What We Do in the Shadows (2014)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

What We Do in the Shadows (2014) – J. Clement & T. Waititi

Ha, ha – the Kiwi sense of humour is droll but ridiculous.  Think about “Flight of the Conchords” – hilarious, right?  But what’s the formula?  Silly, but intelligent.  Rarely crass (which seems to be the flavour of much American humour).  Willing to poke fun at themselves.  Perhaps whimsical at times.  Now take all that and apply it to the situation of three vampires living as flatmates in Wellington; that is, think about the problems that all flatmates face and then make them vampires.  Then pretend there is a documentary team following them around as they engage in their usual routines (which include nightclubbing and hunting for victims).  NZ superstars Taika Waititi (director of Boy, 2010, and Thor: Ragnarok, 2018) and Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords), co-directed and co-star alongside Jonny Brugh and a few other familiar Kiwis (Rhys Darby appears as a werewolf).  You probably need to be in the right mood for this but I enjoyed it and laughed (there are some great bits).  Of course, even at just 86 minutes, you start to feel the material get stretched out – the concept can only be pushed so far, perhaps.  That said, I understand that the movie has spun off a TV series already. Worth a look!

The Professionals (1966)

☆ ☆ ☆

The Professionals (1966) – R. Brooks

Lee Marvin leads a small group of adventurers into Mexico to rescue Texas railroad man Ralph Bellamy’s wife who has been kidnapped by Mexican rebels (formerly fighting for Pancho Villa).  The wife is Claudia Cardinale and the chief rebel is Jack Palance (both playing Mexicans).  The “good guys” are Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Woody Strode, and Robert Ryan.  I felt as though I had seen this before (but I don’t think I had).  Perhaps Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969), another all-star affair with Robert Ryan, was coming to mind.  Lee Marvin’s other epic action films mostly take place in WWII (not in Mexico); he’s as stony as ever here though.  Burt Lancaster seems to be rollicking through the film, as though he was still in a 1950s costume drama, half grinning at the predicaments they find themselves in.  Strode and Ryan have less to do and their characters are less developed (if any of these characters are actually developed). At any rate, I pondered whether there was still an audience for this sort of tough guy adventure film (the kind that has a fair amount of sexism thrown in, just because), the sort of uncritical Dad film of the days gone by, resting easily on shorthand and schematics in order to stitch the action sequences to the plot.  The action sequences aren’t too bad, some suspense is built, and things blow up.  Naturally, there is also a twist: the band doesn’t quite honour their contract with Bellamy – but they do stand for honour as a principle. 

  

Tommy (1975)

☆ ☆ ☆

Tommy (1975) – K. Russell

I have to admit that I’m not overly familiar with The Who’s concept album, Tommy – but listening to it now, I have to declare that the band’s original versions of these songs are (for the most part) far superior to the movie’s remakes featuring Ann-Margret, Oliver Reed, Elton John, Jack Nicholson, Tina Turner, Eric Clapton, and even Roger Daltrey.  As expected, director Ken Russell (Women in Love, The Devils, Altered States), an apt choice, brings the excess.  Ann-Margret’s (Oscar-nominated!) performance as Tommy’s mother is particularly over-the-top.  The album/movie tells the story of a boy who witnesses the murder of his returning serviceman father by his mum/stepdad which leads him to become psychosomatically deaf, dumb, and blind.  Eventually he becomes a pinball superstar and then a messiah of sorts (after he is awakened).  I’ll admit that my attention wavered at times but the sounds and images were seemingly more important than the plot, at least to Russell.  The Who obviously fully sanctioned this version and appear as themselves or in character parts throughout the film; however, the music is often created by others, corrupting the band’s sound.  Nevertheless, Elton John’s version of Pinball Wizard was apparently a hit at the time and the staging for the movie is pretty bizarre.  Of course, the band smash their instruments at its conclusion.

They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead (2018)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead (2018) – M. Neville

This documentary to accompany the (Netflix) release of Orson Welles’ last completed film (so far), The Other Side of the Wind, is cleverly edited together, featuring clips from across Welles’ oeuvre as well as footage from sets and interviews, as well as past and present talking heads.  The director is Morgan Neville who also directed this year’s doco about Mr. Rogers.  I’m a big Welles fan and have a few books about him, including Peter Bogdanovich’s interview book “This is Orson Welles” (1998; 2^nd edition) and Jean-Pierre Berthomé’s excellent Orson Welles at Work (2006; from Phaidon).  The former is referenced both in this documentary and in The Other Side of the Wind itself, where Bogdanovich’s character discusses his attempt to publish a book-length interview with fictional director Jake Hannaford (played by John Huston) that obviously echoes the real Bogdanovich-Welles relationship.  And I guess that is what I took away the most from this film, the fact that many of the TOSOTW characters were closely modelled on film personalities (such as critic Pauline Kael or producer Robert Evans), something I didn’t quite catch onto when I watched it, and the fact that Welles might have been pointedly critiquing some of his friends (as well as himself).  Was betrayal a key theme across his films? I’ll have to think about it. Beyond that it is always entertaining to see the charismatic and humorous Orson, even if the narrative attempts to portray him as sad due to his difficulties financing his films and even if many of the clips used (stolen from F for Fake, 1973, for example) are used “out of context” to add the illusion of snappy repartee.  It’s a light confection overall, without too much new to say, but very entertainingly put together.

Lake of the Dead (1958)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Lake of the Dead (1958) – K. Bergstrøm

Norwegian ghost story that manages to evoke a spooky feel (with a few moonlit shots of actors drawn to the haunted lake) even while succumbing to an excessively talky script.  Perhaps this is because the story and screenplay were drawn from an existing novel (and the novelist takes a turn at acting a minor part here).  Or perhaps it is because the ghost story has a number of complicated points to explain (e.g., the possibly incestuous bond of boy-girl twins, the Freudian interpretation of dreams) that need to be spoken rather than shown (although this is an empirical question).  At any rate, we follow a group of adult couples as they visit a large cabin in the woods where they learn the local legend about a peg-legged ghost who possesses people and drives them to drown themselves in the nearby lake.  Not coincidentally, their expected host, one half of the twins in question, has gone missing and his sister is the one drawn to the lake at night.  Fortunately, a psychologist and a constable are both on hand to help solve the mystery, which may or may not have supernatural origins.  Worth a look just for its B&W eeriness alone.

The Ghost Ship (1943)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Ghost Ship (1943) – M. Robson

One of the five collaborations between director Mark Robson and producer Val Lewton (best known for his low-budget RKO horror films which included Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie, both directed by Jacques Tourneur).  Although Robson’s best Lewton film is certainly The Seventh Victim (also 1943) about a nihilistic Satanic cult, The Ghost Ship manages to summon up a similar sense of dread in places.  Russell Wade plays Tom Merriam who has just signed on to be the Third Officer on the ship Altair, captained by Richard Dix’s Will Stone.  Stone is a sombre character, weighted down by his “authority” which he wields with a heavy hand, although alternating with moments of fatherly warmth.  When Merriam begins to think the captain is deranged and suspects foul play, he calls the shipping company to turn him in.  After that, the forces of doom seem aligned against him and shadows lurk in every corner of the ship.  His former friends turn against him.  Will there be any escape from the sullen and brooding captain?  As in other Lewton pictures, a real sense of menace and dread is created here using very subtle means: darkness, a camera shot fixed on a slowly opening door, noises from offscreen.  A creepy mute sailor adds a further spooky touch. 

I, Tonya (2017)

☆ ☆ ☆

I, Tonya (2017) – C. Gillespie

Is this really supposed to be a comedy?  About Tonya Harding, the figure skater whose husband arranged for a hit man to bash competitor Nancy Kerrigan’s knee before the 1994 Olympics?  How is that expected to be funny?  Is it because Harding was a “white trash” type, with bad taste in clothes, hair, and music?  Is it because her mother (played by Alison Janney who won the Best Supporting Actress gong for this role) was an evil bitch?  Is it because she surrounded herself with hopeless losers who hatched the bizarre plan to “help” her?  Yet, a lot of what we see seems played for laughs and that includes some hair-raising and very frequent scenes of brutal domestic violence.  Or if they aren’t meant to be funny, then they do represent very dark and abrupt changes in tone for the film, which also includes recurring breaks to the fourth wall, where characters speak directly to the camera/audience, commenting on the action that they are immersed in.  You see, the film itself is supposedly drawn from competing interviews by Harding and her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly, who are recounting past events from the future, albeit very differently (i.e., in a self-interested way).  Over the closing credits, we see the real Harding and Gillooly (and mother LaVona) which shows you just how much effort was put in by Margot Robbie (Harding), Sebastian Stan (Gillooly), and Janney to mimic the real people – which makes you wonder what the point of such an exact recreation would be.  But of course, there’s more, a lot more (as I mentioned), and the result is something of a trainwreck, not without some interest, yet harsh in so many ways. Or maybe this just doesn’t jell with my sense of humour...