Shura (Demons)(1971)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Shura (Demons)(1971) – T. Matsumoto

Shot in strikingly low-key (high contrast) black and white – where the darkness threatens to overtake the light in almost every shot.  Truly, the film is dark, both in terms of being set predominantly at night (or so it seems) and in terms of its content.  Katsuo Nakamura plays a ronin samurai who is actually seeking to become part of the famous 47 ronin who carried out a surprise revenge attack after their lord was forced to commit sepukku.  However, he spends all of the movie slumming it under the name “Gengobe”, wasting his time with geisha and ne’er-do-wells.  In fact, he is soon conned by a geisha (Yasuko Sanjo) and her husband (Juro Karo) into parting ways with the funds needed to join the ronin group.  This leads to a very bloody attack on his part (shot gruesomely) but only the various accomplices are killed.  His pursuit of the trickster couple uncovers an ironic relationship between all three once their true identities are revealed.  But it is too late to stop an even more grotesque and gruesome fate!  The film takes its time, moving leisurely, and director Toshio Matsumoto uses a number of strategies to disorient viewers; such as restarting several scenes from the beginning but from a different perspective – or with different content -- contrasting dreams/anxiety with reality. Since both are dark and violent, it is hard to know which is which; later in the picture, some dreams seem to become reality.  Rather stagebound but verging on hallucinatory at times. 

Hold That Ghost (1941)

☆ ☆ ☆

Hold That Ghost (1941) – A. Lubin

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello are a pair of gas station attendants who accidentally find themselves the last people with a notorious gangster when he is killed in a shoot-out with the police and, surprisingly, become the beneficiaries of his will.  They inherit a seemingly haunted roadside tavern.  Trapped there with several other people (including comedienne Joan Davis) they find trouble and eventually treasure.  This story is book-ended by scenes in a nightclub with The Andrews Sisters (who also appeared in Abbott and Costello’s first film) and bandleader Ted Lewis.  These scenes seem tacked on to add a variety element to the picture, not all that uncommon during the forties. Bud and Lou are in fine form, hilariously and ridiculously bumbling through every scene and situation.  The plot is just an excuse for their routines and antics.  But this isn’t Bergman and it’s all easily forgotten a few hours later. 

  

Trumbo (2015)

☆ ☆ ☆

Trumbo (2015) –J. Roach

A distressing time in American history as seen through the frame of a bio-pic.  Dalton Trumbo was a member of the Hollywood 10, black-listed and unable to work as a screenwriter due to his involvement with the Communist Party USA.  So, yes, this is another look at the House Un-American Activities Committee and its targeting of the film industry.  Wrong-headed Senator Joe McCarthy does not make an appearance in the film but instead columnist Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren) and star John Wayne are the leading instigators of animosity from within.  Bryan Cranston takes a star turn as Trumbo who received Oscars for Roman Holiday and The Brave One using a “front” or a false name.  We see his experience in prison after his contempt of Congress conviction and also his attempt to resuscitate his career by working anonymously for a small poverty row studio (run by crass John Goodman) before Otto Preminger and Kirk Douglas help to break the blacklist by openly employing him (on Exodus and Spartacus, respectively).  But I’m probably making the film sound better than it is.  The content is inherently enthralling but the acting is uneven (fellow traveller Louis C. K.’s deadpan style jars with the more actorly techniques around him and there is the usual problem of people playing well-known historical characters and looking nothing like them) and the script drags at times.  Some of the better known actors seem to be trapped in parts that do not let them shine.  So, on balance, Trumbo is worth a look but hardly counts as an in-depth or seriously considered treatment of the person or the times.

  

The Fog (1980)

☆ ☆

The Fog (1980) – J. Carpenter

It’s as ludicrous as you’d expect – the menacing fog is rolling in!  Of course, I was hoping for something a bit more kitschy from John Carpenter in 1980.  Even his typical propulsive score is mostly absent, exchanged for some jazz played by Adrienne Barbeau’s dj character or some more brooding ominous sounds.  The fog is rolling in!  More specifically, inside the fog are some gruesome zombie-like 100-year dead ghosts with nasty hooks who are looking for the descendants of those who killed them back in the day at the very founding of this California town.  But everything is too slow and the stars (including Jamie Lee Curtis, her mum Janet Leigh, Hal Holbrook, Barbeau and some relative unknowns) have to strain to look frightened.  Barbeau seems to know in advance what’s going on for no real reason (she is up in her radio station lighthouse broadcasting warnings) – so, a few plot holes too.  It looks good on blu-ray but I wouldn’t say it has much else going for it.  Carpenter has better films from which to choose.

The Well (1951)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Well (1951) – L. Popkin & R. Rouse

A young African-American girl goes missing and a white man passing through town is accused of kidnapping her.  Thus begins a tense day for the head of police, as things break down along racial lines with each group suspecting unfair biases at play.  To be fair, the film is very explicit that African-Americans suffer more prejudice and injustice at the hands of whites than the other way around but it is also open to the possibility that the white man (Harry Morgan, the only cast member I recognised) is being assumed guilty without a trial by some.  The editing of the film (lots of montage) ratchets up the tension – which is almost at boiling point as mobs form and senseless violent acts are committed.  But then the girl is found (we knew in advance that she had fallen down a well) and the town rallies to use heavy machinery to extract her from the 60 ft. deep shaft.  Uniting around this common goal seems to completely dissipate any racial animosity that existed in the previous 12 hours (as social psychological theory would predict).  It’s all a bit unbelievable (partly due to some wooden acting) yet still gives you a warm feeling when things work out.  If only our real problems were so easily allayed. 

The World’s End (2013)

☆ ☆ ½

The World’s End (2013) – E. Wright

I guess there are diminishing returns from these Simon Pegg/Nick Frost comedies directed by Edgar Wright.  By this, the third movie (after Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz), the formula seems evident – take a genre, throw in some action, some broad British comedy (though not too dry), and race through things, not forgetting to have a few touching human moments (about friendship).  OK, I can’t quite recall the earlier movies that well but The World’s End feels a bit thin.  The plot sees Pegg’s loser-who-hasn’t-grown-up character getting his old friends (who have) together to do an epic pub crawl that they didn’t quite complete back in 1990 when they graduated from high school.  However, their old town seems to have been taken over by the Body Snatchers who become increasingly menacing.  Cue the action.  I’m not saying that there aren’t some good witticisms here or that a lot of thought hasn’t gone into the script/set design/casting, it’s just that it all left me a bit flat.  Your average action comedy really is a kind of unchallenging junk food these days -- and I accept that sometimes that’s what you want – but it isn’t sustaining.

The Ring (1927)

☆ ☆ ☆

The Ring (1927) – A. Hitchcock

This silent feature from Hitchcock shows the Master developing his craft.  There is a tremendous focus on advancing the language of film, through montage, superimposition, and other experiments.  The story itself is not too exciting – a young boxer loses his wife to the champ but works his way up to the title bout and wins her back.  I think I made that sound more exciting than it really is but Hitch’s technique does add some suspense to the proceedings, even if this film is not even close to his later films in that (suspense) genre.  Still, there is no denying that Hitchcock had talent even then and was developing with each picture, even if he wouldn’t really hit his stride until the coming of sound and the Gaumont British pictures.