GODS AND MONSTERS (US 1998) movie ****1/2 score ****

Moving and evocative fictionalization of the last days of British Hollywood director James Whale. GODS AND MONSTERS is quite simply one of the warmest and most human movies you are ever likely to watch. Carter Burwell’s subtle scoring perfectly complements Sir Ian McKellen’s extraordinary performance as the ailing director. Brendan Fraser and Lynn Redgrave are also superb, and a whole raft of famous people, such as Princess Margaret, Boris Karloff, Ernest Thesiger, George Cukor and Elsa Lanchester are convincingly impersonated. This is moviemaking of the highest order, and despite the relative unimportance of the subject, GODS AND MONSTERS is ten times more emotionally powerful than EMPIRE OF THE SUN – a movie I viewed only yesterday, and one that you would expect to pack an emotional punch, but didn’t – such are the vagaries of moviemaking.

LUNCH HOUR (UK 1962) movie * score **

I don't have the hangover problems (as I stayed at home), but here's a quick listing of what's been seen...

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey - I put this in the player (DVD, of course. I'm not a pagan!) and started it exactly at midnight New Years'. I don't know what to say about the best sci-fi movie of all time.

2. Shaft (2000) - For fun, watching Sam Jackson kick butt and "please that booty." (Of course, watching the video of the title song by Isaac Hayes almost had me in tears, as I was envisioning "Chef" singing it about Cartman. "Who's the private dick that's a hit with all the chicks? - Cartman!")

3. The World Is Not Enough - Although very formulaic for Bond, still an enjoyable movie to watch. I rather believe Sophie Marceau as the Bond girl instead of Denise RIchards, but it was still good to see the Bond of old as he killed Elecktra.

ANATOMY OF A MURDER (US 1959) movie *1/2 score *

Comically dated courtroom drama weighed down by every cliché imaginable, from Lee Remick's tiresomely unconvincing coquette to Duke Ellington's laughably inappropriate jazz score (in fact, the music often put me in mind of those tatty British B-thrillers of the early '60s). Arthur O'Connell's closing remark to James Stewart "...I'd be proud to have my name share a shingle with yours" takes the biscuit for vomit-inducing cheesiness.

December ended with Cast Away and the 60s anime The Little Prince and the 8-Headed Dragon. I liked the island in Cast Away but the film was too serious and overlong and now product placements are part of the plot which is a bad sign/trend. Little Prince has a great score by Akira Ifukube which is why I watched this, but once in it, I found the film to have other charms besides its music.

Started the year off by showing the first four episodes of the anime series Serial Experiments Lain to someone who'd never seen them. The first episode is entitled 'Weird' which sums it up all right. I just hope it doesn't set the tone for the whole year. The episodes were well-received.

Next, I ran Cat People for someone else who'd never seen it. Impatient. Is she a cat or isn't she? What's the point either way? Afterwards, I looked up the film in Maltin. He says the plot and other elements don't hold up but that the scares do. Well, not in this case, I'm afraid. Still, I thought it still looked great and that Simone Simon is just lovely (and so tortured in a way). There is a chair in the apartment that casts a shadow on the wall in the image of a cat with ears--How did I never catch that before? Whatever else doesn't work in this film, the atmosphere does. But, it seems, only on me.

THE WOLF MAN (US 1940) movie ** score ***

A group of performing gypsies arrives at an English village – one of their number is a werewolf! Moderately entertaining Universal horror distinguished only by its exceptional cast led by Claude Rains, Bela Lugosi, Maria Ouspenkaya, Warren William, Patric Knowles, Ralph Bellamy and, of course, Lon Chaney Jr himself, as the Wolf Man. Considering the unique creativity of Universal's '30s monster movies, THE WOLF MAN's rather ordinary production design, leaden direction and stolid scripting tends to magnify the absurdity of the story, thus drawing one's attention to the enormous number of loopholes present. One amusingly stupid moment had the recently bitten Chaney being woken in his bed by someone knocking at his bedroom door. He turns over and closes his eyes again, ignoring the knocking. The knocking at his door persists, and reluctantly Chaney climbs out of bed and staggers to his feet. Still the knocking continues, but just as he is putting his slippers on, the door opens and his father (played by Rains! - another of the movie's absurdities) enters the room and immediately exclaims, "....you shouldn't be out of bed in your condition!" If he didn't want to get Chaney out of bed, we are all left wondering why Rains simply didn't knock and then walk straight in, or alternatively why didn’t Chaney call out “…come in”.

THE SHOP AT SLY CORNER (GB 1946) movie **** score ****

Tremendously atmospheric melodrama about a London antiques dealer and fence (a wonderful performance from Oscar Homolka) who is being blackmailed by a former employee (a seedily effective Kenneth Griffith). Great use of classical music within the score (particularly Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto), a script that sparkles, and those wonderfully shadowy London street scenes combine to create a fascinating and unique movie experience. Garry Marsh is typically commanding as a Scotland Yard police captain. THE SHOP AT SLY CORNER is one of dozens of inventive, impressive and distinctive movies to come out of Britain during the ‘40s.

January 4 2001

LIVING FREE (GB 1972) movie ½ score *

Sloppily made follow-up to the infinitely superior British East African lion saga BORN FREE will only interest those who yearn to see Geoffrey Keen in shorts. Sol Kaplan’s score is absolutely terrible, especially his excruciatingly banal opening credits song.

THE SPRING (US 1999) movie *1/2 score **1/2

Kyle MacLachlan and his young son stumble across a community that has discovered an elixir of youth. An interesting idea is ruined by a boring cast, predictable plot development, a complete absence of tension and wholly unimaginative direction. The score is yet another Goldsmithian ‘BASIC INSTINCT’ homage.

January 5 2001

RIDE, VAQUERO! (US 1953) movie *** score ****

Silly but entertaining western that succeeds thanks to its blistering pace, crazy plot development, strong performances, and Bronislau Kaper’s brilliant scoring. Robert Taylor, Ava Gardner, Howard Keel and Kurt Kasznar are all dominant, but it is Anthony Quinn’s wildly-over-the-top Mexican bandit who swamps the entire movie – a performance that almost rivals several of Lee J Cobb’s characterizations for maniacal hysteria.

THE CORRUPTOR (US 1999) movie *1/2 score **

PENNY SERENADE (US 1941) movie ** score **1/2

Well enough made but emotionally uninvolving tearjerker starring Cary Grant, Irene Dunne and Edgar Buchanan.

PYTHON (US 2000) movie * score **

In the wake of ANACONDA comes this drearily tongue-in-cheek monster movie. Rubbish, and boringly so.

THE SQUARE PEG (GB 1958) movie * score **

Dismal Norman Wisdom farce. Best forgotten.

GODZILLA (Japan 1954) movie ½ score *

I’m afraid I’ve never been a great fan of Sir Norman Wisdom, though I do recognize his talents, and the fact he is immensely popular with many people, especially abroad these days. It’s just that sometimes he is just too silly for his own good, I believe. Take THE SQUARE PEG. There were some good ideas, and such seasoned professionals as Campbell Singer, Terence Alexander and Edward Chapman were all fine. However, I just felt that nothing really gelled in THE SQUARE PEG, despite the potential.

Having said all of that, I have enjoyed several of Wisdom’s movies, such as THE BULLDOG BREED (early role for Michael Caine) and THE EARLY BIRD….loved the bit when Jerry Desmonde’s lawnmower went berserk. In fact, only the other day (Dec 22 2000) I viewed ON THE BEAT…..my ‘glowing’ review can be found at the ‘What have you seen in December’ thread.

THE MINUS MAN (US 1999) movie **1/2 score ***

EXCALIBUR (GB/US 1981) movie *** score ****

THE MASK OF ZORRO (US 1998) movie ***1/2 score ****

PYGMALION (GB 1938) movie **** score ***

The daughter of a Cockney garbageman is transformed into a duchess by Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics. Enchanting realization of George Bernard Shaw’s classic – in fact Shaw himself won an Oscar here for his scintillating screenplay. From the opening scenes of a bustling and rainy London, PYGMALION captures the imagination, and along with the exceptionally witty script there are three superb performances from Leslie Howard (Higgins), Wendy Hiller (Eliza) and Wilfred Lawson (Doolittle). Sir Anthony Quayle and Leo Genn have small early roles.

THREE STRANGERS (US 1946) movie *** score ****

SUMMER MADNESS (GB/US 1955) movie ** score **1/2

Katharine Hepburn meets Rossano Brazzi whilst vacationing in Venice. Pretty, but rather dull travelogue from Sir David Lean.

THE COWBOYS (US 1972) movie *1/2 score ***

Written and Directed by Woody Allen
Photography by Carlo DePalma
Music Arranged and Conducted by Dick Hyman

Main Cast (in alphabetical order):
Alan Alda, Woody Allen, Drew Barrymore, Lukas Hass, Goldie Hawn, Edward Norton, Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, Tim Roth

A sprawling family falls in and out of love, and often break into song about it.

Woody addresses all his typical angst here, the difference being that it's expressed partly through song and dance. This lends a really surreal edge to things (I always thought that musicals were the closest thing to fantasy films that you could get).

The results are very pleasing indeed. Some of the jokes fall a bit flat, but the best ideas are truly inspired (the son changes from Republican to Democrat when the blood clot he has on his brain disappears).

And Grandpa's resurrection, singing "Enjoy Yourself, It's Later Than You Think" is a touch of genius.

Woody's habitual collaborator, Dick Hyman (how can anybody be called Dick Hyman?) arranged and conducted all the standards on the soundtrack, and it seems to me that this is the closest in decades that the music for a Woody Allen film has come to sounding like a real film score, for better or worse (the "romantic" rooftop scene between Drew Barrymore and Tim Roth uses extended orchestral variations of some of the songs).

Written and Directed by Woody Allen
Photography by Zhao Fei

Main Cast: Woody Allen, Tracey Ullman, Hugh Grant, Elaine May

Small time crooks set up a cookies shop in order to dig a tunnel to the bank next door. But the business is a huge success and the main brains have to try to adapt to high society.

Woody dispenses with his usual angst for once( he said in interviews that his idea was to just make a funny film). Well, I kind of missed his neurosis here, because for me it wasn't quite funny enough, though the observations of New York's high society are sharpish.

SO, Reindeer Games, 3 and a half
Autumn Leaves, 3 and a half
10 Rillington Place, 4
Freaks, 4 and a half

Freaking bloody BLAH!

THE CAT AND THE CANARY (GB 1979) movie ** score **1/2

Ropy retread of the archetypal spooky house comedy horror, enlivened only by the performances of Wendy Hiller, Wilfred Hyde-White and especially Edward Fox. Michael Callan steps inadequately into Bob Hope’s shoes.

KING OF KINGS (US 1961) movie *1/2 score **1/2

Stultifying filmization of the World’s tallest story – the life of Jesus. Robert Ryan as John the Baptist is just one example of the inept casting, but it is the movie’s cardboard and lifeless appearance that is its overriding fault . Still, the sound effects are pretty nifty – you can almost hear the bones crunching during some of the battle scenes, and those whizzing slings are a marvel to behold.

January 14 2001

BITE THE BULLET (US 1975) movie ** score **1/2

An absolute shambles, but a well-photographed one. Various cowboys compete in a 700-mile endurance horse race through the Old West. Gene Hackman, James Coburn, Ben Johnson, Candice Bergen and Ian Bannen are amongst the competitors. Much of the scripting is simply laughable, and Bannen is hopeless as an English contestant, someone like Sir Michael Caine would have been a little more suitable. Still, the movie is a real turkey anyway.

THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN (US 1942) movie ** score ***

Enjoyable enough, but not a patch on its predecessor SON OF FRANKENSTEIN. Sir Cedric Hardwicke stars as Frankenstein’s second son who resumes experiments on the monster his father created. A puerile script, a half-hearted performance from Lugosi (as Igor), and Lon Chaney Jr’s useless monster sink THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN, but Hardwicke is fine as the latest doomed Frankenstein and Lionel Atwill enjoys himself as the archetypal mad scientist.

BLUEBEARD’S TEN HONEYMOONS (GB 1960) movie *** score **1/2

Flatly handled retelling of the story of Landru, a Parisian gentleman who befriends and then murders lonely women for their money. George Sanders alone makes the movie succeed as the charming murderer.

January 15 2001

GREYSTOKE: THE LEGEND OF TARZAN, LORD OF THE APES (GB 1984) movie * score **1/2

This has to be some kind of joke. After decades of pure hokum, Hugh Hudson decides to attempt a serious telling of the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel. Despite a massive budget, everything about this movie is an hilarious failure, from the men in monkey suits to the movie’s inordinate length. And then there’s the ending, as Halliwell said – “The attempt to moralize at the end is emetic”. Pauline Kael said – “A unique mixture of pomposity and ineptitude….in the second half the movie simply loses its mind, and dribbles to a pathetically indecisive conclusion.” John Scott’s score does little to mask the movie’s howlingly risible nature.

January 16 2001

SANDS OF THE KALAHARI (GB 1965) movie ** score **

Another one of those unintentionally funny movies. Survivors of a plane crash in the desert battle with the elements, baboons and eventually with each other. The first twenty minutes of the movie is truly dire, but thereafter things perk up a little and a good cast, including Stanley Baker, Stuart Whitman and Harry Andrews, gets to chew the scenery.

January 17 2001

A WOMAN IN QUESTION (GB 1950) movie ***1/2 score **1/2

Wonderfully eccentric British mystery thriller, has detective Duncan Macrae investigating the death of fortune teller Jean Kent. The movie begins with the discovery of Kent’s body, and events unfold mainly in flashback as the cops interview the victim’s various acquaintances – each has a different story to tell. Dirk Bogarde, John McCullam and Charles Victor are all excellent in support, but it is Hermione Baddeley as an interfering housekeeper who steals the movie.

January 19 2001

DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE (US 1941) movie *** score **1/2

Well-produced MGM version of the Victorian classic suffers from miscasting and a rather stilted atmosphere. Spencer Tracey as the good doctor is okay, but not right for the part (he's just not menacing enough as Hyde), but an exceptional supporting cast, including Donald Crisp, Lana Turner, Ian Hunter and C Aubrey Smith offers fine support. Ingrid Bergman is quite brilliant however, as the London prostitute who becomes tragically involved with the fearsome Hyde.

January 20 2001

HOW THE WEST WAS WON (US 1962) movie *1/2 score ***

A monumental bore….and an unconvincing one. Worth watching to smirk at, especially James Stewart as the most unlikely frontiersman in colonial history.

THE LITTLE HUT (US 1957) movie ** score **1/2

London businessman Stewart Granger and wife Ava Gardner are marooned on a desert island with her lover David Niven. Bowdlerized version of a French farce. Very dull, despite the garish photography.

DEADLOCKED (US 2000) movie *1/2 score **1/2

The father of a murderer takes the jury who convicted him hostage in order for his son to receive a fair trial. Sounds riveting, but DEADLOCKED is an apt title for this lumbering and inconsequential drivel.

METEOR (US 1979) movie ½ score *

FRENCHMAN’S CREEK (US 1944) movie * score **1/2

Boring and inept pantomime wasting a great cast. English rose Joan Fontaine gets caught up with smugglers at her Cornish retreat in 17th century England. The usually excellent Fontaine gives a terrible performance, and the largely British supporting cast led by Basil Rathbone, Cecil Kellaway and Nigel Bruce is completely wasted. Dire.

January 24 2001

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (GB 1983) tv-movie ***1/2 score ***

The umpteenth version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmesian classic, has Ian Richardson perfectly cast as the super-sleuth. An intelligent interpretation of the story, excellent use of real Dartmoor locations and a superb supporting cast (including Denholm Elliot) add up to perhaps the best filmization of the story. Good score from Michael J Lewis as well. Look out for the excellent Richardson in 1999’s THE DARK BEGINNINGS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, in which he plays the Edinburgh professor Dr Bell on whom Doyle based his fictional detective. Be warned though, after a great first hour, the tv-movie disintegrates before your very eyes.

January 25 2001

IT’S A GREAT DAY (GB 1955) movie * score **

The Grove family return in this cinematic outing for the popular family from ‘50s British television. Sadly, unless you’re a fan of Sid James and Victor Maddern who appear in guest roles, there remains little reason for anyone to endure such tedium today.

THE GREAT SIOUX MASSACRE (US 1965) movie * score **1/2

Horrendous take on the events surrounding Custer’s death at the battle of Little Big Horn. Joseph Cotten and Darren McGavin are pathetic as rival 7Th Cavalry Officers, as is everything else about this dilapidated cinematic offering. Still, there’s plenty to sneer at, not least Cotten’s unflinching inability to act…., considering his great performances of the ‘40s, how the mighty have fallen.

January 26 2001

ARCH OF TRIUMPH (US 1948) movie *** score ***1/2

Directed by Antony Hoffman
Screenplay by Channing Gibson and Jonathan Lemkin, from a story by Chuck Pfarrer
Photography by Peter Suschitzky
Music by Graeme Revell

Main Cast: Val Kilmer, Carrie-Anne Moss, Tom Sizemore, Benjamin Bratt, Terence Stamp

Astronauts fight for survival on Mars.

Depending on your mood, I imagine that Red Planet will be considered by most as being either a complete waste of time or very mildly entertaining. For me, the episodic terrors of a mad robot dog and some nasty space-cockroaches barely registered.

Now, I'm no scientist, but I do get the impression that much of the action was a teeny weeny bit scientifically improbable. It was like there was no distance at all between the stranded astronauts and the orbiting spaceship: "Oh, there it is again, now if we could only climb a really high mountain we could jump onto it." That seemed to happen in Mission To Mars too, where the characters hung around in the middle of space waiting for pieces of debris to come round again so that they could skateboard wherever they wanted across the cosmos. I'm exaggerating a little, but only a little.

AUSTIN POWERS: THE SPY WHO SHAGGED ME (US 1999) movie **1/2 score ***

HIGH WALL (US 1947) movie **1/2 score ***

Adequate mystery thriller starring Robert Taylor as an airman trying to clear himself of a murder charge by exposing the real murderer. British star actor Herbert Marshall enlivens the proceedings as the suave assassin.

January 31 2001

THE SIGN OF FOUR (UK 1983) tv-movie *1/2 score ***

Wretched follow-up to the excellent HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES. This time Ian Richardson is too supercilious as the super-sleuth, and David Healy is too Canadian as Watson.