Charade - 1963

 I recently watched and reviewed Stanley Donen's Wait Until Dark, which was so good I immediately went to my library's website to see if they had anything else by him.  This one caught my eye.

Charade has Audrey Hepburn teaming up with Donen again, and this time with Cary Grant as her costar.  Along with those two stars, this film also has George Kennedy, Walter Matthau and James Coburn, with music again my Henry Mancini.  

The pacing and atmosphere in this spy thriller are top notch as early on, Audrey Hepburn as Reggie meets Cary Grant's Peter Joshua in Switzerland.  They flirt, and when she gets home to Paris she discovers her husband has been killed.  She doesn't know much about his as we discover when she talks to a CIA agent, who informs her that her husband had $250,000 and was likely killed by some hitmen after the money.  Hitmen that may now be coming after her.  

Charade is a story of twists and turns, a story of capers and adventure.  Cary Grant isn't who he claims to be, practically no one else is either for that matter.  Bodies of side characters appear later on, there's all sorts of crazy intrigue as one might expect.  

I liked Charade and I'd recommend it, but I do want to point out that the writing in this is really dated.  They comment on the age difference between Hepburn and Grant in the movie, but he's 25 years older than her and she just throws herself at him constantly.  It would be bad writing even without the age gap and without his obvious untrustworthy nature, but given those two things it makes it even worse.

It's not a deal breaker, and Charade is a fun movie that has a great feel and a lot of appeal.

Heathers - 1988

 I've been revisiting some of my childhood movies in this blog, here and there dropping one in whenever I get the feeling to rewatch one of them.  

Heathers is one of the few movies I specifically associate with Idaho, where I live now.  The other movies are Scream, The Pink Panther animated series, and Raise the Red Lantern.  Heathers is the strongest though, as I remember my sister and I watching this so much that once my grandma or grandpa got angry and turned it off, saying we'd watched it too many times.

Heathers is an extremely dark comedy, a high school fantasy of the darkest sort.  Winona Ryder is Veronica, a clinger on to a clique of three popular girls all named Heather.  Veronica is interested in Christian Slater as JD, a punky outsider who gets introduced by pulling a gun on two jocks and shooting blanks at them.  they immediately get busy after meeting, and his true delusional, homicidal, psychotic side begins to show.  After one of the popular Heathers dies at the hands of JD, the two plucky students write a suicide note and it hits and effects the school.

Heathers is a strange rewatch in a post-Columbine, post-spree shootings world.  It depicts in perfect clarity multiple fantasies about killing fellow students, from JD's introduction all the way to killing the popular kids by people dressed in black and trench-coats.  I could see many people pointing to this as a "inspiration" to those students.  In the end, JD wears a oversize black trench coat and has a bomb- I mean, how predictive was that?

They say this is a comedy, but I didn't notice anything that was supposed to be funny.  It's a dark ass movie and it's a savage rewatch, certainly prescient and way ahead of it's time.  I could see this getting into lists of banned films, if we ever go that route again.  I didn't remember most of it, but it's really entertaining and crazy.  

Heathers has aged well, and it's insane that it exists.  I give it 4 stars.

Phenomena - 1985

 You know, when I started this blog now 7 years ago (!) I was starting it in part as an excuse to watch a certain type of film.  I'd always been into the offbeat and unknown, but I had explored it in only certain regions, certain years, and certain genres.  Some of the unexplored were Italian, giallo, grindhouse, and cult.  I got into it and had a brief excursion with Nightmare City and Zombie and a few others, but all in all, I really should be watching more of those types.

I say this because I put on Phenomena last night and I'm like, "Boom!"  Music check acting check pacing check awesome check effects check blood check nudity check fun check, check check check.  It's a fucking wishlist with every single thing crossed off:  you did it, you got it all, you have to- repeat- HAVE TO be happy.

Jennifer Connelly stars, Dario Argento directs this 1980's giallo entry.  It's the end of the era but it's not too late to churn out awesome, and this certainly does that.  We start the movie with an innocent high school girl missing her bus, going on a walk, and getting killed by an unknown assailant.  Than we follow Jennifer Connelly as Jennifer Corvino, daughter of a famous actor who is traveling and staying at a boarding house of all girls.  Donald Pleasence is a Professor of entomology and that's useful because Jennifer has the ability to control insects.  "They like me," she explains.

The movie is extraordinary.  It's got so much going for it.  I want to say more but instead I'll say, I finished this and thought, "what am I doing watching and reviewing shit like the boxsets, shit like SyFy movies?  Watch all of Hitchcock.  Watch all of Argento.  Watch stuff that's actually good."  The essential problem with that?  It's not free online, but hey, we'll figure it out.

The Midnight Meat Train - 2008

 I remember Midnight Meat Train coming out and making some slight waves in the psuedo-cult, psuedo-grindhouse movie fan friends of mine.  Vinnie Jones was big at the time, being in the X-Men movie and the Guy Ritchie films.  And, I did not remember this stars Bradley Cooper.

With that decent cast, joined by Ted Raimi and Brooke Shields, we have a sorta loose story about a serial killer riding and killing on the train system in Los Angeles.  Bradley Cooper is a edgy photographer who is following him in an effort to produce cool visually striking photos.  It's pretty much that simple, Cooper has a girlfriend, there's a few other characters I guess, and Vinnie Jones is the serial killer who specializes in killing with a large hammer thing.

Directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, The Midnight Meat Train certainly has some visual flair, it has a style going for it.  I believe I'd seen his previous films Versus and Alive at this point, and he was making a name for himself with those stylish, fast paced films.  This is also around the time that torture porn was making it's round, and the graphic deaths and kills in this are indicative of that fad.  It's not quite there, but it's going for it and quite bloody.

I don't really know what to say about it.  It is what it is, I suppose, and I didn't love it nor is it bad.  The killer is completely inexplicable, he's given no reason and no development, and that's also with the era.  None of the characters have depth, so you won't notice.  But yeah.  Just a thing.  I give this a 2.5.

Tokyo Godfathers - 2003

 It's incredible to think there was a time when we got two Satoshi Kon films only two years apart.  Tokyo Godfathers came out in 2003, Millennium Actress in 2001.  Kon died in 2010 at the age of only 46, and for such a young guy he sure made an imprint.

Tokyo Godfathers left behind the surreal, imagery-rich films Kon had previously done, Perfect Blue and Millennium Actress.  He did Paprika after this, and the show Paranoia Agent, then if you toss in his short in Memories, that's basically all he ever did.  It's really sad.

Tokyo Godfathers played at my theater while I worked there, and I remember watching it and not liking it.  As I explained in Millennium Actress, I was a young dumb kid obsessed with Perfect Blue and I wanted him to make the same thing again and again.  Truth is, nothing would ever return to the darkness and viciousness of Perfect Blue, not ever Paranoia Agent, which tbh I don't think I ever even finished.

The film follows three homeless outcasts.  We have an older man who's been homeless the longest, Gin, a gay crossdressing middle aged guy Hana, and then a teenage runaway Miyuki.  They discover a baby left in a dumpster early on in the film, and for various reasons they end up wanting to find the baby's parents and return her to them instead of involving the police.  As this adventure builds, we learn more about our three characters, we get hints to their backstories, and get some build into their stories.

Coming at this in 2022, I have to say that it's really good.  The film is short and sweet, and it's all realistic for the most part.  It's a well-spun dramatic story, and I'd say emotionally effective.  I will say, I think the plot turns towards to the end were a little confusing, and the end is perhaps a tad overdone, but those are my only nitpicky issues.  We're left with a lot of individual redemptions, and give that the last day in the film is New Years Day, it's obvious we're indicating towards a better future for our unlucky three protagonists.

I wish I'd watched this with my girlfriend.  I think she'd like it.  I'll give it 4 stars.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - 1997

 Video stores were a place where you could gather nothing about a movie except the artwork and maybe what it said on the back.  Fuck Netflix man, there was something so much more engaging when this was a tactile medium.

The cool thing about video stores, and especially being in them as a kid, was seeing the covers of movies that you noticed for whatever reason, and have stuck with you for years.  As a completionist, I should logically see all of these, eventually...right?  Here is a short list of the titles I remember, sticking only to those that I still haven't seen:

Howard Stern in Private Parts. The Craft. An American Werewolf in Paris

I'll get back to that later.  MITGOGAE here is one of those.  I remember this having cool art and Kevin Spacey, two things I was into apparently.  I never saw it, I always wanted to.  I didn't know it was based on a true story, didn't know it was over 2 hours, didn't know it was directed by Clint Eastwood.  Now I know those things, and now I can say, I guess, probably not really worth seeing.

MITG is a murder mystery of sorts, where John Cusack is a reporter doing a piece on Kevin Spacey as a antique collector in Louisiana, and an hour or so into the movie we learn that the same antique dealer he interviewed, later in the night shot his gay prostitute lover.  This then takes us to the court room to witness the case.  That's the movie guys, and it's built around the strangeness of the crime and the characters involved.

There's essentially nothing wrong with that, and it's a case of truth being stranger than fiction here of course.  The characters are all full of weird antics and the absurdity of some of the things is up to the max here.  It feels extremely realistic, but does it help the movie?  And does it feel like it adds to the story?  And do any of them matter, or their interactions matter?  

I mean, again, kudos to all involved, and the acting is top notch from 99% of the cast, but I just don't really know why the character of Chablis is in this movie.  Or the voodoo lady.  Or a lot of others.  It's clearly a case of these people were there in reality, so put them in the movie, but really?  Do ya need to?

It's overly long and it's not that funny or interesting, and it may be my least favorite Clint Eastwood directed movie I've seen.  It's not like bad, it's just really not for me.  Cool VHS box cover art aside.

Wait Until Dark - 1967

 I don't have very many movie friends unfortunately.  People who have informed opinions, who are critical in approach and yet at the same time are like me:  They want to like a movie every time.  I don't go in with a chip on my shoulder, I don't let thoughts about actors or directors shape my perception of the film.

My friend Reiss let me know he was going to watch this movie, apropos of nothing.  I looked it up.  Thriller, suspense, 1967, starring Audrey Hepburn.  Very low chance that my library would have it.  To my surprise they did, on DVD.  I rented it, and then last night me and Reiss both watched it, texting a couple times about the spectacle that we were witnessing.

Wait Until Dark also stars Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna and Jack Weston.  It is based on a play, and for me that's always a great sign.  We begin the film witnessing a criminal undertaking, as a mystery doll is slipped into an unsuspecting woman's suitcase.  Then we follow her home.  She is Susy, a blind woman played by Audrey Hepburn.  Her husband Sam leaves her alone for the night, and at that point the criminals launch an all out assault on her and her home to recover their doll.

Holy shit was this a film.  I don't know where else to begin but to say that.  We are mostly in Susy's sub-street level apartment, and we follow the criminals interaction with her.  Richard Crenna pretends to be one of her husband's old war buddies, trying to get the doll to prove Sam's innocence in the death of a missing girl.  Jack Weston pretends to be a police Sargent, coming by to accuse Sam of the death and to promise help if the doll turns up.  Alan Arkin pretends to be three people, the main one being the husband of the dead girl, convincing Hepburn they were having an affair behind her back.

While they take on these roles, they use her blindness to their advantage, mouthing things and signaling things behind her back.  The front door can be opened silently, and they sneak here and there, they tie things to the wall, they open the blinds of the window to signal each other.  There is also a phone booth, which they use advantageously, they call or they have her call the booth instead of whatever place she's trying to call, so that one of their teammates can answer and falsify information.

Later, when we get to the climax of the film, we see a few other ways where they would have really used the fact this was performed on a stage to it's full benefit.  This would be one of the best utilizations of a stage I can imagine, where the audience can really be a part of what's going on without it being contrived conveniences.  It's also extremely simple, and likely all in real time.  

The climax of this movie is incredible, and it delivers.  The movie reminded me of one of those Rube Goldberg devices.  This leading to that, doing something weird, spinning this top, slamming this to open that.  The way that things lead to unexpected places and then have the character react to them, and we get the full glory of witnessing them thinking on their feet, while Susy is left literally in the dark, and is thus convincing as to how she is left out of the reality of the scene.

I'd never heard of Wait Until Dark before, but I will be recommending it to all my movie buddies who would give a shit.  Speaking of last entry and the Criterion Edition, where is the Criterion Edition of this movie?  It really deserves it.  I give it 5 stars.

Seconds - 1966

 In my nonsensical never-ending habit of picking up random movies that have the Criterion stamp on them, I grabbed Seconds.  The back of the DVD proclaimed something about being a thriller and a bizarre fantasy film, okay I'm in, sold.

Seconds stars Rock Hudson, John Randolph and Salome Jens.  In the beginning, we witness John Randolph as Arthur being terrorized by a phantom caller who is saying that he's Arthur's dead brother.  Arthur then gets sent on a mystery ride to a series of destinations that end at "The Company", which turns out to quite literally be a body swapping service. 

They will fake Arthur's death, in a tragic hotel fire, and then they'll surgically alter him to look different, and give him his ideal life.  There's a few really excellent existential moments here where Arthur is greeted with the meaningless of his life.  He is supposedly successful, set to become a bank manager, with a grown daughter and wife of many years.  By all accounts, he should be happy.  But he's not, he yearns for something else, and soon enough he agrees to go to The Company.

Seconds has a very bizarre, very undefined tone to the most of the film.  Like I said in my plot breakdown, there was a very deep, admirable sense of existentialism in the first 45 minutes or so.  I got super interested in invested when I thought that this movie was going to examine the loss of meaning to a life, the loss of the American Dream, and the what-have-you surrounding that.  Then, it changed.   

Then, the movie changes and as the changed Arthur becomes his new person, I think it's a version of the 60's notion: an anti-corporate, anti-conformist, embracive of free love and freedom sendup to hippie culture.  Then, it changes again and becomes a mystery or at least a thriller, and sorta ends up landing there.  Undecided and unclear is an understatement.

It's obvious though, that some things are really working.  The acting, the design.  The experimental quick edits and the camera work is all groundbreaking, as well as the newly restored scene at the grape crushing.  The girl of his interest, Salome Jens, I knew from Star Trek Deep Space Nine, and plays an alien in Terror From the Year 5000.  She's had a wild career.  

All in all, this is neither failure nor is it quite a success.  It felt like it never decided what it was, but what it really is, great early experimental film which would in the 70's of course flourish.  This movie was ahead of it's time, and I think it deserves recognition.  I give it 3.5.

The Loch Ness Terror - 2008

 The SciFi channel or SyFy channel was a mainstay for about 5 years of my life, and it was around this time that this movie came out, 2008ish.  There is a very high chance I watched this when it was new on the TV.

Brian Krause stars in this obviously made for TV movie.  It seemed at this time that there was a new made for TV movie on this channel every week, and it was either Friday or Saturday's where they'd end up doing a marathon of these bottom of the barrel, F grade features.  I'd inevitably watch most of them.  

The Loch Ness Terror, oddly enough, does not take place in Scotland, but rather supposedly on Lake Superior.  There is another Nessie creature there, and this giant motherfucker is a terrible CGI monstrosity that's gonna eat you whole.  

Yuuuup.  My Friday, ladies and gentlemen.

You get what you expect, and this movie is complete trash.  But what I didn't expect is the change in me.  I used to watch trash with a cool, complete level of acceptance.  I had a soft spot for movie like this, hence me watching those aforementioned Saturday marathons.  Well, the discovery is that the soft spot is gone.  This is just bad.  It's not fun bad.  It's simply bad bad.

Of minor interest, the composer of this is a Turkish woman who went on to be huge in the business, recently doing the music for the Captain Marvel movie.  Weird!

I'll give is half a star instead of zero, for old times sake.

Species II - 1998

 I was thinking a while ago, sequels are basically universally known for taking the concept of the first and making it bigger. The idea being that you can't do the same thing again, so you go bigger. 

I'm wondering, first of all, has there been a sequel where they did just do the same thing again? I'm really curious. But Species 2 did not brave that frontier. They made it bigger- by a little bit. 

Natasha Henstridge, Michael Madsen, and the other girl are back, and they have a twin of Sil from the first movie in a isolated bunker. Astronauts from Mars get infected with the alien DNA and come home to spread the genes. Eventually the alien on earth and the alien from Mars can communicate and they want to meet so they can reproduce. 

It's mostly different, not bigger, except there is more violence in the setup. More violence, but less nudity, and less interesting characters. Madsen is barely in the movie, and in fact we follow the alien astronaut for most of it just like we followed Sil in the first movie. 

Overall, this movie is a kinda dumb nothing of a sequel, but it was okay. I didn't hate it. It is just sorta there. I did finish it and put on the third immediately, so that should tell you something. 

Thinner - 1996

 At the risk of not watching this for the maybe upcoming Stephen King season of Gourley and Rust, I did opt to rewatch Thinner now.

Thinner is one of those Stephen King books I believe I have read, who knows where, who knows when.  I saw this movie once, same deal, and promptly forgot it about it.  It's in the realm of the movies that I considered a "bad time", in the long long history of bad King adaptations.

Thinner stars Robert John Burke as lawyer Billy, who's married to his wife Heidi and who's weighing about 300 pounds.  His diet attempts are failing, especially after he gets off a criminal mafia guy played by Joe Mantegna.  After a congratulatory dinner, his wife is giving him road head and Billy is distracted and runs over a gypsy woman in his car.  Using his connections, Billy gets away with it, but soon the gypsy finds him and puts a curse on him in the form of a single word: "Thinner".

This movie is not scary, first of all.  It's barely even a thriller.  It's I guess a somewhat unsettling idea, sure, I guess.  But it's also so obviously dumb - I mean, a gypsy curse?  The movie knows that, it shows the characters disbelieving and dumbfounded by the prospect.  So anyways, the curse works and he begins to get thinner and thinner.  That's cool until it's not, and then he sets out to try to reverse it.

This movie is strangely paced straight out, and then furthermore it has some dodgy acting by most involved but especially the main actor.  His vengeance face is not at all good, and especially the hatred for his wife seems tacked on and underwritten.  

Not sure how Thinner works, but it's entertaining enough and has some minor interest.  It was a pretty much failure, and gets just above a 5 out of 10 online.  I'll give it like a 2.