Oddball (2015)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Oddball (2015) – S. McDonald

Aito and I ventured out to the cinema today to see this Australian family film that tells the story of a Maremma sheepdog who gets the job of protecting Fairy Penguins from foxes on Middle Island near Warrnambool, Victoria.  (Fortunately, the animals don’t talk). I guess family films may need to be evaluated using a different set of criteria; that is, they need to be judged according to whether they satisfy the target audience.  Aito said “5 stars”! Although adults may find the story predictable, this may actually be a strength for the 5 year old audience.  But there is enough local colour for the adult audience too, with beautiful ocean vistas (including the famous Twelve Apostles) and the gentle comic stylings of Shane Jacobson (as Oddball’s owner “Swampy” Marsh).  Sarah Snook, as Swampy’s daughter, a park warden responsible for the Fairy Penguins’ survival, and Coco Jack Gillies, as her daughter, keep the story human (but one wonders why family films often deal with incomplete families – maybe so that a love interest can provide more tension? Or to reach out to kids in the same position? Some of this was lost on Aito).  Afterwards, we were able to look up the true story on the web and we talked about the penguins that we will likely see in person someday. So, we are happy to offer our thumbs up!

Killer’s Kiss (1955)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Killer’s Kiss (1955) – S. Kubrick

Kubrick’s second feature is a straight film noir, albeit at the tail end of that genre’s heyday.  But you can see his creative spark in the film’s style -- or perhaps he’s crossed the line into ostentatious style for style’s sake?  In this way, the film draws from Orson Welles (perhaps especially The Lady from Shanghai for the final fight to the death).  However, the low budget and the New York City locations also bring Cassavetes to mind (although this film is clearly scripted whereas Shadows was…less so).  Down and out fighter Davey Gordon (played by Jamie Smith) falls for his neighbour Gloria (played by Irene Kane) who is in a mess of trouble because of her involvement with dancehall mobster Rapallo (Frank Silvera).  There’s a pretty brutal boxing scene, a nice tracking shot in the dancehall, a few optical special effects, and that scene with the naked mannequins at the end.  In fact, there’s a few nods to voyeurism along the way which serve to increase the tension (sex plus violence).  Worth a look, especially if you think of this as a student film.

The Navigator (1924)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Navigator (1924) – D. Crisp & B. Keaton

Early Buster Keaton two-reeler that is sporadically funny, picking up speed as it goes along.  Keaton accidentally finds himself on an abandoned ship, alone with the girl he hopes to marry, who has also accidentally gotten on board the ghost ship (pushed out to sea as part of espionage). The two muddle out how to cook a meal, find bunks to sleep in, and fix a leak under the ship (which involves Buster in a real deep sea diving suit that eventually fills with water…of course).  They are nearly rescued and nearly captured by cannibals.  Part of the thrill offered by any of Keaton’s comedies (short or long) is from knowing that he invents all his own gags and does all his own stunts, which often involve a high level of acrobatic skill in the service of looking clumsy as hell.  Not really up there with The General or Sherlock Jr. (although others seem to think so) but damn fine nonetheless.

This Land is Mine (1943)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

This Land is Mine (1943) – J. Renoir

I still find it astonishing to watch the impassioned films of the early 1940s that offer sermons admonishing people to fight the Nazis and to defend freedom.  Having escaped from France himself, Jean Renoir (like so many other European émigré directors) was personally invested in this message.  This Land is Mine vividly and theatrically tells the story of an unknown country under German occupation and the choices people make to resist or not to resist.  Charles Laughton, a school-teacher, is too meek to know what to do, but he is influenced by his colleague, Maureen O’Hara, her brother Kent Smith, and the principal of the school (Philip Merivale) to know what is right. They are opposed by Walter Slezak, the charismatic German major, and George Sanders, the self-loathing collaborator.  As events play out and members of the resistance are caught and shot, Laughton becomes galvanized.  And then it happens, the movie stops dead and allows Laughton to speak at length against occupations both general and specific (in words written by screenwriter Dudley Nichols, who wrote many Hollywood hits).  This is pretty rousing stuff and you don’t hear it every day.  Perhaps we should.   Of course, this break from the film (and from Laughton’s character) does disrupt the original story – but for this decision, I’m giving it an even higher rating than if it stayed small and kept its social influence strategy implicit.

The Squid and the Whale (2005)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Squid and the Whale (2005) – N. Baumbach

Well, I found it almost unbearably intense which probably has less to do with Baumbach’s film about his parents’ divorce and more to do with the fact that my own parents were divorced in the early 1980s (a bit before the time period of the movie – 1987).  Probably none of the events in the movie relate to my own experience (most facts of the situation are different) but somehow the idea of the thing and the emotions that are in play touched some kind of a nerve.  So, is it a comedy?  I couldn’t see it that way.  Instead, it shows a bunch of real people having a lot of trouble with their relationships and the feelings that they have toward each other, past, present and future and basically experiencing sheer torment.  Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney enact the parents well, but Jesse Eisenberg seems a bit constricted as the older son. I couldn’t quite grasp his reactions to the divorce and subsequent events – maybe he is supposed to appear disrupted and confused.  The younger son’s externalizing behaviour seems a bit cliché (and gross) but yeah well these are probably realistic reactions for someone.  So, without blaming my own parents, I’m not sure I really enjoyed watching this movie or recalling these events from my life.  I don’t think I’ll re-watch Kramer vs. Kramer either.

The Small Back Room (1949)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Small Back Room (1949) – M. Powell & E. Pressburger

After their run of amazing classics (including Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, A Matter of Life and Death, I Know Where I’m Going! and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp) throughout the 1940’s, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger retreated to this darker almost noir look at a man struggling with himself, disability, and drink.  David Farrar (who played Mr. Dean in Black Narcissus) stars as the wartime scientist who has lost his foot and struggles with pain and the need for whisky to stop it.  He is loved by his office’s main secretary (Kathleen Byron, the mad nun also from Black Narcissus) but he doubts that he is the right man for her (she doesn’t).  The script is intelligent and adult, dealing with these real issues as well as a plot that looks squarely at office politics in the context of a military decision to adopt a new gun.  Powell and Pressburger never dumb things down for the audience. Farrar is finally tested when he has to defuse a German booby trap on a pebbly beach after a night of heavy drinking (that includes a surreal nightmare sequence) in a tense 17 minute sequence that decides his fate. A bit more grim and less magical than the Archers’ best but still strong.

Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (2004)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Z Channel:  A Magnificent Obsession (2004) – X. Cassavetes

You probably have to be from Los Angeles to best appreciate this doco about a forerunner of movie cable TV channels that started out there.  Apparently, it ran an eclectic mix of arthouse and cult movies, often organized into mini “film festivals” from the mid-1970s until the mid to late 1980s and fended off HBO and Showtime for that long.  This film by Cassavetes’ daughter Xan focuses on Z Channel programmer Jerry Harvey whose efforts led to wide acclaim but who was a tortured soul who eventually killed his wife and himself.  So, half the movie focuses on Z Channel and its appeal (with talking heads such as Robert Altman, James Woods, and Theresa Russell singing its praises) and the other half focuses on Harvey and his problems (with an ex-wife, former girlfriend and many Z Channel colleagues chiming in).  There are a heap of movie clips (a surprising number of which feature nudity, making films like Andrei Rublev seem a lot more sexy than they really are) and this keeps things interesting for the first half.  But as the movie gets darker and longer, the heavier concentration of interview footage becomes a bit tiresome.  Still, it’s a fascinating slice of our cultural history.