Habitually Viewing - January 3 to January 24 - updated


NeoWayland allows himself three Netflix rentals a week. That's discipline for a confirmed movie guy.
With this entry I'm going to start cross posting my Netflix rental reviews at both Pagan Vigil and Technopagan Yearnings. My choices are a little strange and combine a bit of everything, but so do I. Content is content and film is one of my passions. I've got three weeks worth, so it's going to be longer.

For some reason I never saw L.A. Confidential when it came out. It makes a great companion piece to The Maltese Falcon. The art direction is superb. The cinematography is gorgeous. But about a third of the way in, I noticed something bothering me. It took me a while to figure out.

Plastic people.

It works for one of the cops who is supposed to be the fresh faced newbie. And it works for the female lead who in the story owes her looks to plastic surgery. But it doesn't work for the other two hero cops.

Their faces don't look lived in. Given a different make-up job maybe Russell Crowe could pull it off. But otherwise the hero cops look too good and it puts a discordant note into an otherwise enjoyable film.

Joy House is a period piece and it hasn't aged well. Still, it's an interesting examination of an unusual path to women's power. And a heckuva condemnation of the usual gender roles of the time. Jane Fonda turns in a strong performance, and Alain Delon certainly pulls off the womanizer. Good film as long as you don't take it seriously.

The Last Winter is mostly a B horror flick, but it does have one outstanding quality. I've seldom seen a winter wilderness filmed better (maybe in Fargo). Now if they showed less of the monster and ditched the Resident Evil-esque ending, it might move from okay to good.

I picked Spartan because I wanted to see Kristen Bell stretch her chops. Her role here is nothing special. Mostly the film is the government paranoia thing that we've seen time and time again. Val Kilmer does well, but then I've never seen him not do well. I'm not sure how this film could have been better, but a couple of weeks later I had to check out the Wikipedia entry to remind myself of the plot.

The Dark is one of those films that could have been great. It uses way too many sudden loud sounds to startle you, and after the third one you just start ignoring them. It does have a fairly nice segment set in, well, not an afterlife but certainly another realm. This film almost does the classic quest with the realization that the entity isn't evil, just with a different morality. It could have been a great take on the Orpheus and Eurydice myth albeit in a Welsh setting. But in the end, it sticks to good vs evil. Change four minutes of film and about six lines of dialogue and it would have been an intriguing and memorable film.

Okay, blatant plug time. It wasn't in my rentals, but as long as we're talking about modern films that borrow heavily from the classics, When Night is Falling is an excellent take on the Cupid and Psyche story. Amazing art direction and cinematography too.

Solstice is a B grade horror flick with not-so-accurate Voudun rituals and beliefs. It does have an intriguing ritual with the circle of friends standing chest deep in the swamp. Yeah, it was probably done to focus attention on the cleavage and the chiseled chests, but it was still interesting.

Believers is a film that can't decide what it wants to be. The Twilight Zone ending doesn't help.

I've a censorship fetish, often I'll read a book or watch a film to see what all the fuss is about. Lemora was banned by the Catholic League of Decency. That's pretty much this film's strongest point. The ending is intentionally ambiguous. Interpreted one way, it could be a daydream about a child coming into her identity and sexuality. Interpreted another, it's a creepy bit of near paedophilia with a vampire lady. Vampire films often explore sexual themes, and this one is no exception. As a horror film, it's better written than most. But I'm not comfortable exploring this side of children's sexuality even if it is only on film. It's nothing explicit, but it certainly pushes the buttons. Pay close attention to the way that the girl's appearance changes between the two church "bookends" of the film.

Holiday stars Cary Grant and Audrey Katharine Hepburn. You should watch it for that reason alone. It was made the same year as Bringing Up Baby, another Grant/Hepburn vehicle which most would team it with. But I think Holiday pairs better with The Graduate. The plot is nothing exceptional and the photography is workmanlike. As a character study, it's amazing. Later in his life, Cary Grant was typecast as the dapper gent so much that audiences wouldn't accept him in other roles. This is well before that, here you see the shy clown peeking out from behind a half grin and a wink. The suit isn't the best cut and the tie is often askew, but the character charges across the screen with boundless energy dragging everyone else along.

And Hepburn, ahh, sweet Kate, she owns this film. Hepburn was never a classic beauty, but by all the gods, is she ever sexy in this film. That poise, that presence, that precise wit all delivered from her secret heart in the room hidden behind the wealth in the mansion. She can do the society thing, but that isn't where her character lives. She really lives in that plain nursery with all the family's abandoned hobbies (nice touch that). Her character can THINK and talk, unusual even today. She knows both the value of silence and the well placed word. She prizes simple joys over propriety, and you can see the animal passion oozing out. Very much this is a lady who longs to live her life with gusto and is on the brink of doing exactly that.

The film is about facades and finding your true heart. Well worth it.

Oddly enough, Bringing Up Baby (not in my rentals) almost exactly reverses these roles. There it's Hepburn's character dragging Grant's character along for the ride. Add a leopard and it gets interesting.

_____

Sorry about that, not quite awake yet.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Tue - January 26, 2010 at 06:59 AM  Tag


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Random selections from NeoWayland's library


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