A weird mix this week...
Night at the Museum (2006)Ben Stiller works in a museum and accepts anything he is told at face value without question. As a movie aimed squarely at the children’s market, wide-eyed guilelessness is appropriate and this fun film never stops lacking guile. It also lacks both heart and brain, departing the the screen counting its takings and carelessly leaving its young audience unchallenged. Museums are full of stories. They are ripe for fantastic tales to be told about them and set within their walls. Night at the Museum wastes the opportunities it has.
Falling Leaves (1912)The Solax Kid, in a masterclass of scene blocking with a fixed camera, is taught a lesson on the nature of mortality. For a one-reel tubercular drama, this is remarkably self-contained and well-paced with room for set-up, story development and a proper ending. The central misunderstanding/metaphor is delightfully scripted and realised even if the schmaltz levels and acting are both exaggerated to levels that would rot a silent-era audience’s teeth. Alice Guy-Blanché’s simple tale is a wonder of early cinema and one of the best autumnal films ever made.
Antony and Cleopatra (1972)Charlton Heston struggles for gravitas and sweats copiously in a spaghetti Shakespeare. Miniature galleys clash as legionnaires run hither and thither with swords out but unclear purpose. Monologues delivered on arid Spanish rocks ramble on while the audience waits to be convinced that Antony and Cleopatra have any glimmer of chemistry. Extras mill around on horseback struggling to hear poorly projected speeches on sparse sets. Not a single shot is well-composed, well-framed or well-lit. No lessons were learnt making this.
The Battle of Elderbush Gulch (1913)D.W. Griffith demonises Native Americans and fetishises innocence in a two-reel action experiment. The quintessential settlers vs. Indigenous peoples tale starts with a puppy consumption incident and escalates to house-sieging, belly-crawling and scalping, no negative stereotype is left unfilmed. Spectacularly, a town burns, stampedes of horses circle and charge, and hundreds of extras fire guns. No expense has been spared. Griffith hasn’t learnt how to deal with copious amounts of gunsmoke, and is limited by static cameras but boy can he edit.
Track 29 (1988)Nic Roeg inadvisedly dives into Dennis Potter’s predilection for infantilism while Gary Oldman screams FREUUUDDDDD!!!! Exploring the interface between childhood and the development of sexuality is always going to risk a plummet into repugnancy. It would help if there was some subtlety, or a careful calculation of when to deploy metaphor and subtext. Instead Gary Oldman and Theresa Russell have been left under a sun-lamp overnight to make sure they’re both charged to maximum insanity levels for a morning of incest and acting. Nice train wreck montage.
Tarantella (1940)Mary Ellen Bute animates music and with a degree of paranoia and a reference to her dictionary. A mood a little before its time, this choreographing of abstract lines and rings on bold slabs of colours. It captures a pre-Cold War (and even pre-WWII) technological fear. Oscilloscopular pulses of line jag. Offset four-colour printed rings in blue and red spread and contract as invisible drops of something scientific fall onto her canvas. A rational age attempting to dance away a spider’s bite. Too late.
The Black Tower (1987)John Smith indulges in a no-cost experiment of almost still photography and barely-acknowledged terror. A city lives, botches its demolitions and maintains its trees while a man consumes his Pantone breakfast with only the Mexican who lives in his ceiling for company. Architecture stalks him to a soundtrack of Mariachi bands and Monty Python footsteps. An esoteric combination of the utterly mundane with the nagging death-wish we all suppress. Creepy, unique, and compelling.
Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios (1988) aka Women on the Verge of a Nervous BreakdownPedro Almodovar realises it isn’t a farce if there aren’t multiple on-screen costume changes. Hyper-reality splashed throughout, this is the disarrayed logic of a person coming to terms with rejection; thrown into the whirlwind instead of downing the gazpacho. Amazing design and style, there isn’t a single colour that is not hurled at the screen. It’s done with such tight control of pace and action that there isn’t confusion at all. It swerves away from chaos, lightly brushes the bizarre and allows the cast to visibly enjoy themselves. A properly fun farrago.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) - Rewatch
School isn’t fun any more for Harry Potter. By the fifth entry in a self-contained film universe, the weight of the cannon and the length of the cast list frequently condemn franchises to stodgy fan service, plot recycling, and cameos. Because this has the books for guidance, it subverts the rules. A timely study of how an unwitting conspiracy of the fearful can use reasonableness as a mask to avoid and oppress. It’s unfortunate that the solution follows standard narrative patterns and ends with a magical shootout in an archive of CGI balls.
The Mummy (1932)Karl Freund, experienced expressionist cinematographer and first time director, lives up to his qualifications. The look is tremendous. The costumes, the sets, the sweeping camera movements, the lighting and the make-up all work together to create ever-lasting images, many of which only ever appeared in your head rather than on screen. It’s such a shame about the acting and especially the direction. Save for Bramwell Fletcher’s astonishing crazed laughter, it’s stilted and wooden enough to be early stop-motion with the brakes on.
Phantasm (1979)The doodles of the young Don Coscarelli betray a troubled mind. It’s tempting to shrug this of as an amateur mess of confused ideas. And that’s what it is. Imagine this film springing from the mind of the lead character, and it makes more sense. How does a young boy cope with grief, bereavement and reality of death? Terror and loss and evil flying robots. It’s got a nightmarish-Giallo-unreal quality about it, not often seen in low-budget US horror. Childhood ends screaming, wanting its Mum when she’s no longer there.