SPOILER FREE REVIEW
I am not one of those people who hate comic book movies, nor have I ever bought into the argument that they’re destroying cinema as we know it, let alone dumbing down culture to the point of no return. As for established filmmakers who make these claims, well, I believe they may simply be afraid of change, or at least what they perceive as a loss of quality (both in terms of craftsmanship and in the current streaming vs. traditional theatrical experience battle). I think what’s happening in the film industry is explained by several factors, but at the end of the day, it’s a business, and that business will always lean into what’s popular and thus, profitable. Times change, and opinions shift, and no one knows what will be popular next.
All of that is to say that while I generally love comic book movies, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is a bloated, disjointed mess.
And I definitely had high hopes for this one, too, especially being a fan of the first, so this is all the more disappointing.
There were a ton of speculations regarding what finally might be shown in the Multiverse, especially since WandaVision and Loki seemingly teased us with many possibilities (including sort of, kind of, maybe introducing an X-Men character from 20th Century Fox’s movies that wasn’t possible before Disney bought that studio). And let’s not forget Spider-Man: No Way Home, which directly played with our nostalgia and love for characters and actors that we never thought we’d see together on screen. With different rights to Marvel characters now seemingly all together (even those still owned by Sony), the possibilities were endless! Maybe your favorite comic book character would make a cameo here, or your favorite actor would finally do justice to a superhero that was portrayed terribly or inaccurately in a previous movie. Surely, this Doctor Strange sequel would blow us away, right? Right??
Well, no, it doesn’t.
And maybe it’s not fair to put that much pressure on one film, but Endgame delivered with perhaps even more weight on its massive shoulders. And Marvel hasn’t taken many missteps in my opinion.
So what went wrong?
To answer that, let’s talk about the elephant in the room (and no, not that one from Darkman): Director Sam Raimi.
He directed the first three Spider-Man movies that starred Tobey Maguire. Those that listen to our podcasts know that I wasn’t the biggest fan of those, but even I know they were well received. Raimi can be a great director. The problem here is that he was brought in to replace original director Scott Derrickson over creative differences between Derrickson and Marvel. Raimi has a very unique, sometimes polarizing style that is nothing like Derrickson’s, and he claimed this movie would be MCU’s first horror film. While that certainly sounded promising, there were rumors that poor test screenings forced him to do extensive reshoots. All of this seemed to indicate that there were problems going on behind the scenes, and a movie was being made with a severe identity crisis.
So, is it a horror film? In many ways it is, albeit watered down, and it’s arguably the MCU’s most violent film. It even has an Evil Dead type vibe at times, but it never fully commits. There’s one gruesome scene in particular that I just know Raimi must have been itching to show more than the PG-13 rating would allow, but he was forced to imply the violence rather than show it. Restraint in gore has never been Raimi’s style, and the scene suffers from a lack of clarity as a result.
Is this movie a direct follow-up to Derrickson’s first movie, as well as to the animated series What If…? on Disney+? Again, in many ways, yes, but definitely not in terms of style or tone and that makes it feel disconnected from both. It certainly never takes the baton and runs with it as you might think based on its trailers.
Does it introduce new characters, and revamp some old ones? Does it have some cameos? Yes, but probably not in the way you’d like or expect. Defying expectations and shocking you can be a good thing, but here it just feels underwhelming and lazy. Not to mention that superpowers ebb and flow depending on the scene without any explanation. Sometimes characters are god-like and sometimes the simplest thing can take them out. The rules are never clear.
Does it expand the Multiverse concept? Yes, but only in short bursts. The majority of the movie takes place in only two universes, and they are nearly indistinguishable from each other. The stakes never really feel that high, and actions never feel permanent.
Combine all of that, and the takeaway here is that this movie was pulled in a lot of different creative directions that were all patch-worked together. It never knows what it wants to be, and thus, fails at being anything other than a jumbled pile of ideas that never make a cohesive whole. In that sense, it reminded me of Rise of Skywalker, and that’s never a good thing.
Oh, and for those wondering, the extra half star is for Bruce Campbell because, well, he’s always groovy.
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Wow.
That was my initial reaction.
As I sat in the flickering light of the credits, I felt dumbfounded by what I had just seen and yet, profoundly moved and compelled by it as well. You see, I haven’t written a full length review like this one since War For The Planet of the Apes, and that was FIVE years ago. And yet, the words here were immediately forming in my head, and I knew I had to get them out as soon as I could.
Everything Everywhere All At Once had inspired me to forget about everything else and do what I love. It had inspired me to just… write.
I’m sure a big part of that inspiration comes from the amazing cast, which includes James Hong, Jamie Lee Curtis, Stephanie Hsu, and Kay Hu Quan (!!), but at the center of it all, it’s the incredible performance by Michelle Yeoh that connected with me the most. She is versatile, beautiful, flawless, and fierce (and sometimes all at once).
But what exactly is it about?
Well, without spoilers, you could say it’s about a mid-life crisis and wasted potential told in a very original, ambitious, entertaining way. Or that it’s about nihilism and losing the fight on just giving up, here represented by a bagel with everything on it. Truly.
You could also say it’s a goofy and chaotic comedy packed with absurd imagery like hot dog fingers, or maybe that it’s a deep meditation on life and love, regrets and acceptance, and ultimately finding contentment within your particular place in the multi-verse, which is to say inner peace.
Perhaps you could even claim that it’s an action movie filled with deep appreciation for Asian Cinema as a whole, especially films created by Wong Kar-Wai, Ang Lee, and the Shaw Brothers Studios. Or maybe it’s even about music and life imitating art, such as when the lyrics to Absolutely (Story of a Girl) are spoken out loud in a scene and it somehow seems so completely appropriate that you might even question whether it was intentional or not.
Maybe it’s really about the mundane things in life that can eventually consume you if you’re not careful, like getting up early every day to go to work at a job you hate because of whatever circumstance or choice has put you in the position where you can’t quit. Heck, maybe it’s actually about filing your taxes on time.
Well, it’s actually all of these things and more, of course, but don’t worry. As weird as it gets, and as rambling as I might sound doing my best to describe it, none of it feels particularly pretentious or complicated. Kudos to the filmmakers for somehow achieving that precarious balance because what the Daniels have achieved is nothing short of mind-blowing. The production design and editing are absolutely some of the best I’ve ever seen.
But you know, at the end of this, I’m finding that my initial expression still sums this movie up the best.
Wow.
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I’ll admit: I was skeptical when I heard they were rebooting the Planet of the Apes series again after the mess that was Tim Burton’s attempted reboot, but most of that skepticism had to do with the decision to use entirely computer generated apes instead of modern makeup. I’ve typically been of the opinion that effects done practically are the best and that CG is often used excessively and done lazily. I also LOVE the original Planet of the Apes. It’s one of my favorite movies.
But then I actually saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes and that trepidation vanished. Not only was the movie fantastic, but the decision to use CG apes was completely justified. What Andy Serkis and WETA had done was, in many ways, the evolution of their work on The Lord of the Rings, but they also imbued a sense of humanity and realism into the main character Caesar that hadn’t quite been seen before. It was brilliant.
But when Matt Reeves was brought on to direct the sequel, again I was skeptical. Apparently, there had been drama, and for various reasons, Rise’s director Rupert Wyatt was not coming back. That’s almost never a good sign. But, just like before, once I actually saw Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, that skepticism was gone. This wasn’t some studio hatchet job that had been created as the result of interference and inflated egos. No. No, in fact, it was actually better than Rise, and the visual effects were even more special while still retaining that sense of unprecedented realism and humanity. There were even touches of Shakespearian-like tragedy thrown in for good measure.
Now, with the new movie, my only reservation was that it couldn’t possibly live up to the other two, and yet again, that turned out to be completely unfounded. If anything, War for the Planet of the Apes might be the best of the new trilogy, and while I’m not quite ready to say it’s as good as the 1968 original, it definitely stands up there.
The movie begins not too long after the last, in a world where most humans have died due to the “Simian Flu.” The remaining armies of the world are trying to kill all of the apes once and for all. They know of Caesar and believe that taking him out will throw the ape hierarchy into chaos, making them easier to dismantle and destroy. Some apes have even sided with the humans and now work alongside them, where they are demeaningly referred to as “donkeys.” These “donkeys” believe the apes will ultimately lose, and some even blame Caesar in how he handled Koba’s mutiny attempt (which was the crux of Dawn).
Through a series of events, including a life-changing encounter with The Colonel, Caesar decides his people must move somewhere else where they can be safe, while he goes to deal with the humans himself. Reluctantly taking a small team with him, Caesar discovers that things are a bit different than he realized. He sees firsthand just how cruel the humans can be in their fight to not be eradicated from this world. Along the way, he and his team encounter a small, strangely mute child and a former zoo ape that has managed to survive through scavenging. Together, they will indeed partake in a massive war for the planet.
Andy Serkis and Woody Harrelson are terrific as Caesar and The Colonel, respectively. What could have been a two dimensional villain in any other film winds up being a richly detailed and thoroughly fleshed out character that you’re never quite sure if you side with or not, and that’s mostly because Mr. Harrelson is able to beautifully run the gamut from one emotional extreme to the next. Likewise, Mr. Serkis allows us to see that even Caesar has flaws and doesn’t always make the best choices. He is constantly tormented by his past, and continues to have surreal visions of a bleeding Koba talking with him. Caesar’s anger may sometimes get the best of him, but his moral compass seems to always be in the right place. I’ve said it many, many times, but Andy Serkis deserves an Oscar for his acting ability here. Yes, the effects are amazing (actually, the best I’ve ever seen), but it’s all rooted in his pitch-perfect performance.
I should also mention that Steve Zahn is fantastic as that former zoo ape, who calls himself “Bad Ape.” These movies always tend to be bleak, and his comic relief is much needed and appreciated without being too over-the-top. Actually, he nearly steals all of the scenes he’s in and that’s really saying something.
Director Matt Reeves once again returns for this movie, and in a Q&A in New York before the movie premiered, he said that he was going for a biblical epic that starred apes. Indeed, Caesar’s experience does seem to mirror that of Moses, mixed in with a prisoner of war type movie. Some may find that blasphemous, but I thought it added to the already rich, woven tapestry of these films, and was certainly not out of place what with the original one’s dealing of evolution and religion and science. And given the way this movie ends, it’s an nice coda to this series, especially if this is to be the last… though something tells me it won’t be (especially if the rumors I’ve heard are true).
And I’m okay with that.
Excited, actually.
How many times can you say for the potential 3rd sequel of a film franchise that has been rebooted twice now?
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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 to Day 3 of our Clint Eastwood spotlight where we’re talking about Dirty Harry from 1971.
It’s hard to imagine a more iconic role for an actor, but it’s just one of many for Mr. Eastwood in his long and illustrious career. And even though it would eventually become cliched through many knockoffs and bad movies, his anti-hero renegade cop character really broke the mold here.
The movie follows that title character as he tries to stop a serial killer named “Scorpio” in San Francisco. It’s loosely inspired by the real life serial killer “Zodiac” (which was more meticulously followed in David Fincher’s great film), but unlike in real life, we know who this killer is almost from the get-go. It takes away much of the potential suspense and inherent drama, and I think it’s to the determent of this film. It also doesn’t help that Scorpio is rather mundane and not especially powerful or menacing. He seems to stumble and get away on technicalities or by just dumb luck, and it makes much of the movie seem especially dated and laughable.
But that’s why the movie isn’t called “Scorpio,” I suppose.
To that end, Harry Callahan is great and very entertaining to watch. He has so many quotes, but perhaps the most famous one is the “Do you feel lucky, punk?” line. It’s fairly early on in the movie and unfortunately, it’s probably also the film’s best moment. The rest of the movie is mostly him being hampered by routine police work and being blamed for everything that goes wrong. It’s pretty tedious after awhile.
Still, for his character alone, I’m giving this movie three stars.
Come back here tomorrow when Kelley reviews the modern western Unforgiven.
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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 to our final day of our study in the life and work of Marlon Brando. Today we look into the film Apocalypse Now…that word film doesn’t truly describe Apocalypse Now though. It is more of an experience. It has surpassed the realm of mere movie and more a thing of obsession for many people. Trust me…you can go way too far down the rabbit hole with this thing! Not only is there the theatrical version of “Apocalypse Now” but there is also a “Redux” cut which is longer and denser AND there is a full making of documentary. Not to mention the original source material “Heart of Darkness” and countless reviews and dissections of this film (add one to the list).
The plot is very simple: During the height of Vietnam, Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) is sent on a mission to take a small platoon on a boat into the thick of Cambodia to assassinate a defective Colonel Kurtz (Brando). To simplify it even more: it’s like the Saving Private Ryan if they were setting out to kill Ryan. But of course along the journey, the platoon encounters numerous morally-grey situations and tragedies befall. As they get deeper in the jungle, the darker their interactions become and the darker their souls turn. A common comparison/theory I have heard many times is that the journey is similar to Dante’s Inferno and the seven layers of Hell.
Like the “Godfather“, the film has so many iconic moments you almost forget they are all from Apocalypse Now. Wagner’s Flight of the Valkaries playing over the speakers of the helicopters, Sheen’s almost dismal narration through out the film, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning” are so parodied its almost unrecognizable as original when watching the movie. And, of course, the superb acting of Brando as the melodramatic, philosophical, and humid Col. Kurtz. I defy you to not be rapt by his droning (even non-sensical) monologue in the sparsely lit, “ladle-drenching” scene in which Willard is captured and finally meets the mysterious Col. Kurtz. The way he elongates his thoughts is mesmerizing.
“You are an errand boy…sent by grocery clerks…to collect a bill.”
This statement alone sums up not only Kurtz’s philosophy on the U.S. military but also his apathy toward his soon-to-be-murderer and his own mortality. Although, Brando is sparsely used in the movie, the build up to the grandeur of Col. Kurtz could not be executed by any other actor working at the time.
Even more interesting than the film itself is the infamous chaos surrounding it. The first line of the documentary Heart of Darkness is a quote from Francis Ford Coppola:
“This movie is not a film about Vietnam…it was Vietnam.”
Among the typhoons, disease and Martin Sheen almost dying (no lie y’all), in steps Brando and his diva-like personality. For starters, when the casting for Col. Kurtz began, he was described to be a formidable man both of stature and personality. Think A Street Car Named Desire but with salt and pepper hair. So it was much to everyone’s surprise when off steps the plane a chubby, unkempt Brando. He also refused to work with the originally written scenes, requiring he and Coppola to hide themselves away in a trailer for two days as they hammered out the lines that are in the film today. As infuriating as this must have been at the time, the results are perfect for this story.
This concludes our look into the great Marlon Brando! What are your thoughts on our picks? Did we leave one out? Did you go into Superman (1978) dying to see his take on Jor-El (I mean who doesn’t love floating-head Brando)? Are you a fan of Apocalypse Now>The Island of Dr. Moreau? Are you the only one who likes that movie? If so, let us know! You can check us out on FaceBook and Twitter! If you have any suggestions for who we should Spotlight next – actor, director, writer, cinematographer, composer – let us know that too!
Thanks, y’all!
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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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It’s Day 5 on our Marlon Brando spotlight and we’re talking about one of the best, if not the best, film of all time, The Godfather!!
It’s the story of an Italian-American crime family (led by Brando’s Don Vito Corleone) and a war that breaks out between them and the other “families” of New York. It’s about the American Dream, family, Hollywood, corruption, capitalism and so much more.
Scene after scene is fantastic, with each one somehow topping the last.
Here’s the opening one that sets up the story so perfectly:
Currently, it sits at #2 on IMDB’s Top 250 list (with The Shawshank Redemption at #1) while its sequel is right behind it at #3. It was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won 3 of them, including Best Picture. It also connected well with audiences and was the highest grossing film of 1972.
To say it was an unmitigated success would be an understatement.
But, of course, as many of you already know, the production was oftentimes a nightmare and very chaotic. The studio didn’t want Al Pacino or Marlon Brando and they fought with director Francis Ford Coppola constantly over them as well as nearly every other issue they could find.
It seemed no one thought the movie would be a success.
At the time, Brando was definitely in a career slump. Despite all his accolades, he had become better known for his antics and behind-the-scene quarrels than for his performances and as a result, there were very few people that wanted anything to do with him. The studio only reluctantly agreed to hire him if he met three conditions, as explained by Coppola:
https://youtu.be/r49QSsGxNtk?t=44s
These were insulting to him, no doubt, but he ended up playing what would become one of cinema’s all time great characters and giving one of the best acting performances in the history of film. The rest of the cast is great (perfect, actually) but Brando steals the show and gives the movie its much needed emotional core. That you can root for the Coreleone family is a testament to his acting. Many of you may think of him as being older when this film was made, but it’s only because of the incredible makeup he wore for the part; in fact, he was only 47 years old during production. That makes the performance even better, even more nuanced.
This is Brando at his finest, and his career was resurrected.
We’re winding down our Spotlight, but Kelley will return tomorrow with one of her favorite Brando films, Last Tango in Paris. Or is that one of her least favorite Brando films? I can never remember.
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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!
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For Day 3 of our Spotlight on Marlon Brando, we’ll be discussing The Wild One from 1953.
Brando plays Johnny, the rough-and-tough leader of a motorcycle gang. They ride from town to town and cause all kinds of ruckus and mayhem, though generally, they leave before it gets too crazy. In one particularly small town, however, a rival gang shows up and tensions begin to mount. That gang’s leader, Chino (played by Lee Marvin), has a history with Johnny and after a brawl in the street between them, Chino ends up being arrested. At this point, all Hell breaks loose. Both gangs are destroying the city in retaliation for the arrest, while Johnny is torn because he’s fallen for the sheriff’s daughter, Kathie (Mary Murphy), and he can’t quite decide whether to do the right thing and help or just leave the city behind like he always does. It’s the classic question of can the “good girl” tame the “bad boy.”
This is one of those movies that I feel straddles the line between popular and being lost to the ages. It certainly feels like it should be well known, but it hasn’t aged well at all. There’s a certain amount of sensationalism that may have been shocking in the 50s, but comes across as mild and… dare I say… cheesy. The opening even has a title card that reads:
“This is a shocking story. It could never take place in most American towns – but it did in this one. It is a public challenge not to let it happen again.”
Knowing this is a 50s movie, my natural proclivity is to roll my eyes and expect a ridiculously campy story with strong morals and bad effects. “A public challenge??” Yes, I have a certain amount of disdain for this kind of high judgement thing, and the opening narration that immediately begins after certainly doesn’t help (especially since there’s no other narration throughout the rest of the film):
So, why am I still giving this movie 3 stars?
Well, Brando, of course (though, to be fair, I do also love that the motorcycle almost hits the camera in that opening shot. Not sure if that was on purpose or not, but it did temporarily make me think the movie might actually be, you know, shocking).
Brando alone makes this movie worth watching. He plays Johnny as a kind soul, someone who knows right from wrong, someone who is introspective and thoughtful, but doesn’t always allow himself to do the right thing. He’s had bad experiences with cops and that has tainted so much of his life that even when the best solution is staring him in the face, he can’t force himself to compromise on silly stubborn ideal he’s created for himself. But Kathie is more than just the average girl to him, and he can see that she really wants to get out of the town, too. For her, it’s too small and too suffocating. She’s certainly a big fish in a small pond and that presents an interesting dynamic because she is shown to be strong and knows exactly what she wants out of life. Johnny, on the other hand, is apparently rebelling just to rebel, unsure of what he’s doing with his life.
That, of course, is one of the movie’s most famous lines (and maybe the only famous line from it) making it perhaps Brando’s version of Rebel Without a Cause (which is ironic because he auditioned for that movie and didn’t get the part).
Still, watch this one only for Brando… and maybe the restrained and nuanced ending (which actually surprised me a bit).
For Day 4 tomorrow, Kelley will be back with her review of On the Waterfront as we continue our spotlight on Marlon Brando!!
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It’s Day 2 of our Spotlight on Marlon Brando and I have the pleasure of writing about Julius Caesar. If you can’t tell from my score up there, I love this movie.
And why not?
It’s one of Shakespeare’s greatest and most famous plays (who here didn’t have to recite Mark Antony’s speech in high school??), directed by the Oscar winning Joseph L. Mankiewicz (of All About Eve fame), and starring some of the finest actors ever, including James Mason, Deborah Kerr, and, of course, Mr. Brando.
With a pedigree like that, one would have to work especially hard to muck it up, but I suppose stranger things have happened.
Still, that is certainly not the case here.
Oddly enough, I had never before questioned the historical accuracy of the plot… and I was perfectly okay with that. Caesar’s last words just had to be “Et tu, Brute?” didn’t they?? Well, as it turns out, maybe they did. Shakespeare’s account of the betrayal and murder of Caesar by his peers and protégés is (mostly) based on Plutarch’s Lives of Noble Greeks and Romans, and while we will never know for sure, it does make it all the more impressive and all the more tragic that these events likely went down in a similar way in real life.
Brando plays Mark Antony, and though he receives top billing, his character is largely absent for the first half of the movie. But when he finally does appear, man, is it one of the most dynamic and exiting moments in all of cinema. It’s the turning point; you see, Antony was not part of the group that betrayed Caesar, and yet, for whatever reason, he is not murdered despite knowing the truth. In fact, Brutus even allows him to speak at Caesar’s funeral, a mistake that changed the course of history, because Antony is able to get all of Rome on his side in a show of solidarity for Caesar. They are united against the “noble” Brutus and war is started.
Brando is simply electric here, delievering his speech with such gusto that you’re likely to be standing up and yelling at your television by the end, cheering with the good people of Rome.
But this is actually why I’m giving the film 3.5 stars instead of 4.
Antony’s speech is easily the best part, and it never again reaches such heights. That’s not to say the rest isn’t extremely well done, but it just pales in comparison. Still, I definitely recommend this movie, especially if you’re only vaguely familiar with the play. The words really come off the screen and it remains one of Hollywood’s best Shakespeare adaptations.
Tomorrow, I’ll be returning for Day 3 with my review of The Wild One, so come back and check it out!!
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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.]]>I’m not sure where we’re at as far as how many movies on our list could be considered NOT Christmas enough, but not only do I not care, it doesn’t apply to Elf at all anyway. This is a Christmas movie through-and-through. No ifs, ands, or butts. And not only are there are many references to classic Christmas films (including a Burl Ives inspired snowman), it’s a great original story about Santa Claus and Christmas magic as well.
But Elf is really about, well, an Elf. His name is Buddy (played with childlike wonder by Will Ferrell). As an infant, he snuck into Santa’s bag on Christmas and was a stowaway to The North Pole. Once he’s discovered there, Santa decides to keep him and raise him as an elf, and places him under the care of Papa Elf (Bob Newhart). 30 years go by and Buddy still hasn’t realized he’s not an elf, despite being terrible at all the elf jobs (and not to mention that he’s now several feet taller than all of them). As he grows more and more frustrated, Papa Elf finally tells him the truth and sends him on a journey to New York City to find his true father (James Caan). Along the way, He’ll also fall in love with Jovie (Zooey Deschanel) and help to bring the Christmas Spirit in all those around him.
I love this movie.
I consider it to be the best of the “modern” Christmas movies (and that’s a wide range of movies that includes A Christmas Story and Christmas Vacation). Having the incredible Ed Asher play Santa Claus is an inspired choice. He’s just as good as Edmund Gwenn was in Miracle on 34th Street and that’s saying a lot!! He has a mischieveious, magical twinkle and I just love his portrayal.
But casting the legendary Bob Newhart as Papa Elf just might be the icing on the cake and he is able to bring out just the right amount of emotional weight to a role that could have been overacted and forgettable. The same goes for Will Ferrell. His character, as written, could have been annoying but he’s somehow just the right blend of innocence and purity.
But what I love most about this movie is that it doesn’t try to go too raunchy like many recent Christmas films have (Bad Santa for example). There are a handful of innuendos here and there, but never pervasive. Make no mistake: This is a great family film. Buddy’s Christmas spirit is contagious and you will feel it, too. Oh, and the music is INCREDIBLE!! I love it when the reindeer fly over New York City. My heart swells every time.
Elf has become a Christmas staple at our house. It’s one of my wife’s all time favorite movies, and though my daughter is too young to fully appreciate it (it’s her first Christmas!!), we are already starting this tradition with her.
So that concludes our 12 Days of Christmas Movie Reviews. We know that we miscounted and on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day, but oh well. Maybe next year I’LL learn how to count (Yes, it was my fault).
But whatever you’re doing and however you celebrate this year, we hope you’ve had fun with us and we wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!
On a side note, don’t try to eat spaghetti like Buddy does. I made that mistake once and let’s just say it wasn’t pleasant for anyone involved.
The post Day 12 (Merry Christmas!!): Elf (2003) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>The film takes place in Whoville, which is populated by the Whos. The Whos love Christmas, but what they really love is buying presents. The title character, The Grinch, was born in Whoville but never quite fit in. This may be because he inexplicably has green skin and fur, or because he is a bit socially awkward. Either way, the Grinch decides it is best for him to run away to Mount Crumpit. Years later Cindy Lou Who decides to try and bring him back to the community. Through some dirty tricks by Mayor May Who the Grinch was once again driven from town. At this point he decides to steal Christmas from the Whos, with the help of his trusty dog Max. Despite all that the Grinch has been through I think Max has a rougher time than the Grinch does. Its hard to be friends with a Grinch. Through all of the zaniness that ensues the Grinch manages to steal every last bit of Christmas in Whoville. But despite all his thieving the Whos still come together to celebrate the true spirit of Christmas. The Grinch is so moved that he returns all the gifts and he is welcomed back to the community.
Now just for a little background, several of us here at ItsJustAwesome.com met while working at a popular retailer. This gave us a first hand view of the rampant consumerism that really comes into its own this time of year. Its great to see this whole system broken down by little Cindy Lou Who early on in the movie. While the movies uses the term Christmas, I think it could easily be a commentary on what it means to simply be Kind. Just like Christmas, Kindness doesn’t come in a box with a bow, and sometimes you have to lose everything before you’ll show it to others.
Its also worth noting that this movie was nominated for three Oscars and won one, for makeup. The entire look of the film captures the look and feel of the original Dr. Seuss book. Its goofy and silly and filled with lots of practical effects that make the world come alive. And yes, the makeup is great. But no matter how much makeup you pile on his face Jim Carrey still shines through.
The Grinch is silly, cartoonish, and full of over the top humor. But at its heart it the story of finding the true meaning of Christmas. Tomorrow Charles will finish off our 12 Days of Christmas Movie Reviews with Elf (2003).
On a serious note, in recent days bullying has become such an issue that there is actually a website setup by the US government, StopBullying.gov, to try and prevent it. Now I’m not going to say that everyone that is bullied will become a Grinch who steals Christmas, but it certainly is a real problem.
The post Day 11: How The Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>Let’s start with a quick synopsis for those of you who have been hiding from pop culture the past 26 years. Kevin McCallister, a young rapscallion is left by his family who travel to Paris for the holiday. Little does he know, two burglars are eyeing his home as the crown jewel heist. But these burglars are in for a big painful surprise when they tango with Kevin.
This is a great Christmas movie. A young boy who wants nothing more than for his family to disappear realizes that once their gone he needs them more than anything. Also how tear-jerking is that scene when the old man next door reunites with his estranged son and grand daughter (chiiiiiiilllls). On top of that the score is incredible – you’ve done it again John Williams – and has become as synonymous with Christmas as Vince Guaraldi’s Charlie Brown score. Note: double yule-tide points for me for being able to legitimately reference C.B. Christmas in two posts – take that Gremlins!
And of course, the most fun part of all, the incredible impossible to create or survive booby trap house! How much fun is it to watch Joe Pesci try his darndest not to swear and Daniel Stern scream like a Japanese school girl! Its laughs at any age. But I do segue here…
I remember watching this in the theatre. My mom, my sister and I having a great time. When we got in the car, my mom turned to us and said, “Now you know, we laughed at those guys getting hurt but all the stuff he did could really kill them. That’s not funny in real life.” I thought back then, “Oh mom, how lame. They just got a paint can to the face and some other stuff, big deal.” But now that I am an adult who is wiser and understands how the human body works, I now know that SHE WAS ABSOLUTELY RIGHT! Kevin is hands down a sociopath, not joking. If you want to see how much bodily damage he could have caused just watch the myriad of videos on YouTube. This one is a personal favorite.
Now I’m going to be the lame parent writing this (go ahead and imagine me in high waisted paints, socks and sandals) but I must point out these blaring questions:
- How is Kevin not more severely punished for talking to his parents that way in the beginning of the film?
- What does Mr. or Mrs. McCallister do to afford that house, have like a dozen kids, and have all those mannequins lying around?
- Why do they always have every light on in the house on? How much is their electric bill?!?!
Watch it, question it, but in the end you gotta love it! Join us tomorrow as Christopher takes a look at the re-imaging of the classic story How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000).
The post Day 10: Home Alone (1990) 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.]]>Depending on whether you agree with Topher’s review on White Christmas and it NOT being a “Christmas movie” or Kelley’s review of It’s a Wonderful Life and it NOT being about Christmas, Gremlins might be the third non-Christmas movie on our list. Personally, I think they’re all Christmas films, but the argument could be made that if you can replace Christmas in a film with any other holiday and have little or no change on the plot, then it’s not really about Christmas and thus not a true Christmas movie.
To me, this is akin to colorizing a black-and-white film. Sure, it can be done, and the plot doesn’t change, but that movie was specifically created to look like that, with costumes and set design that photographed best in black-and-white. In that vein, White Christmas, It’s a Wonderful Life, Gremlins and Die Hard were all written to take place during the Christmas season, and if you were to alter that, you are inherently changing the movie and what the creators envisioned (even if it might not be apparent).
So, I’ll emphatically defend Gremlins as a Christmas movie… and I guess not colorizing black-and-white movies as well.
Gremlins is the blended, twisted creation of director Joe Dante, producer Steven Spielberg, and writer Chris Columbus and their unique influence is clear throughout the entire thing. It also happens to be a fantastic film that blurs the line between being a heartwarming family movie and a gory, frightening film more suited for adults. This is, after all, one of a handful of films in the early 80s that helped lead to the creation of the “PG-13” rating in the U.S. (the other prominent one being Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. What’s up, Spielberg??).
Inventor Randall Peltzer is looking for the perfect Christmas gift for his son Billy. In an eerie and strange shop, he discovers a creature known as a “Mogwai,” but the owner of the shop doesn’t want to sell it. After some back alley dealings with the shop owner’s grandson, Randall is able to purchase the Mogwai, but is given three rules he must follow:
Naturally, not along after Billy receives the Mogwai (which he names Gizmo), he breaks all of these rules. It wouldn’t be a very good movie if all of these rules were followed and the mysterious shop owner’s foreshadowing didn’t come true, right??
The lights in the bathroom prove too bright for Gizmo, but it’s when he gets him wet that the real trouble begins. You see, when water is accidentally spilled on Gizmo, more Mogwai pop out of his back. When these other Mogwai are accidentally fed after midnight, they form a cocoon and go through a metamorphosis to become a larger creature… the Gremlin! Soon, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of them wreaking mischievous havoc all throughout the town of Kingston Falls. And only Billy, his girlfriend Kate, and Gizmo can stop them!!
I love this movie.
I love the strange homages it makes to other films and cartoons (not unlike what Dante did in The Howling). I love that Dick Miller is used to great effect, even giving the reason the creatures are named Gremlins. I love Kate’s bizarre story of how her father died (similar to her Abraham Lincoln memory in Gremlins 2) and I love how much fun it is!! A room full of Gremlins singing “Heigh Ho” while watching Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs?? I mean, what’s not to love????
Seriously, watch this movie this holiday season, especially if you’ve never seen it before!!
Tomorrow is Day 9 and Kelley will be reviewing a movie we disagree on: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation!!
The post Day 8: Gremlins (1984) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>You’ll shoot your eye out!
Remember kids – drink more Ovalteen
Look it’s Italian! Frageelé
Oh fuuuuuudge!
The interesting thing about each of the moments though are that taken out of the Christmas context could be funny any time of the year. So just as Kelley begged the question with It’s a Wonderful Life and Christopher with White Christmas, is it a Christmas movie? As far as the story is concerned I would equate it to something like The Sand Lot. A collection of memories from boyhood…that just so happen to be at Christmas.
Ralphie is a boy just trying to make it in his world full of annoying brothers, bullies, the threat of soap poison whose only aspiration in life is a a Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock and “this thing which tells time”. The film follows that plot line as it weaves through humorous scenes akin to stories your family tells over the years. You know, the kind of stories a family member says “We need to write theses down and put it in a book.”
There’s not really much to say about A Christmas Story. There is no brilliant storytelling, directing or acting to stop and discuss. That critique aside, it is a fun movie with great one liners and memorable moments. It’s no wonder TBS airs it for a full day (are they still doing that? seriously somebody look that up). You can jump in at anytime and laugh at the kid who gets his tongue stuck to the flag pole, or giggle at Ralphie in his bunny costume. Then you can just as easily turn it off when it’s time to go to grandma’s house or when Christmas dinner is ready. I honestly enjoy this movie and will sit and watch it anytime it’s on but I can understand why some people say they don’t care for it (which is a surprising amount).
A few years ago I was able to see A Christmas Story in a stage play – narration, kid actors and all. I have to say I appreciated the story more in that version. Then again if you have watched this thing a hundred times, you could probably act it out in your living room all the same.
Tomorrow Charles will be reviewing Gremlins from 1984. Oh Gremlins…I look forward to leaving my comments… Thanks everyone!
The post Day 7: A Christmas Story (1983) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>The ever-down-trotten Charlie Brown is searching for the meaning of Christmas through all the commercialism and production that surrounds him. His best “frenemy” Lucy suggests he direct the Christmas play. Through all his efforts and his affection for a whimpy Christmas tree he still never finds the meaning of “Christmas” until Linus steers them on the correct road to understanding.
On the original air date, this adaptation of Charles Schultz popular comic strip found many road blocks in its production. The story behind that almost over shadows the film itself! One of the largest hurdles though was Charles Schultz’s stubbornness to make a standard cartoon but instead focus his effort on what he saw as a force that was demeaning the spirit of the holiday: commercialization. I despise the commercialization of Christmas. Jingle bells popping up as Jack-o-lanterns are coming down sickens me! Black Friday dictates when we should bring peace on Earth and good will toward men. This little film is in my corner in that fight.
A good 3/4 of the film follows the pattern most Peanuts animated stories do; 60 second jokes that you can imagine are lifted straight from the daily four panel comic strip with an over-arching plot line following our glum hero Charlie. All these scenes focus on how disgusted and confused he is on the purpose of Christmas. Is it just a “racket cooked up by an Eastern syndicate”? The story takes a turn though when Charlie Brown and Linus are set out to find a tree, which of course Charlie Brown gets the “Charlie Brown-iest” of all trees. In his dismay he cries out “Doesn’t anybody know the true meaning of Christmas?!” Linus answers with a Bible verse and that scene hugs my heart every time. At this point many people think Charlie Brown has been given the resolution to the problem in the plot. Although this would be the climax of the story, the true resolution comes in the last few seconds of the movie.
Now bear with me as I psycho-analyze a 50 year old children’s program! Linus sets the resolution on the right path but neither Charlie Brown or the gang still understand Christmas. In his speech Linus talks about the Christian understanding of Christmas. Essentially he is saying Christmas is about something bigger than an individual’s needs or wants. This applies to all holidays in this season: Chanukah, Christmas, Solstice, or any non-descript Holiday tradition/celebration. The holidays are about stopping selfish thought and joining in a community whether that is family, friends, faith group or just another human being.
So the true resolution is here: Charlie Brown has abandoned his tree. The gang gathers around it and together decorate it (by waving hands – if only it were that easy I wouldn’t climb a ladder in the freezing cold). Together they agree it’s not a bad tree after all. Then they begin humming together. Notice the optimal word there: TOGETHER. Up to this point every character has had their own agenda, played their part in the play their own way, misunderstood each other and even danced different dances. Side note: my favorite is the kid who just shrugs his shoulders. This is the first time they have done something in harmony. I love that there are no musical singing numbers before this scene which in modern day you would probably see in most children’s Christmas movies. This emphasizes the fact this is the first time they have been together.
What can we learn from the Peanuts gang now 50 years later. The true meaning of Christmas is about stopping to think that there is something bigger than you and we are all part of it TOGETHER. This is an important message as we wave an exhausted good bye to to 2016. Christmas is about stopping all rushing about if just for one day to decorate a tree, sing a chorus of “ooo oooo ooo “, and wish somebody who 364 days of the year you think is “just the worst”! Merry Christmas Donald Trump. Merry Christmas Hillary Clinton. Merry Christmas corporate executive. Merry Christmas welfare squatter. Merry Christmas alt-right nationalist. Merry Christmas liberal media. Merry Christmas Charlie Brown.
The post Day 6: A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>In this telling Rudolph is born to Donner, one of Santa’s reindeer. It quickly becomes obvious that he is different, and despite his amazing flying ability he is rejected because of his red nose. Meanwhile Hermey the elf is having trouble fitting in as well. You see elves are supposed to make all the toys Santa delivers on Christmas Eve, but Hermey just wants to be a dentist. What kid can’t relate to that? Both Rudolph and Hermey find themselves wandering the Arctic wilderness where they meet Yukon Cornelius, a prospector looking to find his fortune and driving a sled pulled by poodles and dachshunds. This trio of odd balls meet the toys on the Island of Misfit Toys, and eventually defeat the Abominable Snowman. In an effort to get Santa to help the toys on the Island of Misfit Toys Rudolph goes back to the North Pole. Once there he is called upon to use his shiny red nose to guide Santa’s sleigh through a snow storm.
Other than the classic songs and the wonderful animation, the best part of this movie is the characters. It should be obvious that most, if not all of the main characters are misfits. A red nosed reindeer, an elf with dental ambitions, a prospector with sled poodles, and of course an entire island of misfit toys. This begs the question, is the movie saying we should accept misfits, or that we are all misfits? I can’t speak for every child, but I know that I and most of my friends felt like misfits growing up. So maybe we could use this movie as a way to teach that we are all a little weird, and thats Ok.
The other perspective is of course that Rudolph isn’t a misfit at all. He is a hero, endowed with super powers, who has come to save the day. He is like so many great people throughout history that were seen as crazy or weird, but in the end prove to be gifted or even genius. This goes for all the heroes in this story. Only Rudolph could guide the sleigh, only Dr. Hermey DDS could extract all the teeth from the Abominable Snowman, and only Santa could save the toys from the Island of Misfit Toys.
So perhaps both perspectives are true. We are all weird misfits, and you never know who is going to be the hero that saves Christmas. I really hope you will watch this movie again this year, I found it to be just as charming today as it was the first time I saw it.
Tomorrow Micah will take a look at A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965). You won’t want to miss that one. Enjoy!
The post Day 5: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) 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.]]>What makes White Christmas interesting is that it isn’t really a Christmas movie. Other than the title and title song, there isn’t really much about Christmas in the whole movie. Sure it is set at Christmas and the cast even dresses in fur trimmed red velvet outfits, but not much else. Other Christmas movies tend to talk about the true meaning of Christmas, or the Christmas spirit, or something of that nature. Not White Christmas. Even the two love stories seem to be somewhat tangential to our heroes main focus. In the end this is really the story of two Army buddies trying to save their old general who they greatly respect. Oh and they really want it to snow.
The movie opens in 1944 during the war where Bob and Phil, played by Bing Crosby and Danny Kayne, are serving. Here it becomes quite obvious that their commanding general, Major General Waverly played by Dean Jagger, is a loved almost father figure to the men. Fast forward several years through the shenanigans that lead our duo to a ski lodge in Vermont, and they once again come face to with their beloved general. The general owns a ski lodge that is having a hard time making ends meet due to the lack of snow, and the general is afraid he’s going to lose it all. Bob and Phil manage to get the message out to their old outfit that they need their help, and they all come to the aid of Major General Waverly. To these two men the most important thing in their lives was the war and the men they served with, that is their true family. So from that perspective this is the story of two men trying to get the whole family together for Christmas. I’m sure someone somewhere could use this movie as a starting point to examine the deep effects of the war and PTSD on the Greatest Generation. This idea seems just as relevant today, which may be why it still holds up so well.
I don’t say any of this to diminish the amazing performances of Rosemary Clooney or Vera-Ellen, both are great in their respective roles. And don’t over look the musical aspects of this movie either, “White Christmas” sung by Bing Crosby is the best selling single of all time. And the dance numbers are great too, Vera-Ellen was one of the youngest Rockettes, and her dancing skills are amazing. But to call this movie a “Christmas Movie” and relegate it to sentimentalism that pops up once a year is selling it short. This is a movie that brings up the topics of war, growing old, exploitation in media, and what it means to be a family. This is a great movie, and I hope you will enjoy it with an open mind.
Tomorrow is Santa Claus (1959) by Kelley, hope to see you all then!
The post Day 3: White Christmas (1954) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>Just so there’s no confusion, I am talking about the original 1947 classic, not the 1994 remake. And while I actually like that movie considerably, nothing holds a candle to the original.
It’s not just the best Christmas movie on our list, it’s probably the best Christmas movie ever, and one of the best movies of all time. I’m sure there’s a certain sense of nostalgia at play here, because I certainly remember watching this with my mom every Christmas when I was a boy. This film that she watched as a girl was now captivating me, and though I didn’t know it at the time, it helped foster my love for movies, and for the wonder of them and the joy they could bring.
Before I get too mushy and sentimental, here’s a summary: Macy’s Department Store quickly needs a Santa Claus replacement for their Thanksgiving Parade after their planned one shows up drunk, and who else should be there but a man named Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn in an Oscar-winning role). Kris is quite simply incredible and so, the Director of Special Events, Doris Walker (Maureen O’Hara), hires him to continue “playing” Santa at the store. Naturally, he’s widely successful there as well, but he’s being completely open and honest with Macy’s customers, even if that means sending them to other stores where certain Christmas gifts can be had for cheaper. Once the management find out, they’re not too happy. Tack on the fact that Kris actually believes he’s the real Santa, and they decide he needs to be institutionalized. A court case ensues, and Fred Gailey (John Payne), is the only young lawyer who will help defend him. Fred also happens to be in love with Doris, but she’s pretty emotionally distant. She’s taught her daughter, Susan (Natalie Wood), to be detached as well and to not believe in fantasy and make-believe, including Santa Claus. So, not only must Kris win his case and prove he’s the real deal, but he also must somehow convince Doris and Susan that there is magic in the world, and that miracles do exist. A tall order perhaps, but not for Kris Kringle!!
There’s a particular scene with a young Dutch girl whose adoptive mother doesn’t think will be able to speak with Santa, but lo and behold, Santa speaks her language!! But OF COURSE he does!! Even though this beautiful moment is brief, it still manages to catapult the film into another level.
Then there’s the courtroom scene with all the mail bags being brought it. I can’t help but smile each and every time I see it.
Gwenn gives the definitive portrayal of Santa Claus, in my opinion. It goes beyond an actor playing a role. It’s transcendent. He makes the audience believe in him, as well, and the Christmas joy he spreads feels genuine, and never too saccharine. There’s a magical twinkle in his eye that will live forever in celluloid, and that Christmas joy will only continue to spread as future generations embrace this movie, just like it did for me and my mom… and soon my daughter.
Tomorrow, it’s Day 3 with Topher reviewing White Christmas!!
The post Day 2: Miracle on 34th Street (1947) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>- From Russia with Love – Ian Fleming: check out our James Bond: Here and There podcast for a closer look at all of the Bond books!
- What the Dog Saw and other Adventures – Malcolm Gladwell (AB): TOP PICK! Like Joseph Campbell, I suggest reading anything and everything you can find by Malcolm Gladwell. This work is a collection of some of his own favorite stories, originally written for The New Yorker. His full-length non-fiction books like Outliers, Blink, David and Goliath, and The Tipping Point have all been eye-opening with a general MO to challenge our assumptions about how the world works by showing us…well how the world really works. Some of the implications of his work have been challenged, and I don’t think he is an infallible sage, but he is the first name I give to people who are looking for good books to read. Also, he narrates his own audio-books, and does so very well.
- Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck: I was not looking forward to this one, but it surprised me pleasantly. Coming in at over 450 pages, it took me only a little over a week to finish (with some personal pushing necessary). Many had actually tried to dissuade me from reading it, but I’m a stickler when it comes to getting in “the greats.” Like Hemingway, Steinbeck’s style is accessible, and this book tells the story of a farming family, “simple folk,” trying to survive The Dust Bowl which hit the plains during The Great Depression (so overall, not a great time to be a farmer). I found myself caught up in the story and in a lot of the folk wisdom (which has been criticized along with Steinbeck’s sentimentality). Unless you are an avid reader though, I would save this book for after completing the challenge. Also, its infamous ending is really divisive and may leave you feeling unsatisfied.
- Food: A Love Story – Jim Gaffigan (AB): I checked out this audio-book, read by the author, as a pleasant break from the headier stuff. Like pretty much everyone I’ve met, I love Jim Gaffigan and his stand-up comedy, and this book was great. As the title suggests, it’s all about food, and though he recycles a lot of his stand-up material, the jokes hold up.
- Oh Crap! Potty Training – Jamie Glowacki: So, we were potty training our kid and I read this book…
- Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce: Oh Joyce. Joyce, Joyce, Joyce. This giant of an Irish author is best known for Ulysses, his behemoth novel about a single day in 1904 Ireland. Most of his work is so abstruse that you have to use smart words like ‘abstruse’ to describe it, and be a scholar to enjoy it. Although Portrait is a little more accessible than Ulysses, I would never suggest it as a book to curl up with under the sheets. Don’t get me wrong, he was a genius, but he was the kind of genius who wanted you to really work to understand his genius.
- What the Buddha Taught – Walpola Rahula: This was a great little book for an introduction into Buddhism. As a human being, I’m trying to learn about all the major religions, and this book was perfect for the spiritual layman. Highly suggest.
- Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson: One of the most iconic, pirate adventure stories that I really should have read at some point during my first thirty years of life. I enjoyed it, and can see why it has been, and continues to be so popular. Buried treasure? Check. Back-stabbing pirates? Check. Deserted island? Check.
- In Other Worlds – Margaret Atwood (AB): If you’re into sci-fi and fantasy, I suggest this non-fiction book. It presents Atwood’s thoughts and studies of the genres, and ends with a few sci-fi sketches she wrote herself. Pretty interesting stuff by an established author about genres people don’t consider as important as perhaps they should.
- The Incredible Journey – Sheila Burnford: I have a large collection of young adult books, and this was among them. I picked it up largely because it was short but also because I liked the movie Homeward Bound which was based on it. A quaint story about three pets who think they’ve been abandoned and so journey through the Canadian wilderness to find their owners. Will they survive?! (Spoiler: they do.)
That’s it for now. Get out there and keep reading!
The post 100-Book Challenge (Part 3) 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.]]>Day 1: It’s A Wonderful Life (1946);
Day 2: Miracle on 34th Street (1947);
Day 3: White Christmas (1954);
Day 4: Santa Claus (1959);
Day 5: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964);
Day 6: A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965);
Day 7: A Christmas Story (1983);
Day 8: Gremlins (1984);
Day 9: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989);
Day 10: Home Alone (1990);
Day 11: How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000);
Day 12: Elf (2003).
Many of you may not know this, but The Visit is an M. Night Shyamalan film. I imagine when I say his name, there’s a good chance you’re rolling your eyes and thinking back on some of his… shall we say… lesser films, but the truth of the matter is that he is a great filmmaker. When you’ve got The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs as back-to-back-to-back films you’ve created on your résumé, you’re clearly doing something right. It’s a shame that he’s taken such a beating recently (so much so that Sony buried his name in all the marketing for After Earth), but I believe The Visit (which was created under Blumhouse) is a return to form for him and should hopefully win him back the respect he deserves.
If you read my review for [Rec], you know my contempt for “found footage” movies. I realized after I wrote it that I actually have enjoyed a few, if I’m being completely honest. I think the Paranormal Activity movies have been pretty great, and I even liked V/H/S and Creep, so the genre CAN work on me. And it did for The Visit, as I didn’t find myself annoyed with the gimmicky approach at all and was genuinely creeped out in quite a few scenes.
It’s basically about a brother and sister who go to spend a week with their grandparents. That may sound perfectly normal, but they’ve never actually met their grandparents, so they have no idea what they look like. Years ago, their mother had a falling out with them and she left home, ever looking back. Despite that, everything is good… at first. As the days pass, however, they notice their grandparents doing strange things, especially after 9:30pm each night. Despite multiple warnings about being in bed before that time, the two never are as their curiosity gets the better of them. Eventually, they think their grandparents might even be trying to kill him!! Oh no!!!!!!
What I like most about this movie is how, despite a very straightforward premise where something is obviously wrong, it doesn’t quite play out like you think it should. It also pushes the boundaries of the PG-13 ratings system, and not even with gore, but with disturbing subject matter. I think that has a lot to do with M. Night Shyamalan’s “classic” directing sensibilities (and maybe also because his goriest film to date, The Happening, happened to be one of his worst ones. It is his only R-rated film, too, so I’m sure that factors in). It seems like he has always tried to be this generation’s Hitchcock, especially by doing cameos in his films, but he certainly does know how to ratchet up the suspense in each scene and then let it play out at its own pace. And that definitely works for this movie. It’s a mystery throughout, but some of the creepiest scenes actually happen early on (like the grandmother eerily chasing after them in the crawlspace). By the time all is revealed, it certainly feels earned and isn’t cheap at all (even if my wife and I saw it coming… something our friend Toby did not), and that’s saying a lot for a film these days. I’m actually really excited to see how he will approach Split now.
All of that’s not to say this is a perfect film, however, as there were a few goofy moments here and there (namely the main kid rapping in the film, and then doing an extended rap during the credits), but it can be easily forgiven because the film is so good in other areas. Overall, it just works.
Well, that just about does it for this year’s 31 Days of Horror. We sincerely hope that you’ve enjoyed our picks and have expanded your horror cinema knowledge by watching our overview videos. I know we’ve had a blast!!
So, on behalf of all of us here at It’s Just Awesome DOT com, we’d like to say thanks and… HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!!!
The post Day 31 (Happy Halloween!!): The Visit (2015) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>I need to point out that I consider Insidious to be one of the scariest movies of this decade so far. I bring that up because it’s also from director James Wan and shares many of the same styles (and even actors) as The Conjuring. Insidious scared the heck out of me when I watched it in theaters and I had a hard time sleeping for days. I really wanted to see The Conjuring in theaters, but I just never got around to it. This was much to the chagrin of my friend Robert because he loves horror films, too, and we share many of the same tastes in movies.
This year, after he remembered that I hadn’t seen it, he decided he’d buy me the blu-ray version of it for my birthday (as well as a few other scary films, including the 3D version of Dial M for Murder) and wanted to watch it with me at my house. This meant that my wife would also be watching it and as you may recall, she HATES scary movies. But she agreed because it was for my birthday.
Now, after having watched it… wow.
Wow!!!!!
But first, a synopsis.
It follows a couple of real life case files from the Warrens, who were actual paranormal investigators in the 1960s and 70s. The first case (and the opening of this film) is the story of a possessed doll named Annabelle. The second case (and main storyline) is about the event that eventually inspired The Amityville Horror. It’s about a family that begins experiencing supernatural occurrences, including strange noises and freaky apparitions, not long after they move into an older house. They hire the Warrens to investigate it and well, to say much more would spoil a lot of the fun. James Wan really understands horror films, and knows that long takes and fluid camera movements can really amp up the suspension, which is then released with a sudden loud noise or movement on screen. These often catch you off guard and make you laugh at yourself for screaming out loud.
This movie is AT LEAST as scary as Insidious, and when you take into account the “inspired by true events” aspect of it, it may, in fact, be the better movie. It’s also a bit leaner and doesn’t have an ending that feels out slightly of left field (as some people felt was the case with Insidious. I disagree with those people, however). Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed The Conjuring (and my wife thoroughly hated it, natch). It reminded me a lot of Poltergeist and other haunted house films, too (maybe even The Haunting). It seems very much rooted in a more classic style of filmmaking and that makes it stand out to me. It’s impressive on every level and I loved it. There’s little gore on display here, and that really works for this material. Thanks to my friend Robert for turning me on to this movie. I’ve got to catch up and watch The Conjuring 2 and the spin-off film Annabelle.
Tomorrow, we will close out this whole thing with M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit!!
The post Day 30: The Conjuring (2013) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>Today, though, we’re talking about James Watkins’ The Woman in Black (2012).
This movie, starring Daniel Radcliffe, is an adaptation of Susan Hill’s 1983 horror novella of the same name. Interestingly enough, The Woman in Black is also an immensely successful stage play in London–the second longest-running play in the history of the West End, after The Mouse Trap. Several years ago, my husband and I happened upon a production of the play in Fort Worth, TX, and it is EXCELLENT. At first, I was skeptical because there are only two actors and very few props. I thought it was going to be the kind of pretentious, overly-artsy production beloved by people who say “theatah” and no one else. Suffice it to say, I was completely delighted to be wrong. If you have the chance, I highly recommend buying some tickets and checking it out. It is scary as hell, and particularly impressive given the minimalistic approach.
But, alas, we are not here to talk about the play!
I did not enjoy the 2012 movie as much as the stage performance, but Watkins’ adaptation IS eerie and decently well done. The story is set in the late 19th century, and centers around young junior solicitor, Arthur Kipps (Radcliffe), who is still grieving over the beautiful wife he lost during childbirth. Serving as a painful reminder of that loss is Arthur’s young son, Joseph. It quickly becomes apparent that, despite his best efforts, Arthur’s grief has impeded his ability to perform at work, and his employer gives him one last case to prove his commitment to the law firm. For Joseph’s sake, Arthur agrees, and he proceeds by train to the gloomy Eel Marsh House. We learn that the former mistress of the house, Mrs. Alice Drablow, has passed away and Arthur’s assignment is to sort through the mountain of paperwork and tidy up the widow’s legal affairs.
After arriving in the remote English village where Eel Marsh House is located, Arthur is received with attitudes of wary suspicion (and outright hostility, in some cases) by the townspeople regarding his business with the late Mrs. Drablow. He cannot account for this, until superstitious ghost stories about the old manor reach his ears–namely, stories involving a malevolent woman in black. According to local folklore, each time the woman in black in seen by someone, a child from the village dies in a horrible, tragic fashion. Arthur is dismissive of this at first, but is later horrified to find that he DOES see a woman in black at Eel Marsh House, and children from the village DO begin dying violently, one by one.
This movie does a great job of weaving an eerie, uncomfortable feeling throughout. The horror is understated; it isn’t like The Grudge, where all the spine-tingling moments come from the visuals themselves. The Woman in Black takes a subtler approach to scaring the viewer, which I believe ultimately makes it more successful as a film. Yes, the ghostly appearances of the woman in black are extremely creepy, but it’s a combination of her unexpected presence, the camerawork, and the general sense of quiet unease that ultimately evokes fear in the viewer.
I do wonder if the movie would have been a bit stronger with slightly different casting. I like Daniel Radcliffe, don’t get me wrong, but he seems a bit out of place here. He has zero fatherly chemistry with his 4 year old son, and I just don’t ever fully believe him in this particular role. Maybe it’s a case of being pigeonholed as Harry Potter forevermore, but Radcliffe as Arthur Kipps did not work for me. The character is supposed to be young, but Radcliffe seems TOO young to be a great fit. I’m not sure who could have done it better…I’ll have to think about that.
Regardless, The Woman in Black is a decently executed horror flick, full of suspense and ridiculously unsettling dolls from the 1800s. A brief aside: why are old-timey children’s toys so frightening?!
Tomorrow, Charles will be reviewing The Conjuring (2013), so be sure to stick with us as we close out the final days of 31 Days of Horror!!
The post Day 29: The Woman in Black (2012) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>[Rec] is a Spanish film that was later remade into Quarantine, but they’re both found footage movies and… I don’t like either one of them.
I have to be upfront: I just don’t like found footage movies. The gimmick quickly wears thin and I grow impatient as the filmmakers constantly come up with new excuses for a person to be recording what’s happening instead of just abandoning the camera and running away (like any normal person would do). I also get annoyed at the characters on-screen yelling at the cameraman. That seems to be a huge staple in these kinds of movies, and only exaggerates the generally poor acting that is typical in this genre. It also distracts and reminds you that you’re watching a movie and totally takes you out of the moment. [Rec] is certainly no different, and when I heard, “GET THAT CAMERA OUT OF HERE,” about the 100th time, I wanted to throw my remote at the screen. And that’s not even counting all of the ways they have to cheat the footage to provide cuts, because, after all, they’re not actually going to do any of this in real time despite what the commercials say. Oh? What’s that? A character in [Rec] wants to check out the footage we just watched so we’re literally going to see it being rewound and then played again? Awesome. You know, for a movie that’s not even an hour and half, that feels like a great way to pad the time (while wasting more of mine).
Even La casa muda, while not a found footage movie, used digital techniques to hide their cuts so that the movie appeared as one long shot. It’s similar to what Hitchcock did practically in Rope, so it can be done, and I think these movies would work so much better if they did. I mean, I guess they could always do it for real but then it might turn out as boring as Russian Ark, so maybe that’s not such a great idea, either.
Then there’s the cinephile in me who wants the cinematography to serve the story in a meaningful way, with a variety of beautiful shots instead of this nausea inducing, shaky-cam garbage. I get it. It makes it seem real and raw and in your face. But it’s a freakin’ movie!! We know it’s fake and you don’t have to give us all motion sickness just because you’re trying to (over)act like it’s not. I didn’t like it in Cloverfield or The Blair Witch Project and I don’t like it in this movie. If you read my review for 28 Days Later, then you know my disdain for crappy, digital video. Think of how beautiful and atmospheric this movie could have been with the right cinematography.
The basic plot of [Rec] is that a television reporter is doing an extended report on firefighters and tags along with them on a call to a local apartment building. It’s not long after they arrive that the whole place is quarantined by a government agency and they’re all trapped inside as a zombie-like apocalypse begins to happen, with any dead residents coming back to life and attacking the living. Yes, it’s a found footage zombie movie (or is it a found footage movie about demonic possession? I’m not sure). And yes, it is claustrophobic and frightening in key places. Admittedly, this could be due (at least in part) to the found footage approach, but again, it wears out its welcome and is much more of a con than a pro.
But [Rec] is also an extremely slow-burner of a film, with nothing really happening in the first hour, and then everything sort of crammed in the finale. I did enjoy the night vision during this end sequence, and it did remind me a lot of the similar scene in The Silence of the Lambs, but not nearly enough to make me enjoy the movie. I’d say avoid this one and its many sequels (as well as Quarantine and its many sequels). But if you must watch this movie, please, please, please don’t watch the English dubbed version. It makes the gimmick even worse because the voices don’t match the characters at all and it comes across as horrendously bad (and laughable) due to the huge disconnect.
Tomorrow, Kelley will be back with Hammer Films’ The Woman in Black as we start our last decade of this year’s 31 Days of Horror!!
The post Day 28: [Rec] (2007) 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.]]>It’s not exactly accurate to call this a “zombie” movie, as many of the usual tropes aren’t on display here. Instead, there’s an Ebola-like disease called Rage that infects people and causes them to be much more aggressive and animalistic than they would otherwise be, granting them what appears to be superhuman speed and agility (I wonder if this movie started the whole “fast” zombie thing?) But then again, there’s obviously many zombie elements on display here, especially what happens if one of these Rage fueled people bite you.
The movie starts out as an animal activist group breaks in a laboratory with the intent to release caged lab monkeys. One of the workers there pleads for this not to happen because, according to him, the monkeys have been infected (most likely through various lab tests and studies) and doing so will cause a massive epidemic. The group doesn’t listen, and one is immediately killed in an attack. Flash forward 28 days later, and Jim (played by Cillian Murphy) wakes up all alone in a hospital, extremely confused (I’m not sure if The Walking Dead was inspired by this or not). As he leaves the empty hospital, he discovers that all of London is completely deserted. When he finally discovers people in a church, he’s surprised to discover that they’re all infected, and they all seemingly want to kill him. Even a priest tries to attack him!
As Jim tries to outrun these red-eyed crazy people, he is suddenly aided by Selena (Naomie Harris) and Mark (Noah Huntley). They help him out and bring him up to speed, though details are sketchy. It seems no one knows the true scope of the virus just yet, and whether or not it’s contained just to England or if it has spread to America. This is their new bleak world, where surviving is all you can do and happiness is a luxury they no longer have. Eventually, they run into Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and his daughter Hannah (Megan Burns) and form a family of sorts. When they hear a broadcast, sent from what is apparently a safe haven, they decide to make their way to it, hoping against hope things will be different once they get there.
There are a lot of things I like about this movie. The acting is solid all around, and I really love the idea of a social rage as the culprit rather than just some generic explanation we usually get in zombie movies. It’s more realistic and really works overall. But my favorite part, by far, is the opening scenes in an abandoned London. It’s haunting and really separates this film from nearly all others. It’s not an effect either; they legitimately closed off sections of London to film their scenes. It’s quite remarkable.
What’s not so remarkable, and something I have never understood, is the way this movie was shot, which was on inexpensive, prosumer digital cameras (mainly the Canon XL-1, I believe). Now, digital video has come a LONG way since 2002 and in many cases, can be nearly identical to film, but here, it was still new technology and is extremely distracting. These are standard definition cameras, with a low dynamic range, and it’s just an awful mess visually. If Danny Boyle wanted more realism, he could have gone the route of Michael Mann in Public Enemies and made the sound design be awful as well. Again, I think Public Enemies is a terrible, terrible movies but at least it sucks consistently on video and audio. Here, Boyle still uses professional audio equipment, coupled with all kinds of expensive gear to physically move the cameras, so he didn’t really stay true to a documentary type feel, if that’s even what he was going for. Essentially, it sounds like a big budget movie and has some professional camera tricks, but is marred by horrendous imagery and low resolution, muddy textures. It adds nothing to the movie for me what-so-ever and was especially problematic when I saw it in theaters because blown-up, it looks even worse. The style basically dates this movie to a time before inexpensive HD cameras were a thing, let alone something we carry around in our pockets. The sequel, 28 Weeks Later, was shot on 16mm and looks 1000x better, while still maintaining a gritty, raw texture so it could have worked here as well. In fact, imagine if those empty streets of London had been captured on 16mm, or Heaven forbid, 35mm. I think we’d have been talking about the Oscar winning cinematography at that point.
Still, the bleak tone of the film works quite well, and the imagery of London is impressive, so I’d say check it out for those reasons alone. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you about the look of it.
Tomorrow, I pass it back to Kelley as she reviews The Grudge (which is the American remake of Ju-on: The Grudge)!!
The post Day 26: 28 Days Later (2002) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>Today we’re talking about Ringu, which is the Japanese movie that was remade into The Ring. These films have nearly identical plot points and key scenes, but this is the rare occasion where I actually STRONGLY prefer the remake, and it’s mostly due to the small changes made, as well as a key few differences in style. As such, I’ll be (sort of) reviewing them together.
Both movies are about a mysterious VHS tape that contains a creepy, surreal video of unknown origins. The story goes that if you watch it, you will get a phone call telling you that you have 7 days to live. And it appears that the people who have received that call actually do die a week later in horrific, unexplainable ways. A reporter investigating the story watches the tape for herself, and then brings along her ex-husband to help her solve the mystery of it before her time runs out.
Maybe that doesn’t sound all that scary to you, but here’s that video from Ringu (and The Ring’s version as well, just for comparison):
To this day, I still feel guilty showing people that video. I feel like I’m sentencing them to their death or something.
Anyway, I should tell you right off the bat that the American version scared the crap out of me the first time I watched it (which, by the way, was long before I saw the Japanese one). My friends knew I was particularly freaked out, and so waited until the middle of the night to call me and say, “7 DAYS!!” when I answered groggily. Needless to say, I couldn’t sleep much that night and actually turned my tube T.V. away from me. True story. Pathetic, but true.
I digress (I do that a lot). Where was I?
Oh, yeah.
I love both movies for the mystery that unravels as you watch them. They’re both great detective stories that happens to feature terrifying images, but still a mystery at their core none-the-less. And they both do a great job of keep you on the edge of your seat with constant reminders of what day it is and how long the characters have to live. What I happen to like more about the American version is that they don’t shy away from showing what happens after those 7 days are up. The Japanese version more or less goes black-and-white and freeze frames during these supernatural moments, but the American shows you so much more. It’s a much better effect, and has a lasting impact.
I also strongly prefer the ferry scene in the American one, where we see a horse jump off the ferry and turn the waters red. I can’t get that image out of my head nearly 15 years later, and probably never will.
And finally, the differences in the characters bugs me. In Ringu, it seems both main characters can read the thoughts of others and see into their past. It’s not really explained too terribly well, and seems like a gimmicky, cheap way to throw in some exposition via flashbacks. The Ring doesn’t even have a hint of that and is all the better for it. I also don’t understand the characters’ reactions in Ringu when they’re in the well at the end, because neither one of them seem too terribly frightened or grossed out to be in the murky water with a corpse; in fact, it’s downright cheesy in this scene when the corpse is finally found.
So, honestly, for all of these reasons, I would say skip Ringu and go straight for The Ring. It’s one of the best horror films ever made, even if the technology in it is dated (I seriously don’t know anyone that owns a VCR anymore). Also, stay away from The Ring Two (which, interestingly enough, was directed by Ringu’s director, Hideo Nakata).
Oh, and there’s a new Ring movie coming out next year that looks pretty scary, too.
Tomorrow is Day 26, and I’ll be back with 28 Days Later. Hope to see you soon!!
The post Day 25: Ringu (1998) 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.]]>We haven’t been using movie posters as the title graphic for our reviews, but this one was too amazingly awful to ignore. Does that strike you more as a horror film or a softcore porno you might catch late night on Cinemax? What are they marketing here exactly?!
“Love brought out the animal in her.”
Where to even begin??
You know, I was discussing this movie with Kelley, and I couldn’t quite figure out what I would say about it. She, of course, quickly realized that everything I was telling her sounded like an “ugly” movie. If you listen to our podcast, then you know an “ugly” movie often defies logic and is usually so bad it’s good, and this movie certainly qualifies. Damning praise, to be sure, but accurate none-the-less.
Let me back up a bit and give a synopsis taken directly from IMDB: “A young woman’s sexual awakening brings horror when she discovers her urges transform her into a monstrous black leopard.”
Much like the 1942 original, the plot does indeed revolve around a young woman named Irene who is worried that having sex will turn her into a leopard, but that’s about where the similarities end. The Irene from 1942 doesn’t want this to happen and is startled by it and how she might harm others. Irene from 1982 doesn’t seem all that concerned with it, seemingly aroused by the thought of it (despite being a virgin).
Early on, when she reconnects with her long lost brother (who also has this ability), he tries to sleep with her (telling her it’s the only cure) but instead settles on a local prostitute, who he promptly kills. This sets up the film’s basic rule that sex will transform you in a big cat.
So, this is essentially a werecat movie, according to my lovely wife, but with sex instead of a full moon.
Anyway, he’s captured (as a leopard) and gone for days and days, but Irene doesn’t seem all that concerned with this either. She never wonders where he went… which is curious since, you know, she’s living with him. But, apparently, once you become a leopard, you must kill again to become human, though you are still fully in control no matter which body you happen to be using. You are well aware of your actions.
So, these are the rules that are established, but they’re seemingly not enforced at all because Irene is able to become a leopard and stalk Alice and then transform back into a human before she has sex with anyone, so who knows? I’m very confused about the whole matter and it totally complicates the ending (which I won’t spoil), but I guess they can transform just by being horny??
By the way, that stalking scene is one of the few sequences that is directly inspired by the original. The 1942 version created a new kind of “jump scare”, where a loud, innocuous sound catches you off guard because of the suspense that led up to it. It’s actually a bus that makes the sound in the original, and this horror technique has since become known as the “Lewton Bus,” named after the film’s producer, Val Lewton.
This newer version, though, decides to have Alice go for a naked swim to throw in a little gratuitous nudity. Why not, right?
And speaking of nudity (how often do I get to say that?), Irene seems to spend the second half of the movie in an almost constant state of undress. Like I said, she doesn’t seem too concerned with the violent consequences of having sex, so it seems to change the message and tone of the original quite a bit. Maybe that works for you, but it doesn’t really for me. The film is beautifully shot, though, and there are some really intriguing moments, but it’s so corny and ridiculous and over-the-top that it’s hard to take seriously. That’s why I’m all over the place on this review.
But the one area I’m sure on is the ending. As I also mentioned, it doesn’t really gel with the rules laid out, but I find it awful for an entirely different reason. Much like the film’s poster, the cheese factor is incredibly high. David Bowie (!!) provides the film’s closing credit song, but the absurdly long freeze frame of the leopard that then roars just as Bowie yells “GASOLINE!!!!!” made me laugh out loud. It’s perhaps the film’s finest moment.
https://youtu.be/pBkmPZWH4KA?t=50s
Kelley will be reviewing David Cronenberg’s remake of The Fly tomorrow for Day 22, which is also the last 1980s movie on our list this year, so take a moment to be sad about that, and then come back by and check it out!!
The post Day 21: Cat People (1982) 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.]]>Now, I suspect many of you aren’t familiar with the “Giallo” style. To be honest, I wasn’t either. But it seemed that everytime I began doing serious research into horror film history, certain movies kept popping up again and again. Suspiria is one of those films, as well as Blood and Black Lace and Deep Red.
And they’re all attributed to this Italian “Giallo” genre.
So, what were these films from Italy? And why are they constantly cited?
Well, “giallo” means “yellow” in Italian, and it refers to the color of the cover of certain crime / mystery paperback novels in Italy. These novels often shared many similar elements with these “giallo” movies, including masked killers and a certain amount of eroticism, even if the stories weren’t directly adapted into the movies. The movies themselves were usually quite gory, or at least shockingly violent, and they had a really beautiful cinematic style which included bold color palettes and creative camerawork. The music often felt disorientating because it was often juxtaposed with what was occurring on screen, meaning it might have had happy or cheerful music playing while someone was being stabbed to death. But they almost always had a mysterious killer attacking people one-by-one, and it was often women that were being attacked while particularly vulnerable (nude, for example). If that sounds familiar, it’s because these movies heavily inspired the American “slasher” film genre, in particular films like Halloween and Friday the 13th.
The plot for Deep Red falls right in line with “Giallo” films. An English musician in Italy witnesses the gruesome murder pf a clairvoyant woman (who previously had visions of the murderer) one night while he’s out with his friend. He teams up with a reporter to try and figure out who the killer is, and in doing so, the killer begins to go after both of them, while also continuing on a murder spree. Where will this murderer strike next? And can anything be done before it’s too late?
I have to say, I REALLY enjoyed this movie.
My wife and I watched it with our friend Toby, and shortly into the movie, he proclaimed it was literally one of the worst movies he’s ever seen (in his best Chris Traeger impression, no less).
Granted, it does take a while to get into it, and the music is very odd (even if it is popular) but I flat-out disagree with him.
There are moments of pure brilliance here, including some fantastic camera movements. For instance, in one particularly wide shot, we are watching a couple discuss details of a murder that had just occurred in the house they’re in. It’s all in one long take, and at the conclusion of the conversation, the lady, who is at the end of the hallway, looks up in our direction right at the camera. The camera quickly moves to the left to duck out of her view, and at that moment we realize that we have been staring through the eyes of (presumably) the killer the entire conversation. It literally gives me chills just thinking about it.
Another moment like that? When a man is playing piano at home by himself and hears someone in the other room. As he knows the killer has been after him, he continues to play while also quietly reaching for an object to hopefully defend himself. The phone suddenly goes off and he rushes to the bedroom door to slam it shut. Just as he does so, he hears the killer whispering to him from the other room that he’ll kill him another time. Eeeesh!!!
I also love that the movie messes with us. It’s revealed in a flashback that the movie actually showed us who the killer was immediately after the first murder. Since this whole thing plays out like a whodunnit (complete with a twist ending), having seen the killer’s face that early would have instantly given it away, but somehow, this movie did just that and we were none-the-wiser. I even watched it again to see if it was lying to us during that flashback, but sure enough, the killer is actually revealed and quite clearly, too. That’s confident filmmaking at its finest.
Then there’s the whole aspect of the mechanical doll that is used as a distraction. It is very clearly the inspiration for the similar device in Saw and it was amazing to see it here, nearly 30 years earlier.
So, absolutely check out this movie as well as the other “Giallo” films. They’re worth your time, especially if you already enjoy slasher movies.
On a complete side note: Why do the background extras stand perfectly still in certain scenes during Deep Red? Is there any significance to that? Because it can be quite distracting at times (and is another reason Toby didn’t like this movie). There’s even a bar in the background of one shot that resembles that Nighthawks painting by Edward Hopper… and again, the extras are all completely and eerily frozen.
Tomorrow, Kelley will be reviewing Ridley Scott’s Alien so you’ll want to be here for that as she closes out the 1970s!!
The post Day 17: Deep Red (1975) 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.]]>If you’re a listener of our podcast, then you’ll recall we’ve done an episode over Bette Davis (who is the star of this movie) and an episode over Hag Horror (which is the genre of this movie). Both of those episodes were picked by Kelley, so she’s clearly a fan. She also didn’t pick this movie as her “good” choice for that Hag Horror episode; instead, she chose What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, which is quite surprising to me because Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte is far and away the better film, even if the two are very, very similar.
Oddly enough, though, Kelley wasn’t the one who added this movie to our list this year. I was, and I didn’t include it to appease or amuse Kelley, either. I added it because years ago, my good friend Buzz tried to get me and my wife to watch it as his house late one night. Having never heard of it, I was skeptical but I will pretty much watch any movie anytime, so I agreed. After the opening scene, which is quite shocking and horrific, I was hooked. My wife, however, is not a night person, and neither is Buzz, so both fell asleep not too far into the movie. I decided I would try and finish it with them later, only later never really happened. Every time it seems we’re actually going to meet up to watch it, we end up doing something else or we get sidetracked or life happens or whatever. But I take 31 Days of Horror seriously, and I knew if it was on the list, I would watch it no-matter-what, even if that meant without Buzz, and unfortunately, that’s exactly what it meant. I suppose it just wasn’t meant to be, but I still owe it to him for turning me on to this film (and I suppose for having good taste in movies in general), but I digress.
The plot revolves around a man named John who is cheating on his wife with Charlotte in 1927 Louisiana. The two plan to elope after a lavish party, but when Charlotte’s father gets wind of their plan, he is furious and privately tells John he must call it off. John reluctantly does so, and Charlotte does not take it well. The next thing he knows, he’s being attacked with a butcher knife and loses a hand… as well as his head (this is that shocking thing I mentioned earlier). Charlotte returns to the party all covered in blood, and the people there freak out, naturally. Flash forward to 1964, and the tale has become somewhat of an urban legend. Charlotte nows lives alone as a recluse at her father’s house (where the murder occurred) and except for her housekeeper Velma, she hardly ever sees anyone. Complications arise because it seems there’s a road that needs to be built where the house stands, and she apparently has no say in the matter. The whole place will be torn down, forcing her to find somewhere else to live and start fresh, though that is the exact opposite of what she wants… mostly because she has never recovered from that horrible night. And when her cousin Miriam shows up to help with the whole situation, Charlotte begins to lose touch with reality, seeing strange visions around the house.
That may not sound much like What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, but the two movies both revolve around a horrific accident that took places years earlier, leaving the title character (played by Bette Davis in both films) isolated and insane in her father’s house. They both involve a housekeeper who learns too much and eventually pays the price for it. They both play out as sort of a whodunnit with a twist ending that changes our perception of said title character. And they both nearly starred Bette Davis and Joan Crawford; in fact, Joan Crawford was originally cast to play the part of Miriam, and even shot several scenes, but for various reasons (including an illness), she was replaced with Olivia de Havilland.
I think this movie works better because Bette Davis’ Charlotte character is much more sympathetic than her character of Jane in Baby Jane, where she essentially played the villain. She may be crazy, but we in the audience knowd where she’s coming from and can feel her pain. She lost the love of her life and we’re able to go along with her spooky visions of him because we understand her sorrow. I really enjoyed her performance overall and don’t feel like she hit a wrong note, which is quite an accomplishment considering all of the crazy things going on.
Also, I think the effects are quite good, and seeing a severed hand on the floor, and a decapitated head rolling down the stairs, really caught me off guard. The film opens on that murder sequence and is able to maintain its creepiness throughout.
The one thing I did not like was Agnes Moorehead as her housekeeper. I think she’s way too over-the-top to be taken seriously, especially with her put on New Orleans accent. I may be in the minority, though, because she was nominated for an Academy Award for this!! It reminds of me of Anne Ramsey being nominated for Throw Momma from the Train. Both terrible performances that were somehow praised at the time. I suppose I’ll never understand.
For tomorrow, Kelley will close out the 1960s with her review of Roman Polanski’s Repulsion!!
The post Day 14: Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) 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.]]>Godzilla has remained popular throughout the years, what with the recent Gareth Edwards version and the new Shin Godzilla, so it’s hard to imagine that there’s many of you out there that don’t know the plot, but here’s a synopsis anyway: A Japanese ship suddenly goes missing, and then another one as well. Japanese Authorities are baffled until they realize that the ships are actually being destroyed by a giant radioactive dinosaur from the Jurassic Period who has been brought to life by atomic bomb testing. This dinosaur, Gojira / Godzilla (which, I guess, are used interchangeably??), soon begins to wreak havoc on Japan, and the military struggles to come up with a solution.
Professor Yamane wants to take a more scientific approach and observe Godzilla instead of killing him. He wants to learn everything about this creature (especially the radioactive bit) even at the expense of many more people dying. Meanwhile, Navy man Hideto Ogato thinks they should defeat Godzilla by any means necessary. He also wants to marry Yamane’s daughter, Emiko, but when he begins to bring it up with Yamane, the two get in a huge argument and nothing is resolved. The whole situation looks hopeless, and after a few different attempts by the military to destroy him, it seems Godzilla is unstoppable. It turns out, however, that Dr. Serizawa (with whom Emiko is betrothed) actually has an experimental device that could eliminate Godzilla once-and-for-all, but he doesn’t want to use it for fear that it would be used to harm people after Godzilla is defeated.
This is the part of the movie that intrigued me the most. Take a step back for a second, and look at what Godzilla represents: The consequences of nuclear fallout in a country that, less than a decade earlier, had seen first hand just what an atomic bomb could do. Dr. Serizawa’s reluctance to use a weapon, even to save his own country, arguably sounds like a critique of the United States (specifically President Harry Truman) and it raises the question: Does the end ever justify the means? Ultimately, in this movie, Serizawa figures out a way to defeat Godzilla and keep others from using his weapon again by sacrificing himself, but that also has strong implications and raises some other questions (Namely: Why couldn’t his device be remotely detonated??). Professor Yamane even gives a speech about it in the closing lines of the film, ominously warning about using atomic bombs to create other Godzilla monsters. It’s brilliantly intriguing and philosophical at the same time without really offering up a good answer. Maybe there isn’t one?
And this is all why I think believe Gojira is a better film than the American version. That movie stripped away most of the atomic bomb implications and focused more on the monster / creature feature aspects. It also dubbed over many of the original Japanese actors, but very inconsistently because sometimes they’re dubbed in English and sometimes they’re subtitled while speaking Japanese. It’s a strange blend. So, I would skip that one (assuming you haven’t already seen it) and seek this one out. It’s a gem of a movie with a message that still resonates today.
It’s Day 12 tomorrow and Kelley will be reviewing Tarantula, so be sure to come back and check it out!!
The post Day 11: Gojira (1954) 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.]]>I’m sure it would pain Mark to know this, but I must confess that I have never read the book by Oscar Wilde.
I’m sure it would also pain Kelley to know this, but I must confess that I have never seen any cinematic adaptation of it, of which there have been quite a few.
Now, that doesn’t mean I’m completely ignorant of the subject. This particular piece of literature has become so ingrained in pop culture that it was even used a punch line to insult Meg on Family Guy (When she asks how she looks in her new glasses, Stewie tells her, “In an attic somewhere, there’s a portrait of you getting prettier.”) but it does mean that right upfront, you should know that I have no idea this version compares to the book or if it’s better or worse than other Dorian Gray movie, but having said all of that, I loved this movie. That’s all longwinded to be sure, but yes, I really did love this movie.
So, for those that don’t know the plot, it is set in London during the late 1800s, and is about a young man named Dorian Gray (played by Hurd Hatfield) who is having his portrait done. He muses that he wishes his portrait could age instead of him, and thanks to an Egyptian cat sculpture, Gray’s wish comes true. But this is a horror film, after all, so there has to be a catch, right? Of course there does!! And this particular catch is that Gray’s inner ugliness will be exposed through the portrait itself, as the portrait changes over time instead of Gray, who completely stops aging. Those around him find this disconcerting to say the least, and it ultimately isolates him and drives him mad.
Lord Henry Wotton (George Sanders, who I always best remember as the voice of Shere Kahn in The Jungle Book) plays a sort of devilish character who talks Gray into living life to the fullest and giving in to his wildest dreams and desires. It’s through Lord Wotton’s advice that Gray passes on the opportunity to be with Sibyl Vane (a VERY young Angela Lansbury), a singer that he falls in love with early on. His rejection causes her to commit suicide, and this is the point of no return for Mr. Gray. After that, it’s vague as to what exactly he does that is so horrible in his life (aside from the onscreen murder, of course), but I rather like that aspect of the story. It’s almost a mirror to the audience, asking us to imagine our worst qualities and our worst actions and what it would be like to have a painting displaying them for all the world to see. Perhaps you’d cover it up just as he does, but would that ever be enough? It still exists. The psychosis on display feels gradual and thus, natural. It’s handled extremely well.
I also particularly love the cinematography of this film. It’s a black and white film, but a select few shots of the portrait are in full technicolor and they are GORGEOUS!! They’re also extremely jarring, which is perfect for a horror movie, and can be used to shocking effect in what otherwise might have fallen flat. It also helps that the portrait itself is growing more and more hideous each time it is revealed.
But more than just the few color inserts, I enjoyed the stylized cinematography during the first murder scene, with the hanging light swinging violently, creating intense chaos in a dance of light and shadows on the walls. It’s beautiful and creepy and I love it.
And that encapsulates my feelings about this movie. If you haven’t seen it, go check it out!!
So I’m closing out the 1940s, but for Day 10 tomorrow, Kelley will be reviewing the 1953 movie It Came from Outer Space, so come on by and check it out!!
The post Day 9: The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) 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.]]>I have to admit: Outside of that Warren Zevon song, I had never heard of Werewolf of London and had absolutely no idea there was any other werewolf film in Universal’s classic monster movies, outside of The Wolf Man series. That franchise (especially the first one) is so iconic, and casts such a long shadow over every other werewolf movie ever made, that is it almost unfathomable to even consider that Werewolf of London came first (and by half a decade at that!). It’s a shame, really, because this movie actually created many of the tropes that we now associate with werewolves, including the association with the full moon and being infected from a bite. This film even had the same makeup artist (Jack Pierce) work on both films, although he didn’t quite get to create the makeup he wanted to use for this one, so the two movies don’t actually look all that similar in that regard.
Nor is the plot all that similar either.
In this movie, Botanist Dr. Wilfred Glendon is in Tibet searching for a rare flower. Just as he discovers it, however, he is suddenly attacked and bitten by a werewolf who had been watching him from afar. Dr. Glendon is able to make it back to London where he attempts to do research on the flower (although to what end, I’m not entirely sure), but is having trouble getting it to bloom in his lab. He is soon visited by Dr. Yogami, who tells him that the flower is the only thing that can cure him of his “Lycanthropy” that was passed on to him when he was bit. But he must take it before the next full moon or there will be blood on his hands. It seems Dr. Yogami personally knows a great deal about this subject, but Dr. Glendon blows him off anyway.
Sure enough, on the next full moon, he turns into a werewolf (in a very effective transformation sequence that surprisingly rivals that of anything in The Wolf Man), and goes on a murderous spree in London.
If I’m being honest, I don’t actually love this movie, and it all has to do with Henry’s Hull portrayal of Dr. Glendon. He’s a jerk, through-and-through, and he’s far too obsessed with his work, and far too jealous of his wife and her ex-lover. Lon Chaney Jr. really sold the tortured aspect of his character in Wolf Man, which in turn made his character sympathetic. You got the sense that he couldn’t control what he was doing, and that he also didn’t want to hurt anyone. That’s not really the case here. In fact, it’s outright shown that Dr. Glendon is still somewhat human because even after he’s transformed into a werewolf, he takes time to put on a coat before he steps outside. I thought it was a goofy touch and totally counterintuitive to the dire circumstances that Dr. Yogami spoke of previously. This does, however, seem to suggest that being a werewolf in this film is more an expression of your inner demons and desires rather than a physical transformation into a completely different, out-of-control animal. Dr. Glendon is in control and yet wants to go attack specific people. It’s an interesting concept that I don’t think is fully explored.
And then there are the two older women who rent him a room while he lays low. I don’t understand why this zany type of humor is needed at all, but it reminds me an awful lot of Una O’Connor’s character in both The Invisible Man and Bride of Frankenstein. Over-the-top doesn’t even begin to describe it, and like her, the two women here nearly ruin the entire movie for me every time they’re onscreen (which is way more than they should be anyway).
I should point out that I don’t love The Wolf Man, either, but I think the reason it’s remembered more clearly is because it’s, by almost all accounts, a better movie. Still, Werewolf of London has contributed significantly to werewolf mythology and that alone makes it a worthwhile film to check out.
For Day 7 tomorrow, Kelley will kick off the 1940s by reviewing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, so be sure and check that out as we continue 31 Days of Horror!!
The post Day 6: Werewolf of London (1935) 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.]]>It’s an interesting movie because it’s sort of an enigma by seemingly being all things at once. It’s a documentary and history lesson about witchcraft but it’s also a fictional horror narrative with “reenactments” of the torture methods used on those found guilty of being witches. It’s both very tame and approachable, yet it also could never have been released in the US at the time it was made due to the sexuality, violence and nudity on display (even in Sweden, where it was made, film censors forced numerous cuts to it). It’s a critique of religion and the role it played in torturing innocent people, yet it seems to suggest that witches and demonic possessions are real. And it all feels outdated and yet ultra-modern at the same time.
So, how can a movie from 1922 be so many things at once? And is it any good?
I’ll answer the last part first: Yes, it is quite good, although it’s not particularly scary. And the pacing feels plodding, especially in the first chapter (yes, there are actual chapters in the film, with 7 in total) where we learn about the history of witches through a book on screen. And yes, that is intended to sound every bit as dull as I can make it. Being a silent film, the way we are told about this book is through titles on screen that seem to stay on FOREVER.
Eventually, it moves into the reenactment part and this is where the movie really comes to life. Christensen himself actually plays the devil in these scenes where witches dance around a campfire with demons, and must kiss the devil’s butt (literally). The makeup, lighting and effects are simply INCREDIBLE and light years ahead of anything made in the same time frame. The visuals alone make this a classic, as far as I’m concerned, and one of my favorites is of several witches flying across a nighttime sky.
Later, as we see religious officials putting witches on trial, the film shifts and begins to become more of a behind the scenes documentary, even showing some of the actor’s testing the torture devices out of curiosity. It’s the breaking of that fourth wall that felt unique to me, even nearly 100 years later. Christensen lets us know that we are watching a movie, even going so far as to point out objects with a pencil on screen. This technique is how I believe he was able to make such a strange movie that still works today, and on many different levels.
The more modern stuff (well, modern for 1922) feels a little flat, but it examines modern medicine and psychiatry and brings into question whether or not demonic possession is real, and whether that could account for some of our strange behavior now-a-days. Again, while interesting, it doesn’t quite have the impact that it should, and seems a bit disjointed from the rest of the film. Still, it’s all worth your time to at least check it out. I read somewhere that the film is public domain, so I’m sure you can find it on YouTube (legally).
Tomorrow, Kelley will be reviewing The Monster starring Lon Chaney, so be sure and check that out as we move through our 31 Days of Horror!!
The post Day 1: Häxan (1922) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>Mark here with the second installment of my 100-Book Challenge. One of the (many) motivations for this undertaking was to get to those novels I felt embarrassed not to have read yet, so books 11-20 bring us some literary heavy-hitters like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Austen, Morrison and more. That said, I do not intend my reviews as scholarly commentary, just the opposite; I want to give general readers a quick impression of each work and how much it lends itself to an enjoyable and fulfilling read. Of course, you could teach a full college semester on many of these novels, but we’re not here for that! We’re here to get some pages under our belts. So here we go:
- A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway: I am generally a fan of Hemingway, and many of you already know that his journalistic style makes him more accessible than some of the other so-deemed “greats.” But I have to say this is my least favorite of his works. The story of an American ambulance driver in WWI defecting with his lover to Switzerland, the novel cannot be ignored for its disenchanted view of The Great War and for its influence on American Literature…however, it’s quite a rough read toward the end, and has one of the most pessimistic conclusions I’ve ever encountered. While I completely understand such pessimism from the generation that saw one of the most destructive wars in history, I’d still suggest starting with For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Sun Also Rises, and Old Man and Sea.
- Diamond are Forever – Ian Fleming: check out our James Bond: Here and There podcast for a closer look at all of the Bond books!
- The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison: TOP PICK! Perhaps the greatest benefit of this challenge so far has been my introduction to Toni Morrison. Much of her work explores the profound and painful subject of slavery and race in America’s past and present, but she does so in a way that beautifully and achingly transcends mere social messages. I highly suggest this book, but warn you that there is some disturbing content which may take you out of your comfort zone.
- Lorca – Three Tragedies – Frederico Garcia Lorca: This collection of plays was a quick read for me. All three deal heavily with gender and class in rural Spain, and I enjoyed Lorca’s use of allegory and symbolism over realism. The kind of literature that’s accessible enough on a first read, but that you could peel apart layer by layer and never get to the bottom.
- This is Portland – Alexander Barrett: Okay, this is one of my cheater books. My wife and I took a trip to Portland, Oregon, and this was in the property we rented. You can read it in 20 minutes. But I justified counting it because I also read The Grapes of Wrath, and I feel they equal out to at least two books. This was a neat, funny little portrayal of Portland and I recommend it to anyone visiting or living in the area.
- Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen: A classic and a must-read, but I was really hoping I’d like it more…I know, I know, I know. I can feel the hot wrath coming off of some of you out there, but hey, it just didn’t arrest me. I loved the opening portrayal of protagonist Elizabeth Bennett when, quite against social expectations and the good sense of a lady, she marches three miles in the mud to watch over her sister who has conveniently become sick while visiting a male suitor. This tenacity sparked my interest (and even startled me a bit in the context of a book written in the early 1800s) but alas, the novel did not maintain an iron grip on my interest.
- Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass – Frederick Douglass: I believe I was assigned this book twice in high school and neglected to read it both times, much to my own detriment. This short account of Douglass’s life as a slave and his escape to the North was fascinating both for its biographical content, and for how he chose to fashion it as a story and an artifact for social change. (Also, make sure you read the introduction to this one.)
- The Blank Slate – Steven Pinker: Alright, here’s the thing. The two books of Pinker’s I’ve read are the kind of books I think everyone should read. The problem is that almost nobody will because they’re so long. The Blank Slate comes in at 525 pages, and explores (in-depth) the debate between nature and nurture, making the point that society does not give appropriate credence to fact that much of human nature is innate and unable to be conditioned. It has changed the way I see the world, but probably not a good choice if you’re trying to get in 100 books in a year. (I had already started it on audio-book before I began my challenge). His other book was even more influential and even longer: The Better Angles of our Nature: Why Violence has Declined at over 800 pages, but so good y’all…seriously. I kept thinking I’d lose interest but never did. Check both of them out maybe next year.
- The Red Badge of Courage – Stephen Crane. Another short work, this book was one of the early depictions of war (The Civil War) to do away celebrating honor and bravery and instead look at the gritty brutality of it all. Crane’s narrative voice was perfectly suited to the subject matter, but I sometimes had a hard time placing myself visually in the story. I’d still give it a look; it’s short and profound.
- This Side of Paradise – F. Scott Fitzgerald: This seemed like a book suited largely (dare I say only?) for Fitzgerald scholars and English majors. Heavily autobiographical, it chronicles a writer’s intellectual journey through college and into adulthood. It had its moments, but felt mostly like reading Fitzgerald’s disconnected diary entries. Also there was lot of horn-tooting when it came to how intelligent he is.
Okay, there you have it. Hope you’re finding your own gems out there. Feel free to mention them in the comments when you do!
The post 100-Book Challenge (Part 2) 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.]]>Mark here, new-comer to The Good the Bad and the Podcast and co-host of the James Bond: Here and There series. Though this site is largely dedicate to cinema, we would be remiss in not giving a little attention to those wonderful packets of plot and profundity that provide so much fodder for movies: books!
And if you’re anything like me, the number of books in your house that you haven’t read greatly outweighs the number you have. Well, I decided to do something about it, and set out to read 100 books in a year. “You’re insane!” I hear you shouting, but not so! The experience so far has enriched me beyond measure, and I challenge you to try it yourself. Wait, wait! Don’t quit reading yet; at least look at the rules I set for myself, and see if they don’t sound reasonable.
The Rules:
- Pick a date, and start reading!
- Keep track as you go. Intermittently divide #days by #books and your ratio should be somewhere under 3.65
- Don’t panic, I’ve eased the pressure a little because:
- Audio-books count (most libraries offer them for free through smartphone apps)
- Novellas count (but I try to make sure each work comes in at least 50 pages or more)
- Shakespeare’s plays count (gotta get in the classics, and with the modern-day translations to help you navigate the original text, you can easily work through a play in two or three days)
There you have it: simple. It’s been just over four months, and I’ve found it easier to keep up than anticipated. Audio-books really help pad the numbers, and you’d be surprised how many minutes a day you can fill with them: cooking dinner? Pop in your headphones! Long car drive? Bust out your aux cable! I even listen while mowing the lawn and working out.
If any of you bibliophiles out there want to join me, I’ll write a separate post for every 10 books I read along the way, letting you know which I think are worth a gander and which you can skip over for something more engaging. Still don’t think you can do it? Try 50 books, that’s only one a week, and just imagine how informed you’ll be by the end! Come onnnnn. Crack one open with me and grab hold of some culture!
Books 1-10:
- Casino Royale,
- Live and Let Die and
- Moonraker – Ian Fleming: James Bond novels are the perfect fit for the 100-book challenge. Short, well-written, and steeped in adrenaline, you’ll find them quick reads while getting a nice dose of popular culture (and admittedly some sexism and 1950s prejudice too). See our James Bond: Here and There series a more in-depth look at the books and movies.
- Myths to Live By – Joseph Campbell: As a general rule, I suggest reading everything by Joseph Campbell you can get your hands on. His work with mythology, religion, and story-telling in general has found its way into every corner of our culture. This book was a good read, and a good length for the challenge. Other works I highly recommend are The Hero with a Thousand Faces (his best known), and The Power of Myth (an interview with Bill Moyers, which reads much better than most interviews).
- Everything that Rises Must Converge – Flannery O’Connor: This is my TOP PICK for this post, and O’Connor is easily one of my top 10 favorite authors. This collection of her short stories held me spell-bound. They somehow sparkle with the grotesque as they explore race and family in the antebellum South. If you like stories that lift up the log of life and show you the rot underneath, pick up this book or her other collection A Good Man is Hard to Find. You won’t be disappointed.
- King Lear – some guy named Will: Considered one of Shakespeare’s top tragedies, I was surprised and delighted by how funny this play often was. The tale of an aged King who foolishly spurns his one faithful daughter in favor of her two, more treacherous sisters, the masterpiece expounds upon themes of old-age, familial betrayal, and redemption. A must read.
- Interpreter of Maladies – Jhumpa Lahiri: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, this collection of short stories about India and Indian-Americans was enlightening, especially for an uninformed westerner. On the engaging scale, I’d only give it a 6 out of 10 for the general reader, but still well worth the time to read it. I mean, come on…Pulitzer Prize.
- Daisy Miller – Henry James: This novella is a quick read, and is often studied in literary Academia, but doesn’t have that immediate, startling beauty I look for in my prose. It tells the story of a young American girl visiting Europe, who refuses to hold herself to the Victorian social standards of the time, and how her actions impact the narrator of the story and his views on women and America.
- The Stranger – Albert Camus: Many of you may have read (or “read”) this one in high school, but go back and read it again! As an adult the novel struck my philosophical chords like it never could have in 11th grade. And it’s a nice, concise read too.
- Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad: I suspect I need to go back and reread this after doing a little research on it. It had powerful themes, and profound characters, but Conrad so downplays the active scenes, that it feels as if nothing really happens in the story. I think my ignorance is showing here…it’s very short, so go ahead and read it and tell me what you think. (For my future biographers: please disregard this last review. I completely understand and appreciate Conrad’s masterpiece.)
Well that’s it for now. Got get to reading!
The post “Better than the Movie”? first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>Pixar is one of those movie companies that always seems to get your attention in an ad.
“Oh, is that a Pixar movie?? Awesome! I’ll have to check that out.”
They can do that because their name is synonymous with quality and they have a proven track record of great films (Cars 2 aside). So, even though I wondered how the (admittedly funny) trailer for Inside Out could be stretched into a full length movie, I decided to see it anyway.
And I’m glad I did, as it’s one of the most complex and amazing animated films I’ve seen in a long time. It’s also one of Pixar’s best, which is saying quite a lot.
(I should also add that I was initially hesitant about this movie because the trailer reminded me of an animated version of a segment from Woody Allen’s Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask, and that seemed like a strange fit to me. But while there are some similarities, the overall tone and style of these two movies couldn’t be more different.)
The story revolves around a young girl named Riley who has just moved to San Francisco with her family. She’s going through all of the usual things young people go through (such as fitting in and finding yourself) but rather than a traditional narrative where we see and hear her the entire time, the story is told by characters representing her different emotions. It’s interesting what Pixar has done here because they’ve broken these emotions into five distinct categories: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust and Fear. This approach allows us to see the unique purpose of each emotion, and, much like mixing primary colors, their combinations can lead to wonderful discoveries. It can also cause quite a bit of trouble, and that is the crux of this story. These are her dreams, her personality, and this is her growing up. There is a lot of nuance to this microcosm inside Riley and it’s all quite unexpected and all quite remarkable.
Amy Poehler leads the group as the voice of Joy, while Bill Hader plays Fear (in perhaps the most clichéd character). Phyllis Smith adds some emotional complexity as Sadness and Mindy Kaling gives some spunk to Disgust (They’re both seemingly doing riffs on their Office characters). But it’s Lewis Black’s portrayal of Anger that stands out the most of these five. Seriously, can you imagine anyone else portraying angry rage in a more hilarious way? Yes, he may be playing himself, but who cares because he’s absolutely perfect and provides most of the film’s biggest laughs.
Still, my absolute favorite character here is Bing Bong. Richard Kind is able to inject so much life into this imaginary friend role and turn what could have been a silly, forgettable part into something so much more. The scene where he and Joy find themselves in the (literal) pit of forgotten memories is, perhaps, one of my favorite scenes in any Pixar movie and truly elevated the whole experience. In a sense, this scene made the movie for me.
Inside Out reminded me most of Monsters, Inc, combined with the emotional weight of Up (you know exactly which scene I’m talking about) and it’s no wonder: Pete Docter directed all three. I think he just has a way of getting to the bittersweet emotional core of life in a way that feels… real. That’s no small feat for a computer animated film.
So, go check it out but be prepared for all the feels. I can’t wait for whatever is next on Pixar’s plate, and how many movie companies can you say that about?
The post Inside Out 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.
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My main question when (re) watching these trailers is AM I EXCITED TO SEE THIS MOVIE?
STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS
I won’t go into too much detail because every fan boy from here to Tattooine has talked about this one but I do need to say this one thing: IT DID ITS JOB! A trailer should make you excited for the upcoming movie and this one made everyone want to put themselves in Carbonite Freeze until December. It showed us that this movie will have what we all want from a new Star Wars film: new story with old characters. I’ve watched it a dozen times now and still can’t get enough!
SUPERMAN V BATMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE
Since it’s announcement I have been very skeptical about this film and the trailer did not quell my fears. It showed me what I already know and fear: the tone will be very dark/serious/gloomy, there is a lot of Zack Snyder CGI lighting effects and Batman is going to fight Superman ala “Dark Knight Returns” style. Three things that make me let out a deep-gutted groan about the direction of this whole franchise. (I am going on record here and now to say I think Frank Miller’s “Dark Knight Returns” is the most over-rated piece of junk on the book shelf – send your hate my way). The best shots in this trailer are seeing Ben Affleck done the cape and cowl (I have very high hopes for Bat-Fleck) and all the Bat-Fodder (cave, vehicles, gadgets, etc.) Overall, this trailer does not make me excited for the film, just more nervous they are going to mess up the story.
JURASSIC WORLD
This one was pretty good. It set the tone that this is fun like the original but has a very real sense of danger and it gave us a bit more insight to the story that the genetically modified dinosaur was “hunting for sport” and being an all-around “clever girl” (they don’t actually say that but come on, you really wanted them to). I have two main issues though:
- Yes, we get it, Chris Pratt is funny and cute. It didn’t lend to the trailer for the laugh line of “surely you can relate to one of those things” in the style of Peter Quill.
- IT SHOWED THE DINOSAUR! They were making a big deal about how they have created a new dinosaur; genetically modified to be a superior creature unlike we have seen. So…you got me hooked with that. I’m gonna go into the theater saying “Boy I can’t wait to see that new dinosaur!” But then they show the dang thing. Suspense…over. They had a good start by showing claw marks, shadows, a foot – STOP THERE!
TOMORROWLAND
I have been trying to decide if I want to go see this movie or not since I first heard about it. This trailer pushed me more toward the “go see it side” which for the purpose of a trailer was successful in selling me the movie. But it also made me more confused about the story. It seems as if they are only showing us the first act of the film in these trailers…which is good. So…yes…I am excited?
MR. HOLMES
Another Sherlock Holmes story? Ugh, ok what…wait. He’s an old man? He’s saying that Watson stretched the truth about their famous stories? He regrets his last case? Ian McKellen? I’m excited and I am going to see this movie!
ANT MAN
I have been on the fence about this movie since the beginning. Marvel is on fire right now so it seems they can do no wrong but they are running low on the A list characters and have to build their bench if they want to stay in the game. Ant Man though, while important to the Avenger’s comics has never seemed like a strong character. The teaser did not show us anything new. This one shows us a little more story and a villain. It is very reminiscent to Sam Raimi “Spiderman” in the light-heartedness and CGI action. While I will still see “Ant Man” this summer, this trailer did nothing to convince me to be excited. The selling point to me was the red MARVEL logo at the beginning.
TERMINATOR GENISYS
This trailer did the opposite of its job. After watching I made the decision to wait. I’m so confused by the time line, the villain…it just all messes with what I know about Terminator.
SUFFRAGETTE
Just watch it and see if you know anything else about the story other than the time period. I feel like the creators of this trailer just said “Feminist Movement” then dropped the mic.
BLACK MASS
The first thing you see is an extended scene at a dinner table, two men talking about steak, one man is blindingly pale with soul-piercing eyes. Then you realize, son-of-a…THAT’S JOHNNY DEPP. Just as that thought hits your brain, the tension of the scene becomes heavier and images from the film start flashing reminicent of all your favorite crime movies – Heat, The Departed, Zodiac. This trailer not only gets your attention, it sets the tone of suspense and drama and leaves you wanting to know more (note, it never says anything about this being the story of Whitey Bulger which just makes it even more intriguing). And the best part of this trailer, it leaves us hoping with all movie nerdness – is he back? Is the acting greatness we all know from the 90’s of Johnny Flippin’ Depp back on the screen? Does it make me excited to see this movie? YES!
What are your thoughts on the trailers? Check ’em all out on the second best website on the net IMDB
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Cast: Billy Crystal, Josh Gad, Stephnie Weir, Megan Ferguson
Director: Larry Charles, Richie Keen
Creators: Larry Charles, Billy Crystal, Matt Nix, Ben Wexler
Billy Crystal and Josh Gad star in a hyper-realistic comedy show about them trying to start a comedy show. Think Curb Your Enthusiasm meets Inception. I only say that because it’s a show within a show. The style resembles Curb Your Enthusiasm and Louie.
The premise is that Billy Crystal and Josh Gad are both trying to start the next thing in their career when they reluctantly get matched up to start a modern-day variety show with one another.
I had a chance to see the first two episodes at a special SXSW screening, followed by a Q&A.
Interestingly enough, The Comedians is based on a Swedish comedy show called Ulveson & Herngren, which stars two popular Swedish comedians in the same predicament. Billy Crystal mentioned that he was sent some episodes of the Swedish series and was cry-laughing within the first few minutes of the show and didn’t really know why, he just knew he loved it.
I had never heard of Ulveson & Herngren before, and I didn’t even know The Comedians was based on anything else, but I am glad it came to America. I am especially glad that Billy Crystal and Josh Gad were cast.
Billy Crystal was probably one of the first people to make me laugh, with Saturday Night Live, The Princess Bride, Throw Momma from the Train, When Harry Met Sally, City Slickers, Analyze This, Monsters Inc., and everything in between. Honestly, when I saw him in the series trailer, I already wanted to watch the show.
Then, I saw Josh Gad standing next to Billy Crystal and I was even more intrigued. I first remember seeing Josh Gad in The Rocker, but since, I’ve enjoyed him in Thanks for Sharing, Jobs, 1600 Penn, The Internship, Frozen, and New Girl. He is also known for his incredible performance in the Broadway musical The Book of Mormon.
Side note – Josh Gad laughs at himself for 1600 Penn, a show that Josh created and starred in, that was never renewed after the first season. I just wanted to go on record saying I frickin’ loved that show and it was one of the few shows that my boyfriend and I enjoyed watching together. If you’re reading this Josh, there were people who watched and loved it. One series does not a failure make. Freaks and Geeks was only one season and people loved that series too. But I digress.
The Comedians gives off almost an Odd Couple vibe, with two complete opposites who desperately need each other. Billy Crystal is a veteran, he’s established and successful, but still hungry for work. Then Josh Gad shows up, completely loveable and very green, all the while throwing verbal daggers at Billy without really knowing he’s insulting him. He plays the loveable idiot who often makes heartfelt apologies for his idiocy.
During the Q&A, Billy and Josh mentioned that these characters are extremely exaggerated versions of themselves, and let’s hope so, because they say some pretty hurtful things to each other. They also make digs at themselves. I found the first two episodes hilarious and awkward at the same time. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cringe at most of the show, and I mean that in the best possible way.
The mixture of physical and verbal comedy, the documentary-style shooting, the pacing – it all works, and it definitely works for FX. You must check out the first few episodes and see this awesome duo! They are in the perfect home, preceding Louie on Thursday nights at 10/9c.
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As I watched this movie, one thought kept occurring to me: This is what A.I. might have looked like had Stanley Kubrick directed it himself. Despite my feelings toward both Kubrick and to Spielberg’s flawed version of A.I., I knew this thought wasn’t a bad thing, or at least I wasn’t associating it with a criticism of Ex Machina. And it certainly wasn’t a knock against Alex Garland, who makes his directorial debut here.
No, in fact, it was quite the opposite.
This is a film that deals with artificial intelligence in a realistic and frank manner that is rarely seen onscreen. It’s not an action movie about cybernetic machines sent back in time to take over the world, and it’s not a look at the distant future of what society will become if we don’t change course immediately.
Rather, it’s a movie about now. It’s about the birth of something, not the death of it, and that is quite refreshing.
Domhnall Gleeson plays Caleb, a programmer who wins a contest at his company and is given the chance to take part in a top secret experiment. He is to live with his extremely eccentric CEO, Nathan (played by Oscar Issac) for a week and determine if the artificial intelligence system Nathan has created could ever pass itself off as human. This system is in the form of a beautiful woman named Ava (Alicia Vikander) and Caleb is immediately drawn to her, more so than he could ever imagine. To say more would spoil this beautiful film for you, so I’ll just leave if at that.
Everything comes together incredibly well. The writing is as amazing as the intriguing effects and, on a surprising note, there’s actually quite a bit of humor. That’s something these types of movies don’t usually have and maybe that’s why they often drown in their own bleakness.
Definitely check if out, especially if you were let down by the wasted potential of A.I.
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Cast: Sally Field, Max Greenfield, Stephen Root, Peter Gallagher, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Don Stark, Tyne Daly, Natasha Lyonne, Rich Sommer, Caroline Aaron
Director: Michael Showalter
Screenwriters: Laura Terruso, Michael Showalter
Rated: Not Yet Rated
Runtime: 95 min
Doris (Sally Field) is a 60-year-old woman who is learning to connect with others again after her mother passes away. She is eccentric, to the point of being a hipster to the younger crowd. She becomes obsessed with a man thirty years her junior, and desperately pursues him, with the help of her best friend’s granddaughter and a self-help seminar run by Peter Gallagher.
The movie lends itself to a completely different and unique role especially for Sally Field, Max Greenfield, Stephen Root, and Don Stark. I was taken aback by Doris’s level of eccentric quirkiness, so much so that I spent a few scenes with my hands over my eyes, squealing and squirming in my seat. It was odd to see Sally Field in a frilly and peculiar way, not as strong or demonstrative as I remember her in films like Forrest Gump, Steel Magnolias, Murphy’s Romance, and Mrs. Doubtfire. It was slightly unnerving, but still I had to watch. As much as I wasn’t in favor of Sally Field and Max Greenfield hooking up (probably because I can’t cope with the idea of M’Lynn and Schmidt being intimate), I rooted for Doris. Mostly, I rooted for Doris to have human companionship and interactions, to quit hoarding, to tell her brother and sister-in-law to shove it, and to be happy.
“Hello, My Name Is Doris” SXSW Clip | “The Ball” from Red Crown Productions on Vimeo.
The casting is incredible and greatly underrated. There are people in this film that I would have never dreamed of having cast:
Max Greenfield (New Girl, Veronica Mars, They Came Together)
Stephen Root (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Dodgeball, Office Space)
Peter Gallagher (Covert Affairs, The O.C., While You Were Sleeping)
Wendi McLendon-Covey (The Goldbergs, Bridesmaids, Blended)
Don Stark (That ‘70s Show, John Carter, General Hospital)
Tyne Daly (Judging Amy, Cagney & Lacey)
Natasha Lyonne (Fresno, Orange Is the New Black, American Pie)
Rich Sommer (Mad Men, The Giant Mechanical Man, The Devil Wears Prada)
Caroline Aaron (21 Jump Street, House Arrest, Edward Scissorhands)
Even though there are quite a few purposefully awkward moments in the film, the movie really does give hope to people starting over again. It is never too late to start finding and rediscovering yourself.
Hello, My Name is Doris is not set for release at this time.
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I honestly hate spoilers, and feel like I’ve given up enough information as it is, but I have to say that this series is at the top of my watch-list. You may think that having a limited cast would get boring, but I haven’t been bored in these first four episodes.
Showrunner duo Christopher Miller and Phil Lord (The Lego Movie, 21 Jump Street, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) shared during SXSW that it won’t get boring anytime soon. “Just when you think the show is headed one way, it goes another. So keep watching.” – Christopher Miller
At the center of this show is Will Forte, a man who has no fear (probably due to his decade-long success on SNL) and stashes an array of characters at his fingertips. Here’s a video I took during the “Creating the Shows We Like” panel at SXSW. I apologize for all the laughter, but he is hilarious, explaining the ending to his stage comedy routines, which was also his SNL audition. (Warning: NSFW)
In The Last Man on Earth, Will Forte plays Phil Miller. As the title suggests, he is the last man on earth, living in Tucson, Arizona, a year after some mysterious virus wiped out the earth’s population.
What makes this series so appealing is Phil Miller’s freedom to say and do virtually anything. He decorates his house with famous artwork and relics from museums around the country, shops for groceries in his underwear, breaks random objects in parking lots, fills a kiddie pool with margarita mix and drinks from it while laying in it – I can go on and on about Phil Miller’s shenanigans, but part of the fun is not knowing what he will do next. Just know that the sky is the limit, and by the end of each episode you will be at least a tad bit jealous of his many freedoms.
Phil Miller is a complex character to figure out. He has conversations with God: apologizing and repenting for his behavior, asking for a woman to come into his life, and engaging in small talk. At the same time, he appears to be apathetic and cynical, not that I can’t blame him. I probably would be too, if I was by myself for years or months on end with no sign of life in sight. He hits a breaking point where he tells God that he doesn’t need other people to survive.
“Hey, okay. I get it. Nobody’s coming! You’re not giving me anybody. Well guess what? I don’t even care! I don’t even need people! I can make it work on my own. Watch me! Watch me!
(Turns to his left) ‘Hey Phil, what’s up?’
(Turns to his right) ‘Oh I’m great Phil, how are you?’
(Turns back to his left) ‘Oh I’m doing great, thank you very much for asking.’
See, I’m already doing it!”
From that point on, Phil creates friends out of inanimate objects and he begins to spiral out of control. And just when he’s ready to end it all, he sees smoke off in the distance. Cue gasp.
The Last Man on Earth airs on Sundays at 9/8c on FOX.
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Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Jude Law, Jason Statham, Allison Janney, Rose Byrne, Bobby Cannavale, Peter Serafinowicz, 50 cent, Morena Baccarin, Miranda Hart
Director/Screenwriter: Paul Feig
Rated: R – for language throughout, violence, and some sexual content including brief graphic nudity
Runtime: 120 min
On Sunday night, at SXSW, I had an opportunity to see Paul Feig’s newest creation Spy, a film about a desk-confined CIA analyst that must go into the field as an undercover agent to save the world from a dangerous arms dealer.
Now I’m a big fan of Bridesmaids and anything with Melissa McCarthy in it, so I was apt to go. Thankfully, I was rarely disappointed during these 2 hours of film. It doesn’t hurt that I was surrounded by 1500 of fellow film geeks and celebrities, enjoying their Sunday night in the Paramount, one of the most beautiful theaters in Austin, TX.
The movie opened up just like any big action blockbusters of our past, with an alluring and sexy agent (Jude Law) kicking butt and taking names, all the while his tech geek (Melissa McCarthy) is pulling some strings in the background to keep him from getting killed. It was obvious from the start that this movie would be full of not only fast-paced action, but lots of laughs. The juxtaposition of physical and verbal comedy thrown into the mix of a stressful and tense undercover situation was impeccable.
So how is this spy movie different than any other spy movies? And is Melissa McCarthy’s role different than in the movies/shows we are accustomed to seeing her in?
When you think of the other Spy movies at the box office lately: Skyfall, Despicable Me, Get Smart, Kingsman: The Secret Service, This Means War; this movie can easily fit right in with its counterparts. What separates it from the other films is the quick and often filthy banter between characters, awkward humor, and the differing roles of the big named stars in this film.
Melissa McCarthy is flirtatious, charming, and a total bad-ass! Unlike movies where you find a funny and clumsy spy who just so happens to save the day through dumb luck, Susan Cooper (Melissa McCarthy) is completely capable and trained in her role as a spy; she was just never given the chance to go out into the field, until now. Jason Statham plays a spy, and from his previous roles in The Transporter, Crank, and The Expendables, we expect him to be an expert in the action world. What makes him so different in Spy is his ability to poke fun at himself, as a spy who quits but still can’t seem to stay away from the action, ultimately screwing up a lot of McCarthy’s opportunities to succeed. Lastly, is Rose Byrne. She plays a bad guy, for crying out loud! And she’s great at it. Whereas in Bridesmaids, where you hate her almost like a high school frienemy, in Spy she is just evil. She runs the show and, at times, she is terrifying. She is more than just a mean girl, she is an evil ruler that has no problems killing and taking over the world.
Spy is a great movie to watch on the big screen, with loud and explosive action scenes and big comedic laughs. The audience only helps to add amazing energy to this flick.
Check out Spy in theaters on June 5th.
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When I found out there was going to be a super secret surprise midnight screening of Furious 7 at The Paramount Theater during SXSW, I completely changed my movie watching plans for that day and made sure that I got a great spot in line. I ended up with a fantastic seat in one of the coolest theaters in Austin (although, my heart will always be with Alamo Drafthouse, but I digress).
Anyway, I mention all of this because I’m sure it will taint my view of this film. It’s hard to separate a great experience from a film, and boy, was this a great experience. First, producer Neal Moritz came out and explained to us how special this movie was to him. He also asked that we not spoil the fate of Paul Walker’s character. I will most certainly honor that request (although I will say that I think they handled it with a lot of respect) and I will also try to be as spoiler free as possible.
Mr. Moritz then introduced writer Chris Morgan, director James Wan and… Tyrese!!
My friend (and fellow SXSW attendee) Chris actually filmed all of this (WARNING: CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE) so check it out:
So, as I said, this was certainly a great experience and one that I’ll never forget.
Now, at this point, you already know if you’re a fan of The Fast and Furious films. They’re all ridiculous and over-the-top, but they’re also all extremely entertaining. I think, however, that the best thing the franchise ever did was bring back the cast from the first movie and put them in a heist movie instead of a racing film for the fourth movie. That changed things and made it much more interesting. It also kept the franchise going, because things weren’t looking too good after 2 Fast 2 Furious and Tokyo Drift (even though I really liked that one).
Then, they added Dwayne Johnson to the mix in Fast Five and suddenly, this became one of the most successful franchises of all time, despite the insane amounts of absurdity and machismo on display. It was a series that could almost do no wrong. Give credit to director Justin Lin for that because he has helmed the last four of these.
For this one, however, there is a new director: James Wan. He is known mostly for directing horror films like Saw, Insidious and The Conjuring and I wondered how all of that would translate to this particular series. Now that I’ve seen it, I have to say that I think he did an incredible job of keeping everything the fans love about the series while also adding his own unique flare to it.
His Furious film seemingly takes itself even less serious than those before it and is even more ridiculously absurd. Two men crash their cars head on into each other, completely smashing them, and then get out and shake it off like nothing happened. Then they continue their fight. On foot. This is normal in their world.
But somehow, it strikes just the right tone.
Every bad line is delivered in just the right way and every camera angle captures the cool action that we all want to see. Everything is perfectly handled and it’s all just a lot of fun.
The plot is pretty straight-forward: Vin Diesel and his crew are out for revenge after one of their guys is killed by the brother of the bad guy they defeated in the last movie. Kurt Russell plays a government agent who wants to help them out with their revenge if they’re willing to help him out. So, the crew accepts his offer and travels to many different countries where they have some of the best fight / action sequences of the entire franchise along the way. Jason Statham, Ronda Rousey, Tony Jaa and Djimon Hounsou make up the toughest adversaries they’ve ever had to face.
So, those awesome actions scenes plus the overall fun tone and nature of this film definitely put this one towards the top of the franchise for me. I really appreciated that it didn’t take itself serious at all. I’d say if you’re a fan at all, you need to check it out. It comes out on April 3rd and I hope they continue to make more!
The post Furious 7 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! 
I was blown away by this film! In our modern world of dystopian Y.A. fiction fodder it is unique to see a multi-layered story as this one. So, a quick synopsis: in response to global warming, the world governments disperse a chemical into the atmosphere to strengthen the ozone (yeah, that screams disaster). It works too well and instead sends the world into a new ice age killing off all life on Earth. The only survivors board a train whose original purpose was a luxury liner which travels the globe. There of course is hierarchy on the train (first class, coach, etc.) which overtime turns into a bitter caste system. This exposition is quickly taken care of in the credit sequence so we can jump in with no waste into the story: the rebellion of the “tail end” people to overthrowing the engine.
Now this all may sound like a story you’ve heard before but “Snowpiercer” is so brilliantly executed you’ll think the dystopian concept couldn’t be told any other way. It also is as diverse as the train which it’s set. Based on a French graphic novel, written, directed and produced by a Korean crew and prominently starring British and American actors. The best way to describe this movie is that it is Asian cinema with English-speaking actors. The pacing, humor and (sometimes) melodrama of scenes are what I have seen with other Asian films. And the twists are numerous and shocking – leaving the viewer unsure from the beginning where it is going.
Story aside, the strongest attribute about “Snowpiercer” is the cast. All are great: John Hurt (Hellboy, V for Vendetta), Kang ho-Song (The Host), Jamie Bell (Jumper, new Fantastic Four franchise), Octavia Spencer (The Help) and Chris Evans who sets himself far apart from his Captain America role as the rebel leader Curtis.
By far though, the best performance is Tilda Swinton. Many times you have to remind yourself that the character on screen is Swinton and not just because of the thick glasses, fake teeth and heavy accent. The part was rumored to be originally written for John C. Reilly, but negotiations fell through leaving a very masculine part to be played by a female. All in all, the biggest upset of the Oscar season was that Tilda Swinton was not nominated for Supporting Actress.
As I write this, I am currently snowed in (ironic I know). So please take the time this cold weekend to watch this quintessential ‘snowed-in’ movie. You’ll be glad I gave you that push.
The post Snowpiercer: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Train first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>In 1968, The Odd Couple movie was released. That was when I fell in love with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, an unstoppable force. I’ll be honest though – the movie wasn’t as funny so much as it was dramatic. I recently watched this film again and for some reason don’t remember it being as serious. I was stressed out during the whole first half, and only really laughed during the double-date scene near the end. The film really took on the play, giving both a dramatic and sometimes humorous performance. The 1970-75 television show solved this dramatic emphasis by flipping the dynamic upside down. When I think Tony Randall and Jack Klugman, I remember lots of laughs, which is helped by an audience laugh track. (There are still episodes of the original television show on Hulu.)
When I heard CBS would be creating this show 40 years after the original series ended, I was ecstatic. The Odd Couple has a place on television today as an incredible sitcom story. Here’s my take on Thursday’s premiere.
The show opens with Oscar (Matthew Perry) wrapping his radio sports segment from home, in his pigsty of an apartment. He is sloppy, crude, and rough on the outside. A real man’s man. Not long after we first meet Oscar, Felix (Thomas Lennon) knocks on the door: he’s a wreck. He’s getting divorced, has nowhere to go, and came to his old college pal for guidance and help. Felix is over-dramatic, OCD, well-dressed and articulate. Everything Oscar isn’t. You would think these two wouldn’t (or couldn’t) be friends, but that’s the beauty of this story. Even though they act like an old married couple, arguing and disagreeing with each other on every front, they truly care for one another. Just like the original movie suggests, Oscar and Felix need each other. They are divorced and alone, and their personalities make them difficult for anyone to get along with. They use their own strengths to help their friend’s weaknesses.
The Odd Couple pays homage to its predecessors with a vintage title sequence and familiar soundtrack, which only makes the show that much more meaningful. Jokes from the movie and television show appear in the remake, but still remain fresh and relevant. My favorite appears in this photo, where Felix Unger leaves notes for Oscar, signing them “F.U.” It appears to confuse Oscar, only adding to the hilarity of their situation.
“Pick up your socks, F.U. It took me two days to figure out F.U. was Felix Unger!”
If I was casting The Odd Couple, I never would have thought Matthew Perry (Go On, Friends) and Thomas Lennon (Sean Saves the World, Reno 911) – but boy was I an idiot not to think about pairing these two together! The chemistry, mannerisms, energy that these actors bring is a breath of fresh air! I was in love with these two after their first scene together! Their timing and back-and-forth is spot on and when the episode ended, I groaned. I can’t believe I have to wait a whole week to see these two again.
Along with Matthew Perry and Thomas Lennon, comes an ensemble which includes: Leslie Bibb (About a Boy, Burning Love, Popular), Lindsay Sloane (Horrible Bosses, Sabrina the Teenage Witch), Dave Foley (Spun Out, Kids in the Hall), Yvette Nicole Brown (Community, Pound Puppies, Drake & Josh), and Wendell Pierce (The Michael J. Fox Show, The Wire).
They have stacked this show with funny people, and leading the helm is a great and unexpected duo. I not only hope people catch onto this incredibly funny and endearing show, but if this chemistry and clever writing continues, I hope that it generates Emmy buzz. The Odd Couple is on CBS on Thursdays, at 8:30/7:30c.
The post The Odd Couple first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>“Clearly, you were sent from your planet to tidy ours.” -Oscar
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.
Now that you know about the cast and the juxtaposition Backstrom is in as the anti-hero, “bad boy” who’s really doing good in the world, you see the comparison to Holmes or House. The situation that this character and his entourage are in is nothing we haven’t seen before. That being said, I feel like this show has a place on television, even amongst the dozens of crime shows currently airing.
Backstrom is a dark character, which naturally brings about mystery and curiosity to the viewer. You get a small glimpse of Backstrom’s past in the first episode: his famous sheriff father, who also had a knack for beating Backstrom as a child; and his previous health problems which led him to working in traffic for a stint. There is a layered character here worth getting to know (at least for another episode or two). Yes, he’s a jerk who ironically breaks the rules of society and morality, whilst solving murders as a detective. But he’s a good guy deep down, and that’s what I’m hoping they reveal to us overtime.
Check out Backstrom on Thursday nights, 9/8c on FOX.
“I don’t see the worst in everyone. I see the everyone in everyone.” – Backstrom
The post Backstrom first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>With that said, I was not as impressed with “The Trip to Italy” (which was recently released to Netflix). Don’t get me wrong, I thought it was a great film. The first “Trip” was so perfect though that in this one, the comedy, the pacing, the camaraderie seemed a little re-hashed. Would I get a groan if I even said it was like eating leftovers?
There was of course a multitude of great one liners and impressions (I mean we can not get enough Michael Caine impressions), but the freshness of the story was not there. I also couldn’t help but feel disappointed in the lazy writing move to just switch Coogan and Brydon’s character arches from the last film. My only two complaints.
I appreciate a movie such as “The Trip” and “The Trip to Italy” for not pandering to a more idiotic audience but taking a “high brow” approach to their location, character’s traits/aspirations and even the timing of the comedy – not waiting for the big laugh but moving quickly through smaller ones. I also vey much appreciate the food! As a lover of food myself and the eating of said food, I can happily say this film is FOOD PORN!
The IMDb user reviews are littered with bad posts and low ratings for this film. Many of those comments saying, “I couldn’t understand what they were saying” or “this is just British humor” or “I had to watch ‘The Other Guys’ afterward – now that’s a funny movie.” To those people I would say (trying my best to not sound pompous), “I guess ‘The Trip to Italy’ is for those that have refined tastes.”
The post The Trip to Italy – Anyone for Leftovers? first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>In any case, that’s not the story being told in American Sniper.
This is not a look at war and how there are various shades of grey to good and evil. This is not a look at country and religion and the perception that neither are infallible. No, this is a movie about one man’s point-of-view in a modern war and how that war changed him forever. It’s about not being able to ever completely turn the soldier side of yourself off even when you are back at home and safe. Truly, the question being asked here is what would killing over a hundred people do to you as a person, not whether you were justified in those killings in the first place.
Bradley Cooper plays Kyle in this film from Clint Eastwood, and while it’s clear that both men wanted to honor and respect Mr. Kyle for his bravery, this is not a particularly political film. Eastwood’s subtle and unassuming style works wonders in that regard and I especially like his choice of not showing Kyle’s death, but rather the actual footage of his funeral. Those images are powerful, even if you didn’t like the man. And while I am partial to his character in Silver Linings Playbook, this may be Cooper’s best role to date. His reluctance and uneasiness with some of the impossible choices he’s forced to make really elevate this movie. Also, for what it’s worth, his Texas accent never once bothered me and that’s saying quite a lot.
So, if you remove some of the more controversial areas of a man and choose to only see war as he did, does that make for a compelling movie? In this case, I’d say so, but I still prefer Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima as a more complex and complete war film. If you haven’t seen that, I’d definitely recommend checking it out.
On a side note, can soldiers actually call home during missions? It repeatedly happened here and every time it took me out of the movie.
The post American Sniper first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>Now, with that out of the way, I’ll cut to the chase: This is not a good movie.
I had heard that test audiences hadn’t been kind to it, but I enjoyed Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s first effort at directing, This is the End, and in general, I like Rogen and James Franco as actors, so I figured I’d still give it a shot.
The plot, such as it is, revolves around Franco as a talk show host who craves celebrity gossip and big, juicy scoops. So, when he and his producer, played by Rogen, unexpectedly find themselves in a position to interview Kim Jong-un (who is a big fan of their show), he jumps at the idea. The CIA, however, decides to use the opportunity to assassinate the North Korean leader. Hi-jinks ensue.
One of the problems I have with The Interview is that it relies on too many strange, awkward setups for jokes that never really pay off later on. Does “honey potting” really need to be a recurring gag? Or how about hearing a Katy Perry song over and over again only to have it be used in a more literal way during the film’s climax? Is that funny or is it just lazy writing? It’s as if they’re saying, “Hey, remember when we said that thing earlier? Well, we’re referencing it now! Aren’t we clever?”
Still, as bad as the paper-thin plot is, it’s not even the worst thing about this movie; that would be Mr. Franco. He’s so over-the-top and ridiculous that you can’t believe this is someone who has been nominated for an Oscar. Every note he hits is false and he really tested my patience with his obnoxious behavior. I’m not sure if that’s due to the way his character was written or if it’s just him improvising, but whatever it is, it’s absolutely terrible. Ironically, Randall Park as Kim Jong-un made me laugh the most. Read into that what you will.
I know many of you will probably see this movie simply because of the controversy surrounding it, but you’ll most likely walk away disappointed. If you want a better example of the kind of film this one wants to be, or if you are trying to be patriotic or something, then rewatch Team America: World Police. The puppets give much better performances.
The post The Interview first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>The podcasters try to unwind and “solve” a murder that took place in Baltimore in 1999. A high school girl goes missing and is eventually found in a shallow grave in a wooded park. Police suspect her ex-boyfriend, and are given a tip that seems to confirm their suspicions. Long story short, he’s convicted and has been in prison ever since, all the while maintaining his innocence. Much remains unanswered and there are many people who feel that he was wrongly convicted. I’ll stop there with the details, I don’t want to spoil anything and the show is better at explaining it anyway. I think the more interesting aspects of this show are not the cell phone records, or endless police interview tapes, but rather the peak it gives us into just how complex real life (and real crimes) can be.
Everyone in this story, including the man convicted of murder, is sympathetic. They are also all highly suspect. This is in large part due to the intense scrutiny placed on every single detail, and there are lots of details. No one’s life can stand up to that kind of study. The minutia washes over you like a wave, its almost too much at times. But it really makes you feel like you know these people. All those random bits also have a way of keeping you hooked. “Could that be it? Is that the clue that’ll break this case?” We have all been so programmed by movies and TV shows that we can spot the killer in act one, and we can guess which clues matter and which ones don’t. All those scripted formulas don’t apply to Serial, some times a random detail is just a random detail. It makes for a rich story but a maddening puzzle, which I guess is the same thing.
The second piece that makes this show so compelling is that they are making it as they go. They were still investigating when they started airing episodes. So they themselves don’t even know the outcome. Its like a true crime investigation being broadcast in real time. By the end they even have witnesses contacting them because they heard the show. Its odd, but very exciting. You feel as if you are along for the hunt, and the host doesn’t know anymore than you do.
Its also a strange thing to try and put yourself back in 1999. Cell phones are not that common with high schoolers, cars don’t have GPS, and social media doesn’t exist. Investigators now would just check Facebook and see who checked in where to create a timeline of events, but back then it was all just witness testimony. Every kid now would have a dozen selfies from lunch that are geotagged with their exact coordinates. But back then it was “I think they left together, or maybe separate, I’m not sure.” This limits the paper trail, which limits verifiable facts. This can feel very cool, they have to actually go interview people like old school detectives. But sometimes its just annoying, why don’t they just check her- oh right she didn’t have a cell phone. An 18 year old girl who didn’t have a cell phone, so strange.
If you watched The Killing you’d swear they got the idea for that show from this podcast. If you like old school radio dramas or Prairie Home Companion you’ll like this show. If you also happened to enjoy Truman Capote’s writing you’ll like it even more. The ambiguity of this show is part of the reason its so frustrating, and so addictive. I hope you’ll check it out, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
PS: The SNL sketch parodying it could not have been more perfect, be sure to look that up too.
The post Serial: Podcasting a Puzzle first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>The show follows Marco Polo as he finds himself in the court of Kublai Khan through a rather unfortunate turn of events. He becomes a member of the court and even manages to gain the respect of the Khan. The Mongols are preparing to attack the Chinese and both sides are doing their best to be sure they come out on top.
I really wanted to like this show, it’s such an interesting part of history that is so often ignored. Even the great John Milius began a Ghengis Khan movie, reportedly still in the works. But this show doesn’t quite live up to the grandeur and the barbarism that the subject matter demands. Oh there are some brutal scenes and some gorgeous landscapes, but it never manages to really hit home.
I loved to palace intrigue of The Tudors, as well as the viciousness of Game of Thrones. This show offers neither, but it tries really hard. The cast does quite well, the costuming and set design are great, and the battle scenes aren’t too bad (for TV). But what is missing is a compelling story, or should I say a well written compelling story. There are many characters and story lines that would have been enough for a series, but they aren’t fleshed out enough. This leaves the whole thing feeling like a case of great potential but poor execution. I really wanted to love this show, but I just couldn’t.
To add to the mediocre writing it also seems to be trying to see what it can get away with. The nudity is excessive, but the violence isn’t. The ruthless history of the Khans should imply the opposite. The blind Kung Fu master who trains Marco is great, but feels very out of place. Why can he do flying back flips in this historical drama? The whole show suffers from this disjointed feel. Any one of the stories/character would be great, but together they just don’t quite work.
What I do like about this show has nothing to do with the show itself. Netflix has its sights set on HBO. They have done great things with House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. Marco Polo should help to bring in some of the same audience that regularly tunes into HBO on Sunday nights. I hope that Netflix keeps pushing. The more competition the better the product for us to enjoy.
In the end if you enjoyed The Tudors or Game of Thrones you may enjoy Marco Polo as well. Just don’t expect the same brilliance you found in those two. As for me, I’ll be patiently waiting for John Milius to bring the Khans to the screen.
The post Marco Polo: Traveling the Silk Road Without a Map first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>The actual work of the team is interesting, but the real joy in this film is what they do the rest of the time. It’s like an episode of M*A*S*H that’s set in Antarctica and directed by Wes Anderson. I love Wes Anderson films, so my bias might be playing into why I enjoyed this film so much. Whether it’s the narration or the awkwardly long close ups of people, this film just oozes Anderson, but that’s a good thing. The feeling that Steve Zissou might show up anytime is great, but the people in this film are plenty interesting on their own. Some seem a bit off, like too much time living on the ice has taken its toll. But some just seem to genuinely love their jobs, and that’s rare and wonderful to see these days.
The world of the film is so bizarre and alien that it becomes a character itself. The sun never sets, white outs are frequent, and they heat their tents with jet fuel. Who lives like that? But they still have movie nights and birthday cakes. It’s a strange and beautiful life they live at the end of the world.
I know this seems odd, I’m reviewing a film that can be seen on Vimeo, not in theaters or video. But maybe that taps into the other reason I love this film. Just like the characters are making a home in the wilderness, so is this film. It’s been released by Studiocanoe, and can be watched for free online. I don’t say that to cheapen the film, like Antarctica itself, this film may be enhanced by the very freedom of accessibility it offers.
I cannot recommend this film enough. It’s fun, it’s gorgeous, and it touches on some serious topics. I hope you watch the film and enjoy Welcome to Union Glacier as much as I did.
The post Welcome to Union Glacier: The Life Antarctic first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>And that difference is that the main character is actually likable.
It’s no secret that I don’t care for Into the Wild. In many ways, I felt like it was a tedious experiment in Oscar Bait. I’m not terribly familiar with Christopher McCandless’ real life, but the character as presented in Sean Penn’s movie always struck me as self absorbed, someone out to prove something that didn’t need to be proved. Someone so incredibly stubborn, they only realized they needed others in their lives as they lay dying alone. Tragic yes, but not a relatable character for most.
Wild is based on Cheryl Strayed’s book of the same name, in which she documents how she hiked the PCT for months after her mother died of cancer and she found herself spiraling out of control in the wake of it all. The hike was her way to force herself to change, by going out of her element and pushing herself to her limits. She’s determined to make her goal despite many setbacks and the constant fear of being raped or assaulted. She’s not rejecting society so much as trying to find her way back in it. Reese Witherspoon plays Cheryl here and I must say, it’s a fantastic performance from her and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if she’s nominated for several awards next year.
As good as Reese is, however, it’s Laura Dern who steals the show as Cheryl’s mom. She is the heart of this film and you can feel (and sometimes see) her character resonate throughout every scene, despite only appearing briefly in flashbacks. Even when faced with certain death, she is more concerned for the well being of others and maintains a positive spirit that’s more than just a facade, more than just allowing herself to be naive. She’s strong, like her daughter.
Director Jean-Marc Vallée garnered some much deserved critical acclaim last year for Dallas Buyers Club and he brings that same level of gritty, stripped down realism here. It works much to the film’s favor and is very different from the approach that Sean Penn took.
By my standard, Wild is so much more than Into the Wild and succeeds in nearly every way I thought that filmed failed, but especially with compelling, relatable characters. I also found it interesting that it deals with issues that a man would never have to face if they chose to go on a journey like this, namely other men choosing to see them as objects.
Don’t write it off as knock-off. It’s so much more than that.
The post Wild first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>The film follows a park ranger tasked with taking care of orphaned gorillas, most left for dead by poachers. He is the heart of the film, his love for the gorillas is so genuine and pure it aches. I think I might have watched an entire film just about him, but the film also follows his fellow park rangers, they are responsible for fighting poachers. When I say fighting I mean literal fighting, with automatic weapons. This is a war, and the prize is elephant ivory and gorilla pelts. Its shocking how violent this can be. The dichotomy is great, the peaceful man who simply wants to take care of the gorillas, and the men who take up arms to defend them.
Then the film shifts gears, rather suddenly, when oil is found in Virunga. With oil comes multinational corporation, bribes, and war. The rangers are stuck in the middle of the chaos and must find their way as their country is literally sold to the highest bidder.
If the film was any one of these stories it would probably be good, but with all three its great. It really feels like you are seeing the story in three dimensions. All too often documentary film makers get tunnel vision and forget that their subjects are surrounded by other compelling characters. Here the background enhances the drama of the main characters. The most painfully emotional moment of the film for me was watching the care taker of the gorillas put on his uniform as he prepares to take up arms to defend the creatures he loves.
This film falls somewhere between “Gorillas in the Mist” and “The Constant Gardener” but with added punch of knowing that its all real. Its a sad reality, but the film reminds us that there are some things worth fighting for. I would highly recommend Virunga.
PS: On a lighter note, I had no idea gorillas like Pringles.
The post Virunga: Guerrillas in the Mist first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>Second is the story line. If you enjoyed the Twilight style love triangle between Katniss, Peeta and Gale then you won’t enjoy this movie as much. Also if you enjoyed watching teenagers kill each other in the arena, you won’t like this movie as much either. But if you enjoyed the semi-Orwellian nature of the whole world of The Hunger Games, then you’ll really like this installment. For those not familiar with the books, this is the point in the story where the people begin to openly rise up against the Capital. The revolution has begun and Katniss is right in the middle of it, like it or not.
This brings me to the third thing that makes this movie great. The real world and art are beginning to blend. China has “indefinitely delayed” the movie’s release, due to its overtly political nature. Flashing the three finger salute from the film will get you arrested in Thailand, where rebels earlier this year began using the salute during their protest of a military coup. Most recently protesters in Ferguson MO spray painted a phrase from the movie “If we burn, you burn with us!” on a local landmark. Normally movies try and exploit a current trend to sell tickets and soda. But this time it seems that the movie has hit home with people in a way that the filmmakers may not have foreseen. For better or worse, many people around the world have also lost faith in their leaders and many have grown angry or even violent. These movies have given people a meaningful way to rebel with nothing more than hand gesture.
Whether by plan or totally accidental, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 seems to be an incredibly timely movie. And also a solid movie, maybe the best so far in the franchise.The post “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1” – A Primer in Propaganda first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>
For those of you who know me, you know I am rather obsessed with Stanley Kubrick’s films, all of them, but especially 2001: a space odyssey. I am also a big fan of Terrance Malick’s Tree of Life, despite the objections of my family and friends. Darren Aronofsky is also one of my favorites (except for Noah, which Charles perfectly summed up) and I feel The Fountain to be one of his best. I mention all of this because I believe that Christopher Nolan has mostly achieved what these great film makers were going for in their films, but to achieve it he had to fail where they succeeded.
Interstellar is huge, not only is it projected on 70mm IMAX, but the story spans lifetimes. Characters travel light years, and experience things that no human has ever experienced, yet. But in the end what makes this film work is how small it is. It’s not about man’s place in the universe, or the next step in our evolution, it’s about a father trying to save his daughter. He may have to travel through a worm hole to the other side of the galaxy to do it, but it’s all for her. This is the strongest point of the movie and also the thing that seems out of place. In the other movies I mentioned before it was as though the filmmakers knew that once you started looking at humans in the context of the enormous universe we seem pretty insignificant. This allows them to tell stories that stretch way beyond the lifespan of any one person, and ultimately to really examine what our place in the universe is. Nolan forgoes all this. He would rather examine a father daughter relationship, and kudos to him for doing it. He keeps the audience hooked by that emotion, when the other directors lose their audience.
The brilliance of a film like 2001 is that the story isn’t about a man, but is the story of Man. Same with Tree of Life, it isn’t just about little boys in Texas, its about the Nature of Man. But Nolan makes us think, AND he makes us feel. Does this make it better than the others? In some ways yes, in others no. I don’t think he was trying to say the same things that Kubrick, Malick or Aronofsky were. He was examining the love between a father and a daughter, who happen to be on other sides of the galaxy.
So in the end my feelings about Interstellar are exactly what makes it superior to other space epics, it made me feel.
-Christopher
PS: I will readily acknowledge there are huge, complex plot holes in the movie. But for Christopher Nolan it’s all about that relationship, so a couple missing pieces are Ok. I tend to agree with him, just don’t dig too deep into the astrophysics.
The post Interstellar: Traveling lightyears to go home. first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>