T2 Trainspotting (2017)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

T2 Trainspotting (2017) – D. Boyle

Is it because I’ve turned 50 that I feel inundated with cinematic offerings that are looking back and commenting (directly or postmodernly) on the journey we’ve all been on for the past few decades?  Twin Peaks: The Return, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Blade Runner 2049, probably others, all seem to be forcing me to contemplate the processes of aging, remembering, learning, forgetting, changing, enduring.  This reminds me of Dan McAdams’ research that has people tell their life stories (suggesting that older people may sort themselves into those who offer stories of “redemption”, overcoming challenges and obstacles, and those who offer stories of “contamination”, failing to overcome obstacles). Danny Boyle’s return to Trainspotting and its characters (again scripted by John Hodge from Irvine Welsh’s novels) explicitly addresses these issues, particularly by having Spud break from his heroin addiction to channel his energies into writing the stories of the lives of the four central protagonists (in effect, the content of Welsh’s book and the first film).  But the film takes a gradual approach to revealing what has happened to Mark “Rent Boy” Renton (Ewen McGregor), Simon “Sick Boy” (Jonny Lee Miller), Spud (Ewen Bremner), and Begbie (Robert Carlyle) in the 20 years since the last movie.  Having not watched the earlier film since some time in the ‘90s, I also re-learned their history while updating the facts to the present.  It may be important to know that the previous film ended with Mark escaping with £16,000 from a drug deal, leaving his friends (except for Spud) empty handed.  So, when he returns from 20 years abroad, he isn’t entirely welcome, particularly by Begbie who, unsurprisingly, has been in jail the entire time.  Although Boyle makes some attempt to mimic the style of the 1996 film, this is a more reflective and less manic film.  There are certainly nods to the fans and to the Scottish locals (I watched with subtitles on) but ultimately the end result is something greater than a quick buck-making exercise, less disposable than I expected, and, if not quite profound, certainly another opportunity to think about time and all she brings to mind (at least for a person of a certain vintage).

Pardon My Sarong (1942)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Pardon My Sarong (1942) – E. C. Kenton

Amiable and meandering comedy starring Abbott and Costello which is just a bunch of bits strung onto a typically ridiculous plot.  The boys are bus drivers who hijack their own city bus to help out a society bachelor who needs to get from Chicago to California for a yacht race.  Soon, the law is after them -- in the form of William Demarest (a Preston Sturges favourite); they duck into a magician’s dressing room to escape (cue hijinks).  We are then treated to a few musical interludes (including from The Ink Spots) in the club, which was common in 1940s films of this type and gives them a relaxed feel.  Soon, though, Costello drives the bus into the ocean and the duo winds up on the playboy’s yacht, and subsequently shipwrecked on a tropical isle.  There they run into beautiful or burly natives, an anthropologist who is really running a gang of jewel thieves, and some more slapstick and wordplay.  Of course, given the vintage, there are some pretty crude caricatures on display here but fortunately the racism isn’t mean-spirited (but unfortunately it is still racism) – Lou Costello is typically the butt of most gags.  The sexism is probably more unabashed and there is a fair amount of leering (1940s style).  But if you feel disposed to look past these things (which we can hope are moving behind us, at least overtly), then there are a bunch of chuckles here and everything feels pretty good-natured.  One of A & C’s better outings.

Coma (1978)

☆ ☆ ☆

Coma (1978) – M. Crichton

Extremely schematic thriller in the seventies paranoid vein directed unflashily by Michael Crichton (who also adapted the screenplay from Robin Cook’s book).  It starts out alright with Geneviève Bujold’s Susan Wheeler becoming suspicious about a series of unexplained comas at her workplace (Boston Memorial Hospital).  She confides in her lover Michael Douglas who may or may not be trustworthy.  But about an hour in, we know she is correct and then the running starts.  Of course, there are further discoveries to be made and we don’t quite know all of the answers until the final few minutes, when (like a classic episode of the Batman TV show) Bujold is captured by the main villain and about to meet her doom unless unless unless (she is rescued, of course).  So, it’s a classic cross-cutting finale straight out of the silent days.  I suppose the big secret discovered at the Jefferson Institute (where comatose patients are sent to live out their days in a brutalist monstrosity) is suitably surprising but somehow they couldn’t hang a whole film on it.  Nevertheless, this was fine as mindless fare when your mind is nowhere.

  

Secret Agent (1936)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Secret Agent (1936) – A. Hitchcock

Hitchcock’s follow-up to The 39 Steps (1935) also stars Madeleine Carroll, this time as an apprentice spy during WWI, and Peter Lorre (from the Man Who Knew Too Much, 1934), as a wacky assassin working for the Brits.  John Gielgud takes the lead as the writer drafted to be a spy as Richard Asheden (from the stories by Somerset Maugham).  They are all shipped off to Switzerland to track down an enemy agent and kill him.  As Hitchcock points out, the unsavoury nature of this assignment and the clear ambivalence shown by Gielgud and Carroll undercut the excitement of the adventure story.  And when things go very wrong, this doesn’t help either.  At this stage in his career, Hitch was already ready to defy audience expectations in a big way (he blew up a child with a bomb in his next picture, Sabotage, 1936) but the honesty with which he deals with assassination doesn’t fully jell with the comedy-thriller elements dominating the rest of the picture.  There are, of course, some excellent set-pieces handled with aplomb and an unpredictable ending, if you weren’t trying to figure things out too hard.  Still, this is worth a look, even if not up there with the greatest of the Master’s British pictures.

Confidential Report (1955)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Confidential Report (1955) – O. Welles

There are 7 or 8 different versions of Confidential Report (a.k.a. Mr. Arkadin) but none of them apparently represent Orson Welles’ vision of the film.  Although Criterion released a 105 minute version with all of the available footage drawn from every different English-language version (there are also Spanish), this still didn’t contain the opening shot that Welles described to Peter Bogdanovich in the lengthy book of interviews called “This is Orson Welles” (a shot of Milly’s body washed up on a beach).  I had a VHS copy (entitled “Mr. Arkadin”) that was 92 minutes long that I always found utterly confusing.  So, when I bought a used DVD from the local library last weekend (entitled “Confidential Report”) that is 95 minutes long, I was surprised to find that it felt a lot more coherent.  Of course, this could also be because I’ve seen (and read about) the film a bunch of times now.  Due to financial problems, this is another picture that Welles shot in piecemeal fashion, in different locations, with lots of reshooting when new actors replaced older ones (and to make a Spanish version to suit a co-producer there), and with Welles later dubbing his own voice for many characters and tacking on the musical score (written without access to the film but with notes from Welles) in fragmented form at the end.  The plot itself was drawn from some episodes of the Harry Lime radio show that Welles wrote (and was starring in), although it doesn’t feature Lime but instead another amoral bootlegger/smuggler, Guy van Stratten (played by Robert Arden), who figures he can blackmail the rich and famous Gregory Arkadin (played by Welles himself with bushy beard, false nose, and dubious accent).  But Arkadin has other plans, claiming amnesia and contracting van Stratten to discover everything he can about his past to present in a confidential report.  Naturally, all of the various characters found to testify to the evil-doings in Arkadin’s past meet with unpleasant ends but this doesn’t prevent Arkadin’s daughter (played by Welles’ soon-to-be wife Paola Mori) from discovering her father’s true nature (similar to the scorpion who stings the frog, retold again here by Welles), leading to his demise.  That sounds a lot more coherent than it probably is – although, again, this edit may have been the most straightforward one, ditching many of Welles’ plans for flashbacks within flashbacks.  The end result is a bit patchy, clearly shot on a low budget, with some clever camerawork and unusual shots, sets, and character actors – but it likely only represents a pale shadow of what Welles was intending.   

The Lineup (1958)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Lineup (1958) – D. Siegel

Crisp, police procedural (bringing a then-current TV show to the screen) from Don Siegel (subsequently Clint Eastwood’s favourite director).  As he would later do in his remake of The Killers (1964) and Dirty Harry (1971), Siegel takes a special interest in the psychopathic tendencies of his characters.  Eli Wallach (in his second film) plays the central baddie who is a contract worker for “The Man” who is using innocent tourists as mules to bring heroin into the USA.  Once they disembark, their luggage is stolen and the stuff is extracted and given to The Man.  Wallach and his partner/mentor, played by Robert Keith, arrive in San Francisco (where the film was shot on location) to retrieve the luggage/drugs from three passengers on a docking ship.  However, things don’t go too smoothly – because Wallach’s character is a psychopath.  Because the police have been tipped off, we see them closing in on the killers as well as what the killers are doing (in parallel).  Siegel is far more interested in the killers and the police procedural scenes play like the rote TV episodes they’re drawn from – they are kept purposefully brief (and thus taut).  So, there’s nothing particularly extraordinary here but solid crime show fare, with a few nods to past films noir (murder in a stream room, a person in a wheelchair gets offed, the same aquarium that Welles shot in The Lady from Shanghai is used).  San Francisco does look great.  

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010) – E. Wright

I feel as though I’m about 25 years too old for this movie – but with all the retro references to ‘80s and ‘90s videogames and music, I’m not sure.  What do the kids like anyhow?  This movie is also 7 years old and probably dated.  Since I haven’t kept up with US pop culture, I don’t know the graphic novel this was based on and I haven’t seen Michael Cera on TV.  I know who he is though.  Edgar Wright, the director, makes slick funny pastiches of other genres (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) that are so well-crafted that every line, every sound effect, every choreographed move seems to fit together in the right place.  So, Scott Pilgrim the movie is kind of like a theme park ride in that respect – perfectly designed for maximum effect on you (with more onscreen graphics than you can shake a stick at).  But in the Edgar Wright film there can also be too much of everything, or it can feel over-stylized, over-done, forced.  Not that there are too many moments of that sort here (a couple of cringe-worthy spots and the music isn’t as cool as it pretends it is).  Oh yeah, the plot:  Michael Cera is a geeky guy in a band who still isn’t over his ex (Brie Larson, also in a band) but is now dating a 17-year-old Chinese-Canadian high school student (the film takes place in Toronto) until he falls for Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and has to fight her deadly exes in order to date her.  The fights are videogame style.  Jason Schwartzman is the final boss that he needs to defeat.  It’s all sensitive and smarmy and geeky and cool and occasionally funny and probably just too self-conscious for its own good.  But the kids probably liked it and I didn’t mind either.  But a little of this goes a long way.

How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)

☆ ☆ ☆

How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) – J. Negulesco

Somehow I thought this was going to be a musical, another genre I’ve come to late (alongside westerns, war films, and foreign films from Spanish-speaking countries). But instead – not.  What we have here is a very dated comedy (you can tell from the title) that finds models Lauren Bacall, Marilyn Monroe, and Betty Grable on a quest to find rich husbands.  The prospects include dapper (but very sedate) William Powell, faker Alexander D’Arcy, and already married Fred Clark – but as things turn out, other men (not always millionaires) turn out to be of greater interest.  Bacall takes the lead with Monroe (playing short-sighted and air-headed) and Grable (even more air-headed) adding comic relief.  There are a few sly references to the stars’ other careers but nothing here led to any major chuckles on my part.  One of the early CinemaScope features but director Jean Negulesco doesn’t really take full advantage of the format.  Still, apart from the explicit sexism, there’s nothing really wrong with this silly film and it is good to see Bacall embarking on her solo career.