Anvil: The Story of Anvil (2008)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Anvil: The Story of Anvil (2008) – S. Gervasi

A couple of times, toward the beginning, I had to check to see whether this was a mockumentary (a la Spinal Tap) or an actual documentary.   It was the latter and although at first I thought the “joke” about dumb heavy metal dudes was too old or dated – it turns out that the deeper truths available in the story of Anvil became palpable and were more important than the failed tour or unmarketable album that this old metal band experienced.  The deeper truth probably resonated more with this 50-year-old because it is about keeping the dream alive after many years, about living with your past success (they played with Bon Jovi and others in Japan in the 1980s) even as your present success pales in comparison.  It is about rejuvenating yourself in your 50s and giving it a go, even if the world has changed and maybe passed you by.  It is about coming to terms with yourself and your context.  Of course, these lessons can be applied to all of us but for those of us who thought about music (if not metal) across these years, there are other insights to be had here from Lips and the Anvil gang.  I think about my friend who gave up his psychology career, post-50, to get his old band back together and put out CDs and tour Europe multiple times.  Surely, he’s enjoying himself a hell of a lot more than being stuck in the bureaucracy of academia.  So, is it worth it to take a risk to follow your dream, even if it is obvious that it won’t pay off in dollars and cents? I’d say yes.

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939) – S. Lanfield

One of the first and best of the Rathbone-Bruce Sherlock Holmes mysteries, produced by Twentieth Century Fox before the series moved to Universal and continued to a total of 14 films.  I watched this with my two boys, aged 8 and 6, and the large cast of possible suspects and the twisty plot may have confused them – the oldest was particularly convinced that the killer was the old peddler (who turns out to be Holmes in disguise).  Of course, we also needed to discuss the supernatural elements – a ghost dog and a seance to speak to the dead Sir Charles Baskerville – which we agreed were not true things.  (Fortunately, no questions were asked about Holmes’s final words in the film “Watson, the needle!”).  To recap the plot:  Holmes is recruited by a Dr Mortimer to protect Sir Henry Baskerville, nephew of the now dead Sir Charles who passed mysteriously with footprints of a giant hound near his body, when he returns to his inheritance in lonely Dartmoor, England.  At once, he is subject to spooky goings-on and the threat of death; all of his neighbours are suspects, as are the suspicious house staff.  Dr Watson is left to guard Sir Henry while Holmes uses all of his wiles and powers of deduction in secret.  Of course, the killer is eventually outed once all the pieces fall into place.  Atmospheric and fun (and a bit scary if you are six).

Blonde Crazy (1931)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Blonde Crazy (1931) – R. Del Ruth

Jimmy Cagney is larger than life here, just a few movies on from his breakthrough in The Public Enemy (also 1931), as a bellboy turned big stakes grifter, travelling from hotel to hotel working his cons.  At the start of the film, he picks up his partner, Joan Blondell who all the men leer at (in this pre-code film) but who provides a ready slap to anyone who gets too frisky.  Together, they swindle Guy Kibbee (stock dirty old man of the 1930s) and then hope to use the proceeds to make more money by teaming up with old hand Louis Calhern – who promptly tricks them out of it along with his own blonde partner Noel Francis (the lure for Cagney).  The rest of the movie is spent trying to get back at Calhern with a big con of their own, while Blondell falls in love with heel Roy Milland, leaving self-centered wisecracking Cagney on his own. Although the film seems largely a comedy, we get a few nods to the gangster genre where Cagney made his biggest splash – but he still moves like the dancer he longed to be.

Unknown (2011)

☆ ☆ ☆

Unknown (2011) – J. Collet-Serra

There seem to be so many of these grim Liam Neeson thrillers around that I thought I should see one to see why Hollywood thinks they are worth it.  My reaction (to this one at least) is that these are by-the-numbers movies that try to include the main ingredients of other successful thrillers in order to win the box office jackpot.  However, something this formulaic and generic probably will never go down in the annals of film history as one of the greats because it is just too calculated (methinks).  Here, Neeson is a biotechnology professor who is in a car accident in Berlin that results in a four-day coma; when he awakes, without his passport, no one recognises him, even his wife, and there is some other dude claiming to be him.  In order to unravel this mystery, he finds the taxi driver, an illegal immigrant played by Diane Kruger, who was driving when he crashed, and also gains the help of a former East German Stasi official played by Bruno Ganz (Wings of Desire).  Naturally, there are a few car chases, some hand-to-hand fighting, and a lot of dodging of bad guys who are stalking him.  And, a twist, a movie like this has to have a twist these days.  I’m not sure I’ll watch another of these Neeson thrillers – even when I’m too tired for a challenge, this just seemed too rote, or average, at best.

  

The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932)

☆ ☆ ☆

The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932) – C. Brabin

A time capsule from Hollywood history when being brazenly racist (in this case, against the Chinese) seems to have been A-OK.  But the film is so outlandish – and the Chinese baddies so unrealistic, that really they may as well have been alien invaders from outer space (perhaps I am thinking of Ming the Merciless?).  Still, it is disheartening to think that American audiences would have thrilled to a battle between the “White Race” and the “Yellow Peril”.  But let’s set that aside if we can and just see the baddies in the film as evil archetypes (who over the course of a century or two might switch their race/culture/subgroup in the popular American imagination but yet still retain their archetypal ways).  Boris Karloff plays Fu Manchu, the evil leader lusting for the power represented by Genghis Khan and his long lost mask and scimitar, and Myrna Loy (!!!) plays his sultry but sadistic daughter – both in bad Asian make-up (Karloff is nearly unrecognisable again).  The plot sees British archaeologists working for the British Museum racing to locate and excavate Genghis Khan’s tomb before Fu Manchu can get there and use Khan’s treasure to whip his followers up into a frenzy to begin a new empire.  The Brits do get there first but then Fu Manchu uses all of his diabolical tricks to abscond with the treasure and subject the heroes to terrible tortures (tying them under giant ringing bells, suspending them over hungry alligators, and subjecting them to slowly closing walls with huge spikes).  I’m sure the audience gasped!  And although the required happy ending is soon served up, one ends with the feeling that the heroes have been a little too bland and faceless and the almost campy over-indulgence of the evil side was the real drawcard of the film (hence the title).

A Study in Terror (1965)

☆ ☆ ☆

A Study in Terror (1965) – J. Hill

John Neville takes his turn as Sherlock Holmes (and Donald Houston is Watson) in this rather middling adventure.  It isn’t that the film is bad, it’s just that we’ve seen Holmes so many many times before (and since) and nothing much stands out from this new portrayal.  The case, however, is new (but not unfamiliar):  Holmes and Watson strive to identify and to capture Jack the Ripper.  The Victorian era and the Whitehall district of London are rendered suitably but unimaginatively – there is something dull about the mise-en-scene too, although it ticks the usual boxes (music hall/boisterous pub, prostitutes in allies, hansom cabs, period costumes). The script tosses up a few red herrings (and young Judi Dench!) but it isn’t too hard to figure out the culprit before he is apprehended by Holmes.  This is, by the standards of the day, a fine B-grade time-waster but I’ll take Rathbone and Bruce any day over these pale imitations! 

  

Don’t Breathe (2016)

☆ ☆ ½

Don’t Breathe (2016) – F. Alvarez

I’ve been trying to decide who is the target audience for this picture (it wasn’t me) and I’ve come to the conclusion that it is a thrill ride meant for young people to watch in the cinema.  In retrospect, I can hear people gasping, ewwing, and perhaps even cheering during the action in the cinema – it would play better in a crowd than alone in headphones (which is how I watched it).  The plot sees three millennial thieves breaking into the house of an old blind veteran in a run-down Detroit neighbourhood after hearing that he has a few hundred grand inside.  Unfortunately for them, the old man is more than they bargained for and they are soon playing a game of cat-and-mouse -- where they are the mice scurrying through the basement catacombs in the creaky old house.  Director Fede Alvarez uses all the tricks of the trade to heighten the tension – but it really is all technique and virtually no plot here.  You’ve paid your admission and you have a 90 minute ride.  (My worry that this might turn into torture porn was fortunately groundless – but it has a few sicko moments for sure).  Not my thing.

It Happened Here (1965)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

It Happened Here (1965) – K. Brownlow & A. Mollo

Imagine Britain if Hitler and the Nazis had succeeded in their invasion plans.  How would the nation respond?  Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo’s low budget project (scripted when they were teenagers and shot in 16mm with film stock provided by Kubrick among others) presents a nation divided among the resistance (partisans) and the collaborators, a nation now at war with itself as well as with the Nazis.  As a case study, the narrative follows Pauline, a nurse who sees her friends killed by an attack by the resistance while she is being relocated to London by the Germans. As a reaction, she joins the black shirted collaborators who spruik law and order -- and the elimination of dissidents and those who cannot contribute to society.  A terrifying speech by an actual British National Socialist was removed by the censors back in the 1960s but has since been replaced, advocating euthanasia for the undesirables.  While following Pauline’s movements, the camera happens to pass a Jewish ghetto behind barbed wire (no stock footage was used, all events were restaged with amateur actors and authentic or makeshift props).  Later, after she fails to report former friends who have sheltered an injured partisan, Pauline is transferred to a sanitorium for TB patients that in reality is the last way station for those about to be executed by the state (i.e., Jews and others rejected by the Nazis).  Obviously, the resulting film is chilling and politically relevant today – how would our neighbours respond to a totalitarian takeover?  Would they give in? Would they resist? Would they actively support the new regime?  When they come for your neighbour what would you do?  Sobering stuff. 

Horror Hotel (1960)

☆ ☆ ☆

Horror Hotel (1960) – J. L. Moxey

The first film from the production team that later turned into Amicus Productions, a rival for Hammer, the primary producers of horror films in England in the ‘60s and ‘70s.  It is rather quaint and clearly low budget but it manages to create an air of foreboding on a par with what Bava accomplished in (the far superior) Black Sunday (also 1960).  The plot similarly sees a collision between a reincarnated witch (previously burned at the stake) and the modern folks who run across her and suffer for it.  In this case, uni student Nan Barlow (Venetia Stevenson) is writing a term paper about witchcraft (for Professor Christopher Lee!) and travels to an out-of-the-way New England town to do some research (upon Lee’s recommendation). She stays in the local inn which is full of shadowy guests and run by, you guessed it, the reincarnated witch herself. When Nan disappears, her brother and her boyfriend travel to the town to find her. (As some point out, the plot is reminiscent of Hitchcock’s Psycho, also 1960, in this way).  They get help from Patricia and her grandfather, the local clergyman who is blind and running on empty after his long battles with the forces of evil.  The mise-en-scene, although bare bones, is suitably creepy (fog everywhere helps) and the awkward acting from the undead adds to the effects. And the final showdown has to be seen to be believed. At only 76 minutes (in this US cut, which is missing 2 minutes of material that offended religious censors), Horror Hotel is short and scary/sweet and a recommended contribution to your horror film education. 

  

Goyokin (1969)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Goyokin (1969) – H. Gosha

Tatsuya Nakadai (probably best known for Kagemusha and Ran but also in Harakiri, Yojimbo, The Human Condition, When A Woman Ascends the Stairs, and Samurai Rebellion, among many others) stars as a ronin samurai who has left his clan because they were involved in the massacre of innocent farmers, as part of a nefarious plot to steal gold from the shogun.  Nakadai’s character has felt terrible guilt in the three years since, because he never turned in the villains or challenged them.  His honour gone, he is about to sell his sword when he hears that his clan, led by Tetsurô Tanba is about to try the same plan again, with another village doomed to be wiped out to cover up the theft of more gold.  So, Nakadai makes his way slowly and steadily to the scene of the battle to make up for his mistake.  Naturally, in true chambara style, the film will end in a duel between Nakadai and Tanba.  However, the inexorable nature of the plot still leaves room for some great scenes (Nakadai besieged in a two-story shack that is eventually set on fire) and some excellent widescreen vistas (waves crashing on rocks, samurai against the sunset).  Perhaps not the greatest of samurai films, but enjoyable for fans of the genre or Nakadai.

Eye of the Needle (1981)

☆ ☆ ☆

Eye of the Needle (1981) – R. Marquand

The score by Miklós Rózsa (who scored so many films from Hollywood’s Golden Age, such as Spellbound, The Killers, The Asphalt Jungle, Moonfleet, Ben-Hur, and countless more) really elevates this otherwise standard spy story (from the novel by Ken Follett) to something more classical (if not classic).  Those swirling strings when the tension is high!  Donald Sutherland plays a Nazi spy (“the needle” because he kills with a stiletto knife) who, in the first half of the film is undercover in London, ordered by Hitler to find out where the Allied D-Day invasion will happen.  Once his cover is blown (and he has discovered the Allied plans), he escapes to a lonely (and very scenic) island off the coast of Scotland to await his U-boat rendezvous.  On that island, he meets Kate Nelligan who lives there alone with her disabled husband and preschool son, not very happily since her husband is bitter and mean.  A romance develops and viewers are put on edge, knowing what Nelligan does not. Scotland Yard begins to close in.  The husband begins to suspect.  Rózsa’s score swirls.  And things resolve as you know they must, as they would in the Golden Age of Hollywood.  And there is something reassuring, if not exactly ground-breaking, about that. (Direction is by Richard Marquand who was subsequently hired for Return of the Jedi).

  

Look Back in Anger (1959)

☆ ☆ ☆

Look Back in Anger (1959) – T. Richardson

The first of the British “Kitchen Sink” Realism pictures (from director Tony Richardson) aims to take an unvarnished look at contemporary working class life. Richard Burton plays Jimmy Porter, an angry young man with a strong animosity toward the middle class bourgeoisie who is nevertheless married to a young woman from that class. We learn that he has a university education but he isn’t using it – instead he is working at the local market selling sweets from a stall.  Jimmy is hard to understand – he is nasty to everyone, particularly his wife Alison (Mary Ure) and her friend Helena (Claire Bloom).  He is chummy with his friend Cliff (Gary Raymond) who lives with the couple and he adores his former landlady “Ma” Tanner (Dame Edith Evans) who is earthy and working class.  But I can’t understand the man and his resentments – he just comes across like a prick.  Some have argued that Burton (at age 34) was too old for the part and perhaps he lacks the immaturity that is necessary to convince an audience that his generalised hostility is borne from youthful wilfulness and resistance rather than just dickishness.  If he wants to fight “the man” and fight for the working class, he isn’t going about it the right way. I guess we are meant to see him as frustrated. But then the plot has him inexplicably have an affair with the once hated friend and then eventually return to his wife (but why she returns to him is hard to fathom).  He’s mixed up, I’m mixed up.  (The original play may make more sense).  If you are looking for kitchen sink films, I’d recommend Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), A Taste of Honey (1961), or The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962; also by Richardson), all better than this one (which nevertheless looks pretty good in moody B&W and has some nice jazz interludes).

Battle of the Sexes (2017)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Battle of the Sexes (2017) – J. Dayton & V. Faris

Yesterday, a student in my social psychology class linked a youtube clip of Canadian psychology professor Jordan Peterson to our subject’s facebook group, so I had a look.  Although it was an older talk, it wasn’t long before I discovered Peterson’s more recent comments about gender relations (cherished by the alt-right).  To me, they represent “essentialist” thinking – men and women are different and constrained by their biological differences and that is how it ought to be (so says Peterson, or at least he implies that people will be happier if they follow the rules set out deterministically by biology and evolutionary history).  Of course, I heartily disagree, noting that gender differences on most personality traits are very small and shouldn’t be generalised and moreover, even if any differences exist they shouldn’t be represented as a constraint on what any one person or group of persons should be expected to do (and so on).  So, perhaps it was a happy coincidence that I found Battle of the Sexes in my mailbox on the same day.  Directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris take us back to the early seventies and those more naïve days when “womens’ libbers” were just starting to tackle the (unrepentant) male chauvinists out there and a tennis match could become a focal point for debate about gender roles and abilities.  So, the film is a history lesson of sorts, no doubt aimed squarely at the current terms of the debate and the pussy-grabber-in-chief.  It is also a recreation of a particular event, a bio-pic of a moment, when 55-year-old Bobby Riggs (played by expert mimic Steve Carrell) challenged 29-year-old Billie Jean King (a nice turn by Emma Stone) to three sets to put male supremacy to the test (or to confirm it, in Riggs’ eyes).  Riggs was a bit of a joke and probably didn’t take any of this seriously but others around him did (although the film keeps things light). A separate theme focuses on King’s awakening same sex attraction and the pressures it puts on her marriage and her game (Alan Cumming is there to support her though).  Ironically, it is Australian Margaret Court (now an unabashed and outspoken gay marriage opponent) who is her biggest female rival.  Of course, King won the big match (hurrah!), although since I was not yet 6 at the time, I don’t quite remember it – but I do remember the seventies and Howard Cosell (appearing as himself in archive footage here) and the music and the gauzy feel of the moment, all captured beautifully here.  Those were different times.

The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971) – P. Haggard

Part of the so-called “Unholy Trilogy” of folk horror films that also includes The Wicker Man (1973) and The Witchfinder General (1968) by other directors.  The genre also could be stretched to include Curse of the Demon (1957) or The Devil Rides Out (1968) and newer films such as The Blair Witch Project (1999) and The Witch (2015).  It is a genre I like very much, full of uncanny creepiness in natural surroundings and an older paganistic (Satanistic/left-hand-path) challenge to reality as we know it.  The films ask you to accept that evil is real and terrifying supernatural forces are at work in our world, sometimes brought to bear on our lives by those humans who learn the magick needed.  In The Blood on Satan’s Claw, it is a group of teenagers who discover an evil creature that can be fed by unspeakable evil acts -- murder and rape – presented unblinkingly here in all their horror, enacted by little more than children.  So, with its nudity and violence, the film is also an exploitation flick, borne of its time, and ready and willing to shock the midnight movie crowd.  But if you can put the awfulness of the acts aside, the atmosphere created by director Piers Haggard and his team, depicting life in a rural English village in the 17^th century is spellbinding.  It is a time when witches were believed to be real and among us and witch-hunters sought them out.  The true history of these events is horrible and sad but the film shows us a world where black magic is real, violent, scary, and anarchic.  You really never know what can happen next. 

Cash on Demand (1961)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Cash on Demand (1961) – Q. Lawrence

Well-scripted heist film that relies almost entirely on the acting abilities of André Morell and Peter Cushing.  Cushing plays the Scrooge-like branch manager who treats his employees badly and becomes the target of charismatic thief Morell.  In retrospect, it could have been performed on the stage, as it limits itself mostly to the bank and its front counter, manager’s office, and, of course, strong room.  Except for the use of Cushing and Morell, you might not realise that this was produced by Hammer Pictures at the height of their horror success.  But this film is still worth your time (only 80 or so minutes) given its tension-building twists and turns.  An unknown gem.