Hot Takes On Film

  Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975 UK) King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table embark on a journey to retrieve the Holy Grail. I put coconut shells in the picture above knowing that most of my readers are going to get it. If I say “it’s just a scratch”, most people will get that too. So why am I featuring a film like this. It’s because the younger generations are missing out on this fine classic. I you have seen it, watch it again. If you haven’t, go watch it. Older folks please tell the younglings about this and Life of Brian too. Kidnap them and make them watch this (Yeah, don’t do that). Tell them that the origins of several memes are in this film and to unlock the secrets all they have to do is watch. Cast member Eric Idle revealed in a tweet in 2011 that Led Zepplin, Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson and Pink Floyd invested in the film because the studios wouldn’t. It shows you what suits really know. Boy howdy that same story shows up a lot. Studios pass on a project and...

  A Werewolf Boy ( 2012 South Korea) A family takes in a feral boy who happens to be a Werewolf. Where Wolf? There Wolf. Sorry I couldn’t resist. This is a lovely fantasy teenage romance story NOT in the vein of Twilight. Very different. Technically you could make the argument that it’s SciFi because in the second act they spend about 10 minutes trying to explain why things are the way they are. Mad Scientist by the way. Then they went on with the movie not mentioning it again. I’m told that it’s common in Asian media to do that. Regardless, the explanation was kinda out of place so I choose to ignore it and continue to call it fantasy as Werewolves are solidly in the fantasy camp. Director Jo Sung-Hee made some interesting choices with the photography. They opened up the aperture to over-expose the scene making it look very bright or “hot”. I think they added a blur either in the camera or in post. It looked like the characters were bathed in a heavenly light. Quite lovely really....

  Hawk The Slayer (1980 US) it’s #FondueSunday and today’s entry is this campy sword and sorcery film. A prince fights his evil brother for the realm and a magic sword. If you like cheese and I know that many of my readers do, you will like this. It is actually fairly well paced and actually has some engaging effects for 1980. Jack Palance was the evil brother and he looked like he was having a great time being over the top evil. It has a 40% rating on Rotten Tomatoes so you know it will meet your cheese needs. I’ve been told the tabletop rpg players loved this movie because it fits in with D and D fans and for the longest time there were no other movies that fit that bill. You can find it on Tubi for free.

  Bambi (1942 US) A fawn struggles in the forest after his Mama dies. Based on the book Bambi: A life in the woods by Felix Salten. I saw this movie too young and was scarred for life (this and Jaws). So parents don’t let your kids watch this too young. Why so traumatic? It was 1942. That’s how things were in 1942 and parents did not shelter kids back then. I read an interesting article from the Israeli Times suggesting that the story was an allegory for the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe but specifically in Austria and Hungary in the early 20th century. It does make sense considering the history of Selten who was from Austria and experienced the rising anti-Semitism first hand. Watch it again. You can’t unsee it. TBH I’m surprised that the famously anti-semantic Walt Disney didn’t pick up on this. Maybe he just saw this as a way to torture children. Who knows. He’s dead and not sure we will ever know what he was thinking. Too bad there was no Twitter back then. I’m sure he would ...

Watership Down (1978 UK)  A fluffle of bunnies try to survive in South UK rolling hills. I was going to put this up yesterday for Easter, you know because of the bunnies but yeah No. Based on the book by the same name this depiction was very well done but....I saw someone on the internet say that 63 bunnies died on camera. That's a lot. Even if that's not accurate its really close. I hear that the film and the book have been banned in certain school districts because of the violence. I can kind of see that. It may be traumatizing for certain children, like Bambi. I loved the watercolor style art and the backgrounds. The sound editing was very well done. As I've talked about before, sound is very important in animation because it helps our brains fill in the gaps. So when a bunny dies you feel it more. Wonderful! But I do recommend it if you can handle it. If you watched Bambi and haven't been traumatized for life you should be OK here. Find it on HBO and Amazon or for r...

 My Neighbor Totoro (1988 JP) Two young girls coming to terms with their mothers illness have adventures with the magical forest creatures. Directed by Hayao Miyazaki for Studio Ghibli. Wow this is a gorgeous Anime film. I saw it on the big screen recently in a revival showing and what a treat. Miyazaki's work really resonates with people and I think there are several reasons but primarily his own emotional pain is expressed through his art. For instance as a child Miyazaki's mother was hospitalized for long periods with a health issue that left her without the ability to be mobile even when she was home. In this film the strength of these two protagonists in dealing with their situation has inspired so many. I loved the watercolor art particularly the nature backgrounds. I do think the unsung hero of all of Miyazaki's films but particularly this one is the audio. We focus on the visual art because that's kind of what we do but when you have audio editing that's jus...

 The Yellow Submarine ( 1968 UK) Based on the music of the Beatles mostly from the album of the same name. The Fab Four are recruited by a dottering old man to help save Pepperland from the Blue Meanies. Ok stop what you are doing and go watch this film. I know that so many people have not seen it yet and that is a crime. This film is one of the most influential animated films ever. It put animation in the grown-up sphere whereas before it was limited to kids. It was directed by George Dunning and animated by some guys who clearly had been on a lot of trips. Even though the characters were the Beatles the Fab Four did not do the voices cuz really they didn't want to. They did make an appearance at the end as a way to fulfill their contract to United Artists. Although, the Beatles did make another picture with UA after Yellow Submarine. There is a boatload of anecdotes and historical trivia associated with this film which I could go on for days about. The DVD and BluRay have little ...

 Doctor Zhivago (1965 UK) Its #WTFWednesday and todays entry is this epic film centered around the Russian revolution of the turn of the 19th century. Omar Shariff and Julie Christie star as lovers caught up in the times. By all accounts this is a pretty stunning film. The production design was out of this world and so was the cinematography. It also won an Oscar for the soundtrack. Just the mention of it starts the internal music player in your head. It is that memorable. With all that I turned it off. So why is it in the WTF category? Full disclosure I have a personal history with this film. I was about 10 years old and my parents went to a revival screening of this film. I wanted to go. Even at 10 I loved film. But nooo I wasn't grown up enough for this film. I was so salty over that. Still am. When I turned 18, I rented it just to be a spiteful brat and say it was stupid and glad I didn't go. So I did that. Now that I am older and more mature I watched it again and put away...

 Ghost (1990 US) A recently deceased man tries to warn his wife of danger with the help of a psychic. This iconic film stars the late great Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg. This film has a plethora of iconic moments including the pottery scene which is now a meme. My favorite thing about this movie is the end scene. IMHO it has the most satisfying bad guy ending in the history of film. The demons were brilliant. If you're having a bad day, maybe someone has done something that was totally not cool and need a pick-me-up this scene is like ASMR. Here is the scene  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES3nBGzPUkU. Ghost was nominated in several categories including Best Picture but lost to "Dances With Wolves". It did win in for Best Original Screenplay by Bruce Joel Rubin. He wrote many more scripts after this including Jacobs Ladder and Deep Impact. Goldberg won an Oscar for her role as the psychic. She later said in an interview that producers didn't want he...

  Bound (1996 US) Todays second entry for #FemaleFilmmakerFriday is this Wachowski sisters neo-noir masterpiece. Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon concoct a scheme to steal money from Tilly's mob boyfriend. Tilly rocks as the femme fatale. It just felt like she was loving this role. Gershon plays the sap and she knocks it out if the park. It’s really hard to shoot noir style in color. The Wachowskis pulled it off with muted color production design and black to get the proper contrast and shadow. I'm not a big fan of the current trend of having bright colors and crushed blacks to get the contrast. Happy colors don't scream noir. It screams Teletubbies. Wikipedia says the budget was 6 million but I heard 3. Why is that important? Lower budgets are really going to cut down on so many things including locations. There was limited locations in this. Either way audiences liked it and it made money at the Box Office. It’s on Tubi and Pluto for free and rentable on other streaming pl...

 Coquette (1929 US) It's #FemaleFilmmakerFriday and todays entry is this pre-code drama about a father who doesnt want his daughter to date a boy from the wrong side of the track. Mary Pickford stars as the daughter who was actually 30 plus years old when this was made. Pickford won a Best actress for this, her first talkie film. She did great. Actors at the time were really struggling with how to act in talkies. Pickford made it work. The others, hmmm, lets just say they tried. Although, Pickford didn't have too much creative control in this film, she was a titan in the industry and one of the founding members of the Academy. Pickford spoke about the transition from silent to talkies as being "very chaotic". So being Pickford she brought people together to help professionals talk to each other and ease the transition. Thus the Oscars were born. I can understand the chaos. The tech came out of nowhere. Audiences wanted it.  The theaters had to be refitted, studios had...

 9 to 5 (1980 US) Three female office workers (Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton) kidnap their boss (Dabney Coleman). "Tumble outta bed and stumble to the kitchen, pour myself a cup of ambition. Yawn and stretch and try to come to life." Face it you sang that when you read that. This Dolly Parton original song was nominated in the Best Song category at the Oscars in 1981. It lost to Fame. Tough year though. "On the Road Again" by Willie Nelson was also in the mix. Parton said in a recent documentary that Fonda was asking her about the status of the song for the film so Parton played the song by scraping her acrylic nails together to create the beat and then sang the intro. Then she demonstrated it. Well shoot, if it didn't sound amazing. Didn't know that acrylic nails are the hot new sound. I just love this film. It was not nominated in any other categories but really should have. In the documentary Fonda talked about how the three bonded before the s...

 Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979 US, Klingon) Google has the language for this film as English and Klingon. That's how much Star Trek is part of our society. I am loving being able to talk about this first film in the franchise in context of the 1980 Oscars. Not my favorite Star Trek product but it is still Star Trek and I will watch it. After TOS went off the air in 1969 there was quite a movement of people missing the series. Hence the ST conventions were born. Paramount caught wind of this and decided to make a movie. They hired the insanely talented Robert Wise to direct (Westside Story, Andromeda Strain, The Day the Earth Stood Still) Wise was a once in a generation director with a strong SciFi background. Yay! This is gonna be great! The story was by veteran SciFi writer Alan Dean Foster. Double great! Script by newbie Harold Livingston with very little on his resume much less SciFi. Ooooh ummm. Decades later its pretty clear that it didn't hit the mark. I do think th...

  Stray Dog (1949 Japan) written and directed by Kurosawa. This film is beautiful. Kurosawa was the master of Mis en scene. And not only of sight but of sound too. Directors often forget that sound is half the film experience. Kurosawa does not disappoint. Like Raymond Chandler, Kurosawa takes us on a journey to the seedy underbelly of the city creating a thriving character not human in form but human in fu nction. Hell even the weather was it’s own character. The film is led by a hard boiled detective and a soft boiled detective trying to come to terms with post WWII Tokyo in their own way. It’s as if Phillip Marlowe was split into two characters, the dark and the light each having a mutual respect for each other. I could write a long essay on this for a film theory class. But that would be boring. Just watch it and take in Kurosawas brilliance. You won’t regret it. Find it free on Tubi.

  Lured (1947). This noir comedy stars, you guessed it, Lucill e Ball. Noir-comedy you say? Comedy and noir do not belong together, you even said so yourself. And you would be right but hear me out. Lucy was a brilliant comedienne. In fact she was so good that her identity or brand became solidly enmeshed with her. To this day when you see her your brain starts to fill in the spaces and anything she says or does is comedy whether it is or not. When you watch this film it is really hard to turn that off and it becomes another Lucy misadventure. BUT if you can turn it off this is a very solid noir and Lucy is quite good in it. This film doesn’t show up in lists as much as it should but definitely give it a go and tell your brain to shut up. Find it free on Tubi.

 Gone With the Wind (1939 US) Its #WTFWednesday and todays entry is this oh so troubled film. 1940 was a very difficult year for the Academy. Its like a bad gift that they cant get rid of no matter how hard they try. Was this epic David O Selznick production so well done? Sure. Was Vivian Leigh delicious as a Plantation Princess caught in the civil war? Sure. Does it all go away the minute you think just a little bit about the racial problems? Absolutely! Once you do you can't unsee it. I could go on for days about how problematic it was. Not only was this picture in the mix but so was Wizard of Oz. With some of the allegations about the treatment of the young Judy Garland both of these films are now almost completely unwatchable. Context is King-Lorca on Star Trek Discovery. That context just paints these films with a poopoo encrusted brush. To make it worse Hattie McDaniel, who was nominated for an Oscar for her role as Mammie, had to get special permission to attend the awards ...

  No Man of Her Own (1950) Based on the novel by Cornell Woolrich "I Married a Dead Man". Eddie Muller of # NoirAlley points out that this film is not on lists of top noirs but should be. It stars Barbara Stanwyck as the guilt ridden, try to do the right thing femme fatale. Carole Lombard and Clarke Gable made a version of this story in 1932 but the studio wanted to remake it Post Hays code. What I love about Stanwyck is as Muller points out, she can convince an audience of anything: gaping holes in the script? Pish Posh Babs is on the job. Although, it runs a little closer to drama than say, D.O.A. it's still a really solid noir. Adapted for the screen by Sally Benson and Catherine Turney specifically for Stanwyck. These ladies knew how to make it work for a female led noir. I enjoyed it but of course Babs is one of my favorites. I had to rent it but it is available.

  Gun Crazy (1950) this celebrated Noir stars Peggy Cummins as the extremely fatal femme fatal and John Dall as the very sappy sap. They have a kind of Bonnie and Clyde adventure. Haven't heard of them? that' s cuz this was a solid B movie with B cast and crew including Russell Harland bringing his B movie ingenuity as the cinematographer. What I love most about this movie is the bank heist scene. Harland bolted a camera on a saddle and put it in the back of a limo. One long heist scene that is quite the marvel. B Movie director Joseph Lewis allowed Cummins and Dall to improvise the dialogue to keep it fresh and this is the best part: Only the bank knew (the cop was an actor). They did a bank heist scene with guns and the city didn't know. Nowadays, PD would shoot your butt. Why? Harland later revealed in an interview that they were broke. He didn't like the scene at first but grew to appreciate it. This is one of my favorite Noirs. Most streaming has this for rent.

  Brick (2005) This Neo-noir stars Joseph Gordon Levitt and was written and directed by then first time feature filmmaker Rian Johnson (Star Wars, Knives Out) and had a whopping budget of 450k (I have also heard 800k). This film was basically a Chandler story... in high school and Levitt was Marlowe. If you think that sounds weird. Well it is kind of but Johnson and Levitt made it work. Getting traditionally noir shots is hard and audiences and fans know their stuff. What I loved about this gem is that Johnson adds to the vocabulary of noir or neo-noir. How? New ways to get high contrast, deep shadow and the incongruent lines of German Expressionism. Johnson did his absolute best to get those lovely noir shots and he did quite often and with a budget of 450k. That's really hard. Johnson is one of my favorite directors. He just keeps surprising me. Like many low budget films this was all about natural light and locations. worth a watch. Rentable on most streaming.

 Nightmare Alley (2021 US) A grifter steals a "magic" act and makes money off of it. Based on the novel of the same name from 1946. Guillermo Del Toro writes and directs this Best Picture nominee. It is classified as neo-noir and that would be fair since the 1947 film is solidly noir. I liked it but...I'm a noir fan and prefer the 1947 version. Don't get me wrong the 2021 version is very well shot, the color is lovely. It has the traditional high contrast and deep shadows of noir but I really saw little of the German Expressionism typical of noir. German Expressionism cares little of lovely aesthetic and more about expressing anxiety. The lines are incongruent and misaligned. Where is the order? There is none and that's the point. The lines in this film for the most part were too symmetrical for that and even the color wheel De Toro used was too symmetrical harkening back to Wes Anderson films that are so symmetrical its like ASMR.  Yeah it had contrast but overal...