the ’30s with 1935’s Werewolf of London (starring Henry Hull). Be sure to check it out, and keep coming back all month for more 31 Days of Horror!!
The post Day 5: The Black Cat (1934) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I love pre-code films. I won’t bore you with a long-winded ode to the popcorn-munching, wine-drinking watchability of these early ’30s movies, but I do want to say one thing before moving on to my actual review. In case you are not familiar with the difference in what studios could get away with pre- and post-Motion Picture Production Code, it’s an interesting concept to keep in mind as we journey through the rest of our 1930s selections for this year’s 31 Days of Horror (and beyond!).
Before the Motion Picture Production Code cracked down in 1934 on what type of content was (and was not) morally acceptable for an American audience to view, studios ran amok with all kinds of insanely scandalous/taboo subject matter. These pre-code films from 1930-1934 leave no saucy stone unturned, and, you guys, they are completely fascinating. I know people think of 1930s cinema as being stilted and not terribly captivating, but if that is your current mindset I urge you to check out this and other pre-code sizzlers: Baby Face, Night Nurse, Forbidden, I’m No Angel, The Divorcee, Blonde Venus…the list goes on. Seriously. Watch ’em and prepare to do a mental 180.
Anyway, back to the matter at hand: 1932’s Island of Lost Souls!
First of all, I rented this DVD from Netflix, and was incredibly impressed by the quality of the Criterion Collection transfer. Sometimes with these early films it’s hard to get your hands on a good copy, which does take away from the movie-watching experience a bit (I’m looking at you, Love Affair). In this case though, the sharp, well-lit visuals immediately pulled me in.
The movie begins with a shipwrecked traveler, Edward Parker (played by swarthy, delicious Richard Arlen), being rescued by a freighter full of exotic animals and carried onward to a mysterious, South Seas island owned by the eccentric Dr. Moreau. Charles Laughton (Witness For the Prosecution, Mutiny on the Bounty) is excellent as Moreau, and once the freighter reaches his island, things take a very eerie, diabolical turn. We discover that Dr. Moreau has been conducting “bio-anthropological research” on the animals delivered to his island, or, more specifically, accelerating their evolution in an attempt to transform them into humans. He believes he can achieve this (and, to a degree, has succeeded) through plastic surgery, blood transfusions, gland extracts, and ray baths. I’m not quite sure what a “ray bath” is, but given that he performs all this in a wing of his home that he refers to as “The House of Pain”, I’m going to assume it’s…well, painful.
Murky science aside, this is a pretty intriguing concept.
In fact, I have to tip my hat to Laughton and the filmmakers, because this could have been a MUCH cheesier movie than it is. I tend to cock a cynical eyebrow whenever I read about movies that employ the “mad scientist” angle (see also: my rantings on supposedly-frumpy-but-really-just-wearing-a-cableknit-sweater girls who become beautiful after taking off their glasses), but Charles Laughton strikes just the right balance between earnest academic and unhinged psychopath. The atmosphere is tense, suspenseful, and the air is often punctuated by a bestial scream from the House of Pain. When you couple all this with the use of chiaroscuro lighting and slatted jungle blinds, the effect is quite chilling.
Another interesting aspect of the film is Dr. Moreau’s most successful experiment to date: the gentle and alluring panther-woman, Lota. Of all the humanoid creations on the island, she is the closest to having become truly human. Lota is Moreau’s first creation to display feelings of legitimate, romantic love (mhmm, and she’s comin’ for you, Parker!), and his first creation to shed tears. Upon seeing these glittering, womanly tears, Dr. Moreau knows he has broken new ground and gleefully tries to foist her off on his handsome new guest for some tropical babymaking. OH, THE POSSIBILITIES!
Of course, things don’t go quite to plan for the doctor, and the inhabitants of his island begin to slowly turn against him. There are even a few appearances by a furry-faced, nearly unrecognizable Bela Lugosi!
Even my husband, who doesn’t necessarily love 1930s cinema (and watched this movie with me a little bit begrudgingly), admitted that it was “surprisingly alright”. If that’s not high praise, I don’t know what is.
So, there you go.
Tomorrow, I’ll be exploring 1934’s The Black Cat, featuring the dynamic duo of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. I’d love for you to join me, and as always, please check out the rest of our reviews during this month’s 31 Days of Horror!!
The post Day 4: Island of Lost Souls (1932) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>F.W. Murnau’s Faust is, as you might have guessed via remembrances of your high school English class, an adaptation of Christopher Marlowe’s Elizabethan tragedy play, Doctor Faustus. I’ll be honest: prior to watching this movie, I didn’t remember much about Doctor Faustus. I could recall that it involved a pact with the devil, and that there was a questionable exchange of youth/beauty for knowledge/power, but beyond those abstract concepts I basically left it in Mrs. Howard’s 10th grade classroom, along with The Canterbury Tales and some of the less-engrossing Greek tragedies.
How I wish now that that weren’t the case!
The story is extremely powerful, and before I wax on any further without you having any idea what I’m talking about, here’s a brief synopsis: Faust (Gosta Eckman), the humble, God-fearing alchemist, looks like the flesh-and-blood manifestation of a Michelangelo painting, with his windswept beard in a perpetual state of ethereal astonishment. He has invoked the name of Mephisto in a desperate attempt to save his town from the scourge of plague and sorrow, but once he’s done so he fears the everlasting consequences. Emil Jannings is perfectly cast as the demon Mephisto– it’s impossible not to feel a creepy tingle when those eyes glow out of the darkness at you in the clip below.
I mean, come on! That’s just cool.
I should also mention that Mephisto is particularly invested in the temptation of Faust, because he has made a wager with an archangel that even the most pristine mortal soul can be corrupted. The good doctor Faust is mankind’s greatest treasure–heretofore incorruptible–so the archangel essentially places the fate of humanity in his wrinkled, old hands. Mephisto, however, still lures him to ruin via the promise of eternal youth, beauty, knowledge, and sex, as devils are apt to do. Lots of room for existential musing here. The latter half of the movie is especially interesting to me, because despite the fact that Mephisto and Faust run all over God’s green earth causing problems for everyone, it is mostly Faust’s paramour, Gretchen, who bears the brunt of the consequences. To say any more here would give too much away, but yeah. Suffice it to say, in the immortal words of James Brown: it was a man’s, man’s, man’s world.
On a lighter note, there is a strange and hilarious scene during Faust’s initial courtship of Gretchen where Mephisto, playing the jauntily-feathered wingman, sidles up to Gretchen’s aunt and stiffly honka-honkas her. I am not joking. It’s weird, but it’s legitimately funny, and the film is full of little comedic moments like this that somehow hold up against all logic and expectation.
From start to finish, Faust thoroughly engaged me (despite a 1 hr 55 min run-time, which seems incredible for the ’20s), and the effects and makeup are fantastic. I’d wager that most people associate the name F. W. Murnau with Nosferatu today, but I honestly prefer his interpretation of Faust to the vampire flick. Not to knock Nosferatu, of course, because I think it’s an important film in a myriad of ways, but as far as watchability and enjoyment go…give me Faust any day.
If you haven’t already, I strongly recommend that you check this movie out. It can be found on Netflix DVD, and it is well worth your time (even if only to marvel at how much it sucked to be a woman in literally every century prior to this one).
Next up, I’ll be taking us into horror films of the 1930s with Day 4’s Island of Lost Souls (1932). It promises to be chock-full of crisp, linen suits and furry jungle weirdos…so I’m pretty sure you don’t want to miss it. In the mean time, I’ll leave you to ponder this publicity photo, and Charles Laughton’s crooked, probably glued-on goatee.
Thanks for reading, and for continuing to come back this month as Charles and I journey through the rest of our 31 Days of Horror!!
The post Day 3: Faust (1926) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll admit that I am not typically the most enthusiastic watcher of silent films. I’m more of a 1930s and 1940s gal, as you may have gathered from previous, non-horror reviews (or listening to me sing the many praises of Barbara Stanwyck in The Good, The Bad, and The Podcast). I think it has a lot to do with my love of witty banter and well-crafted dialogue. When you’re limited to what can be read from a title card, that delicious element is removed, and I have a hard time getting invested in the story. That being the case, I was intrigued by the presence of Lon Chaney, but wasn’t necessarily awaiting this film with bated breath. I did, however, keep an open mind going in.
Unfortunately, The Monster did nothing to dispel my “blah” outlook on silent films. It embodies all the qualities I was hoping it would lack: it’s cheesy, the characters are very cartoonish, and it is S-L-O-W. I hate to say it, but it was really a chore to make it through this movie at times.
To give you an idea of the plot, the movie begins with the mysterious disappearance of a beloved local farmer. The townspeople learn that he has been involved in an auto accident, but nobody knows what has become of him–foul play is immediately assumed. Enter our spirited, doofy protagonist, Johnny. Johnny is a lovestruck underling who works at the general store (with aspirations of being a detective), and let’s just say it: he’s a huge boob. It feels like the writers expect us to view him with pathos and be charmed by his Wannabe Charlie Chaplin antics, but it just didn’t work for me. He was a little too silly, and frankly he got on my nerves. All the characters did! The lone bright spot was Lon Chaney, who is always fantastic and didn’t disappoint here. Most of the time he just walks around smiling creepily, but the man knows how to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
As the story progresses, Johnny attempts to unravel the mystery of the farmer’s disappearance. In so doing, he ends up spending the night in Chaney’s spooky sanitarium with Betty (his love interest) and Ol Whatshisname (the fancypants romantic rival for Betty’s affections) who is so forgettable that I sincerely cannot remember what he’s called.
I could go on, but honestly, this movie is skippable. Find clips online of Lon Chaney slinking around in his robe and candelabra a la Vincent Price, and you’ll feel like you’ve seen the whole thing. That is my advice to you where The Monster is concerned.
Let’s hope for better luck tomorrow, when I’ll review F.W. Murnau’s Faust (1926)! Stay tuned, and keep coming back for more 31 Days of Horror!!
The post Day 2: The Monster (1925) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>
Tonight, I was excited to be able to attend an advanced screening of the new Derek Cianfrance film, The Light Between Oceans. TLBO is adapted from the best-selling novel by M.L. Stedman (which, unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, I have not yet read), and at 7pm I walked into the historic Belcourt Theatre in Nashville not really knowing what to expect. I knew that the film’s three most prominent cast members (Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, and Rachel Weisz) are historically known for killin’ it on the silver screen, so if nothing else, I was intrigued. I’d heard it described as a “period piece”, which tends to evoke in me thoughts of Keira Knightley rustling around in petticoats and longing for men outside of her life’s station…but, in my opinion, a period piece this is not.
Don’t get me wrong–I love period pieces as much as, if not more than, the next person. I’d go so far as to say that I actively seek them out. I’ve chortled sophisticatedly whilst reading Pride and Prejudice, tossing my head and gaily thinking “Oh, Mr. Darcy!”; I’ve pondered the beauty of sheep on a grassy knoll, and Carey Mulligan wearing the heck out of a corset in Far From the Madding Crowd; I’ve wondered just what the hell Anna Karenina sees in that obviously-odious Count Vronksy, anyway! All this to say: as someone who enjoys period pieces heartily, I think calling The Light Between Oceans a period piece is an over-simplification that will give many movie-goers the wrong impression.
Yes, the film does take place largely in the 1920s. That being said, there is nothing even remotely F. Scott Fitzgerald about it, and flappers are nowhere to be found. Michael Fassbender does don some sexy, sexy shepherd pants, which I can only assume are the standard garb for rocky outcroppings of Western Australia in the early part of the 20th century (side note: let’s hope those come back around at some point, amirite?). That (and Rachel Weisz’s fabulous hats) aside, it’s very easy to forget that the story takes place in a vastly different time. The themes of isolation, survivalist guilt, and a mother’s love still ring extremely true today, and they dominate the plot to such an extent that I truly believe that this could be set in any time, any place.
To summarize, the story mainly focuses on two characters: Tom Sherbourne (Fassbender) and Isabel Graysmark (Vikander). Tom has spent four years fighting on the Western Front in WWI, and comes home a shell of a man. The narrative does not focus specifically on his past (though we are to understand that his adolescent family life was not a merry one), nor does it focus on events during the war. All we really know is that he has come back altered, even from his pre-war, already-stoic personality: ridden with a surviving solider’s existential guilt, and devoid of joy. Upon this return, he seeks out a remote position as a lighthouse-keeper on Janus Rock– someplace quiet and challenging (100 miles from the mainland, no less!), where he can seek refuge from a world of polite society that he no longer feels he belongs to. Enter Isabel, the daughter of a prominent personage in the neighboring (if you can call it that) mainland town of Partageuse. Alicia Vikander plays Isabel, and she is such a winsome, natural beauty that it’s not at all hard to see how she could slowly infiltrate the prison of Tom’s mind. She brings him out of himself, which I know sounds like something out of a Nicholas Sparks novel. But their courtship…you just have to see it. Her thousand-watt smile, her thirst for life, her boldness, her humor. All these traits creep under Tom’s skin, and though they seem at first to be opposite to his silent ways, you begin to realize that she’s bringing out mirrored shades of his own personality that have long lain buried. They marry fairly quickly, but unlike other films where the relationship timeline goes straight from meeting each other to being married, Tom and Isabel have an almost Bronte-like quality to their relationship that I find believable despite its speed. It doesn’t feel like rushed filmmakers, it feels romantic in a sweeping, wandering-the-moors-forever-in-search-of-your-ghost kind of way that goes far beyond the romance of cheap candy and flowers. It honestly feels very much like Cathy and Heathcliff’s “whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same”. Now, I’m aware that this is a lot of backstory to impart to a summary, but it’s extremely important to consider in the larger framework of the movie. Tom attributes every happiness of his life to his relationship with Isabel, so when a tiny infant and her dead father wash ashore of the lighthouse in a banged-up dinghy, he is at a serious moral crossroads. Isabel has suffered several miscarriages at this point, and they both long for a child of their own. He would do anything to make her happy again, and that’s essentially what the film boils down to.
Tom’s first inclination is to report the shipwrecked father and daughter to the mainland immediately, as the second great commitment of his life is to duty/honor/Doing The Right Thing. A distraught Isabel convinces him, however, to put off reporting the dinghy until they can “catch their breath” and give the poor baby some time to recuperate (read: never…NEVER!). Time passes, they both grow too fond of the baby to report her as a tragic, wayward sea-gift, and for several years they raise the child as their own. Then, at her christening on the mainland, Tom encounters the baby’s actual mother (Weisz) through a series of unforeseen-but-then-again-pretty-much-inevitable circumstances, and to go much further here would venture into spoiler territory. Suffice it to say: Tom and Isabel’s relationship is taxed to an extreme degree, and they must decide whether to give the baby up, or continue to raise her as their own, despite knowing who she really belongs to.
This movie is fairly long at 2 hours 10 minutes, and you can feel it at times. It’s by no means a perfect film, and despite loving it overall, I deducted half a star in my rating for a few small things. The reason we’re given for the father and infant being in the doomed dinghy in the first place is pretty weak…it’s vague at best and what explanation there is doesn’t really gel for me. Also, to split hairs, the fairly substantial baby that washes up in the boat is so obviously not a newborn that it feels silly that the men who run the supply boat accept her as being Isabel’s preemie…I guess crusty old sea bachelors don’t know what new babies look like? It kind of reminded me of the scene in The Choice (boo hiss) where Theresa Palmer’s dog has puppies, and they emerge from the uterus as fully-formed 12-week-olds. Anyway, I digress.
Whatever minor shortcomings it might have, The Light Between Oceans is a gorgeous, heartwrenching movie. Alexandre Desplat’s haunting musical score, the cinematography, and the acting by Fassbender, Vikander, and Weisz all come together to make for an exquisite film experience that will stay with you for quite a while. You will cry (…oh, YOU WILL CRY), but the emotions it elicits feel raw and real, and not like studio-manufactured emotional manipulation.
My fear is that this movie will be passed over by some as being “too dramatic”, but I ask that you not buy into that. Haters gon’ hate.
Do yourself a favor, and go see it. You’ll be glad you did.
The post The Light Between Oceans first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>
Carey Mulligan, you saucy minx.
I have seen Thomas Vinterberg’s gorgeous adaptation of Far From the Madding Crowd twice now, and I have to say right up front: I love it. The cinematography, the score, the costuming, the casting choices…in my mind, they’re all aces. Never have lens flare and sheep-laden greenery looked so beautiful. As a movie playing out on screen, I think it hits almost every right note…but as a story, I do have a few minor qualms with it.
FFTMC is often described as Thomas Hardy’s “most pastoral” novel, which kind of begs the question: Why exactly was it resurrected from its dusty place on the bookshelf and turned into a Hollywood costume drama in 2015? Not to say that it didn’t deserve it, but for a while this rather puzzled me. It isn’t really one of Hardy’s more widely-remembered novels in today’s society (most people would think of Tess of the d’Urbervilles long before this one), and typically only the most well-known classics get modern film adaptations (Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Anna Karenina, etc). I think, though, that the answer is actually BECAUSE it is 2015. You guys, if 2014 was The Year of the Butt, then 2015 is most definitely The Year of the Strong-Willed Female Heroine. Which is great, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not 100% sure that the character of Bathsheba deserves that many accolades for being a fabulous fictional role model. It’s true, a little chorus of “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” does swell within one’s bosom when she sassily takes charge of her uncle’s sprawling farm in Weatherbury, but she also consistently belittles and patronizes her only real friend: Gabriel Oak. Never mind that it’s completely obvious they’re meant to be together; that’s not how you treat people. Feistiness and independence, while being lovely qualities, do not a heroine make. Not on their own, anyway.
I would liken Bathsheba to a slightly tamer, less self-absorbed Scarlett O’Hara (I know they’re wearing corsets, but seriously, can waists even BE that small?). She is beautiful, coquettish, and every man who sets eyes on her wants to marry her immediately. In other words, she has a slew of what Amy Shumer might refer to as #HotPeopleProblems. There is a steely strength in her determination to handle things on her own, BUT she is also vain, a bit flighty in her emotions, and can’t fathom being with the man who is clearly right for her until she has exhausted EVERY OTHER CONCEIVABLE OPTION (coughcoughRhett). You spend the vast majority of the movie just wanting to shake her until some sense falls out. Or…in. That is really my main annoyance with the story– the fact that she spends all this time touting her independence and saying she doesn’t want to be tied down in marriage to any man, but that’s obviously garbage because she gets suckered in by Sergeant Troy after knowing him for like five minutes. In reality, her hangup lies not in marriage but in obligation. She doesn’t like the idea that a perceived obligation, however slight, would deny her the ability to choose freely (again…2015, anyone?). She feels an inherent obligation to accept Gabriel Oak because he is her first (and for all she knows at that time, only) suitor, therefore the offer becomes unattractive to her. Later in the story, she feels obligated to accept Boldwood for a myriad of social and financial reasons (spoilers!), none of which involve passion or love. She feels trapped, and I can’t say I blame her. Still, though…come on, girlfriend. You can’t just string three men along for 2 hours and 400 pages and expect shiz not to hit the fan.
I’ve probably expended too many words on mostly book-related frustrations, but let me redeem myself by speaking solely about the Bathsheba of the movie here: Carey Mulligan is perfect in the role, and gives a master class in facial acting. You can think Bathsheba is a ninny for saying and doing most of the things she does (namely, ignoring the steadfast love of her truest and hunkiest friend), but CM’s ability to let the inner conflict steal across her face really gives you a chance to feel what she’s feeling. It lends a great deal of sympathy to the character, and while I wasn’t totally loving the Bathsheba of Hardy’s novel, Mulligan softened and made her much more palatable for 2015. The rest of the cast is equally excellent: Michael Sheen gives a fantastic, nuanced performance as Boldwood, Tom Sturridge is appropriately despicable as Troy (see his weird, wilted mustache for further confirmation of his weak moral fiber), and Matthias Schoenaerts is perfect as the stalwart and dreamy Gabriel Oak.
It is a quiet, subtly-played, sexy movie–there’s no doubt about it. Electricity is always crackling beneath the surface, and even though Bathsheba’s naivete often makes you want to strangle her with her own braid, I defy you not to grin when she winsomely tells her new staff that she intends to astonish them all.
The post FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD: AN ODE TO CAREY MULLIGAN first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>So, Katharine, in honor of your birthday and your inarguable fabulousness, here are 8 moments when I was truly your biggest fan:
1. The time Barbara Walters condescendingly asked you in an interview if you even owned a skirt, and you told her you would wear one to her funeral.
2. The way you completely embodied the role of Jo March in Little Women, so much so that all other subsequent Joes would pale in comparison (except in my heart you ended up with Laurie, not stupid-face Professor Bhaer).
3. When you helped Humphrey Bogart pull the steamboat through reeds and leech-infested waters in The African Queen.
4. …The African Queen, in its entirety. So good.
5. The way you looked at Jimmy Stewart in The Philadelphia Story when he told you “you’re made out of flesh and blood…you’re the golden girl, Tracy.”
6. When you, as Tracy Lord, reminisced about your marriage to Cary Grant/CK Dexter Haven via some heavy boat symbolism, and whispered to yourself “My, she was yar.” It made me want to find what the two of you had for myself: a relationship both romantic and silly, adventurous and based in friendship, with the knowledge that you were partners in life and in laughter. And, you know, someone with whom to bandy about nautical terminology that was laden with deeper meanings.
7. When you said “We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers – but never blame yourself. It’s never your fault. But it’s always your fault, because if you wanted to change you’re the one who has got to change.” I love that. I believe the world would be a better place if more people shared your view on this particular point.
8. When your wit and joie de vivre won Cary Grant’s heart again in Holiday, despite your bizarre pairing of mink coat and flat beret, a la Madeline from the children’s story. I love when women of intelligence and playful charm win out over the boring do-nothings and the slinky seductresses, and this role was a perfect example of you achieving just that.
Did I leave out any great Katharine Hepburn moments? Let me know your favorites in the comments below! 
I enjoy most kinds of music, but at the end of the day my heart belongs to the jazz and “easy listening” tunes from the 1940s-1960s. It’s just hard to top those beautiful old standards penned by the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, and the other fantastic composers of the Great American Songbook. While many artists recorded their own versions of these songs, my favorite artist from this period will always be Ella Fitzgerald. Her career spanned an incredible SIXTY YEARS. And I mean ALL of sixty years, not like twenty years with an embarrassing, “Hey, I still exist!” comeback tour when she ran out of money. The lady was truly amazing.
I once stumbled across her entire CD discography at Half Price Books (oh yeah…CDs, baby), and for the seriously questionable price of ten dollars (?!) they all became mine. I imported them into my iTunes for easier, more rapid-fire consumption, and that gargantuan playlist was quite literally THE ONLY THING that would coax my 8-week-old Anatolian shepherd (Etta, after Etta James of course. All of the sass…all of the disregard for societal norms) into settling the heck down at night and going to sleep. Seriously, it was like a magical Pan Flute. Upon hearing it she would fall into a deep, coma-like slumber, and if the music ever stopped during the night (computer dying, etc) she would immediately wake back up, start crying, and poop on the floor. I kid you not.
You would think after receiving such tremendous acclaim, all the praise and accolades would have gone to Ella’s head, but in fact it was quite the opposite. In every interview and performance I have ever seen from her, she was modestly smiling and acting like the dulcet tones pouring forth from her lips were nothing but ordinary music. She was a classy, classy lady.
Check out her performance of “Body and Soul” on Frank Sinatra’s TV program, and you will see what I mean:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46VcQapZeD0
I mean…WOW. It just reaches into your chest and grabs your heart like a fist. I would be hard-pressed to think of another artist who sang as honestly, as simply, and as utterly without ostentation as Ella Fitzgerald. The music comes rippling out of her in these gorgeous, honeyed waves, and the purity of her voice is without comparison. She was often referred to as The First Lady of Song, and that title was richly deserved.
In honor of Ms. Fitzgerald’s birthday, I’ve been listening to her music all day and have come up with the following list of my favorite songs:
1. Our Love Is Here to Stay
2. Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered
3. How Long Has This Been Goin’ On?
4. I Can’t Get Started
5. I Got It Bad (And That Ain’t Good)
6. Ain’t Misbehavin’
7. Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall In Love)
8. Embraceable You
9. Body and Soul
10. Dream a Little Dream of Me
11. The Nearness of You
12. You Won’t Be Satisfied (Until You Break My Heart)
13. You Took Advantage of Me
14. Where or When
15. Isn’t It Romantic?
What are your favorite Ella Fitzgerald songs? Let me know in the comments below!
Happy Birthday, Ella. Thanks for the music.
The post HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ELLA! first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>If you are not familiar with this movie, here is the trailer as featured on IMDB:
http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1711014169/
The film begins as it does in the trailer, with Barbra herself invisibly singing the titular track. Boom. There it is. You’re hooked. If you’re not hooked by the haunting and gorgeous strains of this melody (and mist rising whimsically off the water, the whole nine yards) then I really just don’t know what to do with you. Just kidding (…maybe). The point is, Marvin Hamlisch wrote a score for this movie that is so beautiful it will make your teeth recede into your head. Whatever else I feel about The Way We Were, this theme song is, hands down, my favorite movie theme of all time.
My thoughts on TWWW as a whole are not so clear. During the podcast, I identified this as my “ugly” pick of the week—basically, I kind of love it, but also recognize that there are many horrifying and uncomfortable things about it that prevent me from revealing to most people that I have seen it a dozen times. One thing I do appreciate about it, though, is how different my feelings toward it are depending on my stage of life. I guess that can probably be said about most movies, but it feels particularly true with this one.
The first time I watched it was in 9th or 10th grade. I was sleeping over at my friend Lisa’s house, and we were hopped up on ice cream, friendship, and the delirium of being awake at 2 am. It came on TV, and we were completely spellbound. It was like a train wreck that our fifteen-year-old eyeballs simply could not tear themselves away from. What the crap was happening?! Didn’t Babs know she was BREAKING ALL THE RULES OF DATING?! Didn’t she know you were supposed to pretend NOT to like someone in order for him to know how much you liked him?! It was laugh-out-loud, roll-on-the-floor absurd, and I’m pretty sure I thought it was the stupidest thing I’d ever seen.
Fast-forward five years. I was halfway through college at this point, growing very disillusioned indeed with the world of men. I had had a few boyfriends, some unrequited crushes, and a series of sour and/or disastrous casual dates that never fully formed themselves into relationships. Luckily, I was living in an apartment with my posse of amazing ladyfriends, and our sole purpose in life (besides, you know, occasionally studying) was to guide each other through the inevitable pitfalls of romance and dating. It was then that I rediscovered The Way We Were, although this time it took on a completely different meaning to me. Suddenly, Babs/K-K-K-Katie was one thousand times more sympathetic, and I became enraged at Robert Redford for treating her so cavalierly! Who did he think he was, anyway? Why did he just expect everything to be so easy? Was he so afraid of a complicated, independent woman that he would throw away true love?!
Somewhere between these two extremes, you will find my current feelings on the matter. I think that as men and as women, we tend to polarize and gather amongst our gender at either end. Men watch this movie, and for the most part side with 15-year-old me. Katie’s desperate antics inspire in them a desire to run far, far away, or at the very least roll their eyes and swear off women who have strong political leanings of any kind. I have a very good guy friend who watched TWWW a few months ago, and immediately texted me “That was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen all the ‘SAW’ movies.”
Meanwhile, I feel that most women, young or old, will empathize with 20 year old me. We watch this movie, and we think “Oh, men! That’s all they want—for everything to be easy! They just can’t handle complicated women who are independent! R-E-S-P-E-C-T!” This really is a great gender studies movie, when you get right down to it. And, to be honest, this point of view feels extremely true a lot of the time. ESPECIALLY when you are a young, single gal who can’t find a guy who wants to commit or deal with the fact that not only have you seen every episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but you enjoy discussing them at length.
There is even an episode of Sex and the City about it (with parallels to Big and Carrie, of course). This clip pretty much says it all:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGL1fJEtHWk
Here’s the thing, though, ladies. What we ignore, in the presence of our gal pals, is that Katie is kiiiiind of an annoying character. We like to pretend that she isn’t, because most of us have at least one thing that we are ridiculously passionate about (in Katie’s case, Communism) despite the fact that nobody else cares about it. We wave our banners of individuality and feminism, but the truth is that if she were a man OR a woman, she would still be annoying and impossible. She has some truly great qualities, like being loyal and passionate and wanting Hubbell to be his best self, but she is also desperate and bull-headed and takes everything way too seriously. If a relationship is to succeed, both parties have to compromise a teeny bit. They just do.
When you have just gotten out of a relationship (and you personally feel that being able to recite entire passages from Gone With the Wind should make you MORE attractive to the opposite sex, not less) The Way We Were feels like your spirit movie. Quirky girls: UNITE! But then you actually WATCH watch the movie, and you realize that Babs’ character is out of control. Her antics in the entire first half of the film are the antics of a crazy person. Never, under any circumstances, should you remove your outer garments and crawl into bed with a sleeping man who A. Doesn’t realize you’re there, and B. Has never given you any indication whatsoever that he wants to “know” you in the biblical sense. Katie does not observe the conventions of polite society, however, and continues to plow through the movie with essentially no regard for how her actions might be affecting anyone else. This is where I feel she falls short as a character: it’s not that she’s “too complicated” for Hubbell, it’s that she is a bulldozer. She thinks she knows what’s best for him in every aspect of his life, and maybe she does, but I can’t help thinking this movie might have had a different ending if she would have toned it down about 5 notches. Let the guy write his book the way he wants to, jeez.
As a result of all this, she pushes Hubbell too hard one too many times, and he can’t deal any more. During the first of their breakups, Barbra says to him: “You’ll never find anyone as good for you as I am; to believe in you as much as I do, or love you as much!” to which Hubbell replies that he knows. And he really does! Both he and the audience know that what she says is true, but sometimes that is just not enough. Love and marriage are as much about love on a daily basis as they are about the grand scheme of things, and day by day we all just want to know that we are heard and appreciated. We want to know that what we say and think matters to that special someone, and despite all her best efforts, Babs was really only ever doing what she wanted to do. This, I think, is where we could all stand to do a little bit better. Let’s think of that someone else as much as we think about ourselves, and then we’ll start to have something really amazing.
Are you team #Babs or team #Redford? Let us know what you think in the comments below! As always, I encourage everyone to share his or her thoughts—I’d love to have a discussion on this or any other movie! Stay tuned for more classics with me, and please subscribe to GoodBadPodcast if you’ve got a hankerin’ for more movie talk!
What I am trying to say to you is this: Girl had it going on. She was a little bit crazy, I grant you. Nobody will be holding her up as a beacon of traditional morality anytime soon, and her relationships were certainly nothing to model your own marriage after. BUT I would like to think that there is still something to be said for the kind of passion that leads people to, in the Hallmark-iest of expressions, live their lives out loud. Liz Taylor’s life was nothing if not lived “out loud”. As a result, she brought a definite panache and complexity to each and every one of her on-screen roles, never more so than in Butterfield 8.
Now, you guys, Butterfield 8 is a crazy movie. I hesitate to bring it up in a “review” type setting, because I have so many mixed emotions about it that I don’t even know if I can provide you with a straightforward opinion. Regardless, I am going to try.
First of all, if you have not seen this movie, I implore you to stop what you’re doing right now and watch this clip (a piece of the opening scene):
http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/350817/BUtterfield-8-Movie-Clip-No-Sale.html
I mean…COME ON. Eat your heart out, Ke$ha, Liz was brushing her teeth with a bottle of Jack (or in this case, a glass…same thing!) forty-nine years before you said it was cool.
But okay. Before I get too deeply entrenched in discussing Butterfield 8, I do think there is one crucial thing that I need to point out. In many summaries, reviews, and descriptions of this movie that you will find online, a surprising amount erroneously refer to Elizabeth Taylor’s character, Gloria Wondrous (….I know), as being a prostitute. I think it is a very, very important distinction to make here that she is actually NOT a prostitute. She is what one might call a “hey hey” or “good time” girl; she makes her living as a model, but really it boils down to her being a sad, beautiful, I-need-a-forklift-to-transport-all-my-emotional-baggage type of girl with demonstrably low self-esteem, who tries to find validation in one night stands. She is fragile and all kinds of messed-up, let’s just leave it at that.
We see our first glimpse of this in the opening scene of the movie. Gloria wakes up and stretches, catlike; she smokes a cigar from her lover’s nightstand. She crawls out of bed and onto the floor, and proceeds to slink around the apartment in her white satin slip (which she is WEARING THE CRAP OUT OF, by the way, as only Elizabeth Taylor could), casually running her hand over all his wife’s things. She purrs, she opens the closet to find a delicious mink coat—one that she envies, but still puts back on the hanger in favor of a more modest (albeit still hella fancy) fur coat to cover her almost-nakedness. BUT THEN, what’s this?! A note from her lover leaving her $250 for the previous night’s escapades?! Liz/Gloria is indescribably insulted that he would leave her money for something that she obviously thought was meaningful, and storms to the mirror in a wordless rage (I should also mention that, at this point, no words whatsoever have been spoken in the movie. Just an over-the-top, Looney Tunes-ish, hilariously descriptive score by Bronislau Kaper). In a fit of inspiration, she scribbles “No Sale” on the mirror in lipstick, snatches the first delicious mink coat out of the closet, dons it, and strides elegantly out of the apartment.
Now, I know I’ve expended a lot of words on the first seven minutes of the movie alone. But you have to understand that it really just sets the tone for the entire movie! Gloria is, yes, a woman of ill-repute. But throughout the story she struggles mightily with that fact, and honestly tries to reconcile her lifestyle with an inner sense of right and wrong that is made more difficult by her strict mother’s refusal to see or accept her daughter for who she is. She is a very complex character, and without getting too deep into spoiler territory here, I would honestly have liked to see her get a much better ending.
This is a dark movie, there’s no question about it. It leaves you with the sense that you aren’t quite sure WHAT you wanted to happen to Gloria, you just know that it wasn’t…that. And can I just ask why Laurence Harvey always seems to be such an insufferable, sanctimonious d-bag? He’s the one man she claims to have ever loved, and he just treats her like trash. Yet, somehow, you’re supposed to root for them to be together. This is where my “question mark?” opinion on the movie comes into play. I just…I don’t know. Here’s something I do know, though: I love the glamour and the complicated feelings that old movies like this leave you with. Butterfield 8 was the first time Elizabeth Taylor won an Oscar for Best Actress, despite being nominated several times previously (and despite her own reported comments that this movie was “a piece of trash”). It’s a movie that can’t quite decide what it wants to do–does it want to commend its heroine for being honest in her struggle to become a better person, or does it want to condemn her for being a so-called loose canon? I’m really just not sure, and I’m not sure Daniel Mann was either when he directed it.
Despite these hesitations, however, I am endlessly fascinated by this movie. IMDB describes Gloria as “part model, part call-girl–and all man-trap.” The back of my Butterfield 8 DVD declares, in bold red print: “Lots of men knew her number. No one knew her heart.” Maybe there has been a decline in the tagline industry these days, but I seriously cannot think of the last time a movie tagline made me want so much to laugh out loud and simultaneously spend the whole afternoon watching Elizabeth Taylor brush her teeth with whiskey.
So please, stick with me. In my reviews, and as Charles, Micah, and I make our way through the Good, the Bad and the Podcast, I will be bringing up many more of these kinds of movies. The classics aren’t just Groucho Marx’s eyebrows or Edward G. Robinson going “mmyeah, see?” through the butt of his cigar. They are beautiful, they are complicated, they are women proving that smarts and beauty are not mutually exclusive. They are strong men and strong values, convoluted plot points, and gorgeous cinematography. I hope you’ll stick around to explore every last one.