The Bishop’s Wife (1947)

☆ ☆ ☆

The Bishop’s Wife (1947) – H. Koster

Apparently, this is a movie that is often played during the Christmas season (because it is set at that time) and lo and behold, here I am in Florida watching it on Turner Classic Movies.  I missed the first five minutes but the plot wasn’t too hard to cotton onto.  Cary Grant is an angel sent to help David Niven, a Bishop who has become more focused on building a new cathedral than on his own family and perhaps some more important values (such as caring for the poor).  The Bishop’s wife (played by Loretta Young) is particularly sad due to her husband’s detachment and neglect.  But, of course, Cary sets everything straight with his angelic/magical powers (although only Niven knows the truth).  In particular, he shows everyone how to relax and have fun and to really love each other again.  Plus, he saves a baby from being hit by a car, helps to reinvigorate the local church choir (actually The Robert Mitchell Boy Choir), lights a Christmas tree, and ice skates up a storm.  Monty Woolley plays a professor friend of the Bishop and James Gleason plays a cab driver who are both touched by Dudley’s (Cary’s) charms.  But most of Cary’s attention is devoted to Young to the point where he must leave (to be reassigned to another case) or risk falling in love (I surmised). At first, I thought that this film might be one inspiration for Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire (1988) but the latter film is more poetic, philosophical, and less religious (not that religion plays too big a role here either).  In the end, the film didn’t distinguish itself as a top shelf entry in the Christmas canon (I would have preferred a more comedic touch from Grant) but it wasn’t bad.   

  

Remember the Night (1940)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Remember the Night (1940) – M. Leisen

The last of Preston Sturges’ scripts that he didn’t direct himself -- Mitchell Leisen took the reins, as he did for the funnier Easy Living (1937).  Here, Fred MacMurray works as a prosecutor for the district attorney in New York and Barbara Stanwyck, charged with shoplifting, is his last trial before Christmas.  When he asks the judge for a continuance until after the holidays, he realises that this will leave Stanwyck in prison until the new year and arranges with the bailsbondman to have her released.  Little does he know that she would end up with him as he travels back to Indiana to see his mother (Beulah Bondi).  Of course, they fall in love. But what can be done? She is destined to go to jail and he has his reputation to think of.  Surprisingly, Sturges’ script keeps things relatively calm, peppered with only a few zany character actors; things would get much more screwball during his heyday in the forties (including starring Stanwyck in The Lady Eve, 1941).  Remember the Night also includes some poignant sentimental moments in keeping with the Christmas season (Sturges often managed to stir the emotions even as he split one’s sides).  MacMurray seems impossibly young and Stanwyck remains perpetually cynical/tender – the next time he would star with her, they would kill her husband (Double Indemnity, 1944).  Above average (but surpassed by their later masterpieces).

Baby Driver (2017)

☆ ☆ ☆ 

Baby Driver (2017) – E. Wright

Sometimes a movie’s hype can be its undoing – or perhaps I’ve just gotten tired of the Edgar Wright formula which seems to focus purely on style (with content chosen to match).  Here, he takes on the heist genre, focusing on Ansel Elgort’s Baby who drives the getaway car for boss Kevin Spacey’s capers, due to a past debt.  He wants to get out...and never more so then when he falls for innocent waitress Lily James.  But he can’t get out and so we see some hi-octane robberies replete with stunt driving and the usual ultra-violence.  The key to the film that allows Wright (or his editor) to strut his stuff is the fact that Baby has tinnitus and so listens to music on his various ipods at all times (to drown out the ringing) – thus, the soundtrack to the action is whatever Baby is listening to.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t wowed by the soundtrack.  I mean, “Tequila”? It was used to better effect in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1985).  That’s not to say that the movie isn’t enjoyable –it has a slick flair and doesn’t include any missteps; in other words, it is better than your usual Hollywood tripe.  But I couldn’t quite get excited about it – everything felt too calculated and eager to please.  That’s why Wright is making millions, I guess.

Mill of the Stone Women (1960)

☆ ☆ ☆

Mill of the Stone Women (1960) – G. Ferroni

One thing this film has going for it is an extremely creepy mise-en-scene—it’s set primarily in a windmill in Holland where a famous professor has set up a macabre museum featuring a carousel of wax figures (depicting women who died gruesomely throughout history; e.g., Joan of Arc, Anne Boleyn). When a student comes to stay to help the professor document his work, he discovers the professor’s ill daughter who seems to be locked away hidden from everyone else. After an illicit tryst, the student spurns the daughter in favour of another girl but soon finds the daughter dead and the guilt overwhelms him.  Then things become more confusing – the daughter is suddenly back alive and we learn that her father and a deregistered doctor are using blood transfusions to bring her back to life (time and again). Echoing “Eyes Without A Face” (also 1960, but a better film), young women are kidnapped to donate their blood (and lives) and, yes, they end up in the museum.  Perhaps it was the dubbing (a mainstay of Italian films), the wooden acting, or the dream-like quality of the plot and images, but I kept nodding off. A step removed from the production values of Hammer Horror but with a different kind of weirdness that feels more decadent and depraved. 

  

Alien: Covenant (2017)

☆ ☆ ½

Alien: Covenant (2017) – R. Scott

Perhaps the Alien franchise has truly worn out its welcome?  Can we say now that the first two films (Alien, 1979, and Aliens, 1986) have been the only real good ones?  The reboot to the series, Prometheus (2012), was positioned as a prequel – and Covenant is the sequel to that film.  However, most of the new plotting and backstory from that earlier film seems to have been jettisoned in favour of a straight-up action-based echo of the first film from 1979 with only Michael Fassbender’s David remaining as the epitome of evil (a mad scientist in the classic tradition, albeit a “synthetic”). So, the only reason to check this out is for the special effects and the nail-biting tension as spaceships careen wildly, aliens burst from host bodies or stalk their prey down dark tunnels or corridors, and the 15 crew members are picked off one-by-one (not unlike a serial killer film).  Sure, H. R. Giger’s creatures are as gruesome as ever and the plot mechanics still work (a mysterious signal brings yet another ship to a lonely planet) but everything has gotten so old.  There are glimpses of grander themes (one crew member is religious, there is talk of creators both human and not) but it all amounts to nothing.  Purportedly, there is yet another prequel in the works, but what promise could it hold beyond more clichéd thrills?

La Signora senza Camelie (1953)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

La Signora senza Camelie (1953) – M. Antonioni

Antonioni’s second feature shows his interest in women’s experiences to be in full bloom. I haven’t read the play by Alexandre Dumas Fils (Lady with the Camellias or La Traviata or Camille) that Antonioni is referencing with the title but it seems to be about a woman who gives up her spoiled existence (albeit as a courtesan) to join her true love in a relationship which is ultimately thwarted because of concerns about propriety raised by his family. Here, the opposite seems to be happening: Lucia Bosé has no camellias – meaning she comes from a lower-class existence as a shopgirl and is thrown into a different sort of life as an actress discovered by a B-movie producer. Of course, the reason she is “discovered” is because she is sexy and the producers seek to exploit her appeal, a goal which she is willing to indulge.  However, soon she is pushed into marrying one of the filmmakers (who she doesn’t love) and he jealously tries to put the brakes on her career as a sexpot, opting instead to try her in a “serious” picture which he chooses to direct himself (a predictable flop). In short order, their relationship is on the rocks, she is courted by a local diplomat (perhaps only interested in her fame) and she finds it increasingly hard to know what to do.  She goes back to B films to make up for the financial hardship resulting from her foray into arthouse film, but her dreams have now grown bigger; she takes herself more seriously, but inevitably finds herself typecast and trapped in degrading exploitation fare (even as her producer ex-husband has successes from which she is excluded).  The ending is as bleak as you can get and you don’t have to have read the Dumas novel/play to realise that Bosé’s plight as a woman exploited by men, tainted by their objectification, and left to suffer with no standing of her own nor ability to pursue and fulfil her own goals is even more tragic (and relevant) than the earlier more famous work. Antonioni, of course, would continue to examine alienation as his key theme, toying more overtly with viewers’ expectations (and pictorial abstraction), a process only just begun in his early films.

The Chase (1946)

☆ ☆ ☆

The Chase (1946) – A. Ripley

This is a B-noir that is clearly low budget but with a plot that pulls the rug out from under you (not unlike Takashi Miike’s Audition, 1999 – uh, well, not that sadistically).  Robert Cummings is Chuck Scott, a down-and-out veteran who returns a lost wallet only to end up as chauffeur to a notorious gangster (Steve Cochran) in Miami. Cochran’s wife (Michèle Morgan) is kept under lock and key and only allowed to take short trips to the beach at night with Cummings; eventually, they decide to escape together to Havana.  Down in Cuba, they run into trouble and Cummings is soon accused of murder.  Ultimately, it appears that Cochran’s henchman Peter Lorre is behind it all.  And truly, Cochran and Lorre seem to delight in tormenting Cummings (including with a strange added accelerator in the back of the car that takes over control from the driver).  Of course, Cummings doesn’t end up in their clutches but how we get to that point isn’t straightforward.  Despite the bare bones feel and the second string actors, there are enough weird and impressionistic touches here – on top of all of the archetypal noir trappings – to make this worth a watch, if you are digging deep into this genre.

  

Love & Friendship (2016)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Love & Friendship (2016) – W. Stillman

A sometimes biting “comedy of manners” (from the epistolary early novella by Jane Austen) that succeeds by having its characters release unfettered streams of words that rush by so quickly that you barely catch the sting in the tail until a moment or two later.  Director Whit Stillman (who seems to have taken a couple decade break from movie-making) also wrote the screenplay and it is witty.  Kate Beckinsale stars as Lady Susan (the actual title of the Austen work), a widow but one whose reputation as a flirt and schemer precedes her wherever she goes.  The film opens with her escaping from the Manwaring estate (where she has been a visitor and perhaps an interloper) to her brother-in-law’s estate called Churchill.  There she seems to be playing a long con, trying to ensnare one or another rich young man for either herself or her teenage daughter because they are penniless (but relying on friends and relations to tend to their every needs).  Xavier Samuel plays one promising partner who becomes infatuated with Lady Susan, but not the daughter Frederica (Morfydd Clark). Tom Bennett provides excellent comic relief as a babbling and ridiculous suitor for the daughter (who is predictably put off).  Beckinsale is, by turns, shrewd, wicked, delightful, smartly funny, and ingratiating.  Chloe Sevigny is her American best friend, married to domineering Stephen Fry, who aids and abets. In fact, there are so many different characters, Stillman does well to introduce them all with captions at the start, adding to the fun stylized feel of the film, which also looks great in its period locales (filmed in Ireland) and costumes.  Thumbs up. 

Captain Fantastic (2016)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Captain Fantastic (2016) – M. Ross

The temptation to drop out of society runs strong in the US (see also Sean Penn’s excellent Into the Wild, 2007) – and who could blame ‘em? Here we find Viggo Mortensen raising his six children in the woods of the Pacific Northwest and who wouldn’t cheer his efforts to strengthen their bodies and minds while avoiding the contamination of capitalism, organized religion, and junk food? The film isn’t called “Captain Fantastic” for nothing!  But Matt Ross’s script (he also directed) gradually forces viewers to confront the possibility that this Super-Dad is actually doing his kids harm by keeping them away from the social world they will eventually have to live in (and exposing them to the truth of adult concepts too soon).  But I’m not so sure – is it either or?  Do we have to endorse the version of reality put forth by Frank Langella (capitalist Christian Grandpa) if we accept the premise that Chomsky-loving Viggo might be over-the-top?  Isn’t there a happy medium? (The film seems to conclude that there is – but this outcome seems as much a fantasy – or cop out -- as the extreme outdoors approach taken earlier; how exactly are they supporting themselves?).  Viggo did have a raison d’etre of sorts – his wife had bipolar disorder and he thought living in the woods would help her (but it did not).  The six child actors acquit themselves admirably and almost without any cringeworthy moments (save only for their rendition of Sweet Child O’ Mine at the “funeral”, now a cliché, but one that did remind me of a long-departed dear friend). The film itself is fun and, although balanced precariously on just some exaggerated representations of deeper worldviews, it does succeed as a more thought-provoking version of the usual Hollywood entertainment.  I just wish that Matt Ross would have seen fit to show Viggo (or his kids) having an influence on the larger society (or at least Langella) rather than simply depicting their assimilation – but I guess that would be truly fantastical.