I don’t usually write about my personal life on this blog but this week’s viewings are inseparable from such, so forgive me. This week the stress of my impossible schedule finally caught up to me, and I had a near-complete breakdown which led to a long weekend and time to try and get my house in order. During this time I watched a list of completely random and mostly unrelated movies, as I struggled with inner-turmoil and tried to get my mind off such. Hopefully I’ll soon be on my way back to sanity (or normality anyway), but in the mean time you can enjoy this round-up of this weeks.
The Greatest Game Ever Played (2005
A pretty typical Disney sports underdog story. It's got about everything you'd expect from this sort of film: the lower-class. It's aimed strictly at kids, as adults are likely. The movie is reasonably entertaining, and gets some mileage of its fine performances by a pre-stardom Shia LaBeouf (thankfully lacking his annoying mannerisms) and Stephen Dillane as Harry Vardon, but nothing we haven't seen many times before.
The Last Command (1955, Frank Lloyd)
After a pleasant interview with the great Ernest Borgnine (quite interesting and entertaining, if severely lacking in SpongeBob-related discussion), this 1955 Western oater was one of the offerings (unfortunately, From Here to Eternity was on until 4 AM, and I wasn’t quite willing to stay up that late). It’s a pre-John Wayne account of the Battle of the Alamo, focusing on frontiersman Jim Bowie (Sterling Hayden) and on a much slimmer budget than the Duke’s version of the story. Pretty simplistic and a bit talky and stuff, but with good budget action scenes and a great supporting cast – besides Hayden, we have Ernest Borgnine, Slim Pickens, Arthur Hunnicut, Roy Easton, J. Carrol Naish, and Morris Ankrum – perhaps the best Western cast outside of Major Dundee. If nothing else, this movie reminded me that I need to revist The Alamo – one of my childhood favorites that hasn’t been viewed in years – in the near-future – when I can invest four hours of my time, of course.
Dead Reckoning (1947, John Cromwell)
Another late-night TCM viewing. This is a pretty good film noir starring (who else?) Humphrey Bogart as an ex-paratrooper investigating the murder of one of his army buddies. It’s pretty much a textbook example of the genre (if indeed you take it as a genre – but that’s an argument I won’t pursue here): the moody, expressionistic lighting and cinematography, the improbably hard-boiled and arch dialogue, the luscious femme fatale (Lizabeth Scott), the bad guys who aren’t what they seem – and Humphrey Bogart, of course. Not the best of its genre, but it’s definitely worth watching, if only for the great climax where Bogie, meeting the villain in his office, corners his adversaries with a pair of napalm grenades.
Stella Maris (1918, Marshall Neilan)
This is the second silent film we’ve watched in Intro to Film Theory (after last week’s viewing of D.W. Griffith’s Broken Blossoms), and I must say I find them very hard to write about because of the utter alienness of the silent film to me, plus whatever mental turmoil I was suffering at the time. (Of course, having to write essays on them makes it even more problematic.) It’s an interesting film with the beautiful Mary Pickford playing a dual role as the sheltered rich girl of the title and an Eliza Doolittle-esque Cockney scamp (“She’s a good girl, she is!”), but not overly entertaining. The film isn’t nearly as good as Griffith’s film, nor as interesting in terms of story or technical aspects (though lacking in the patronizing racism). I did find the parallel dog romance amusing though.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003, Jonathan Mostow)
This was my first viewing of this film in years, on AMC (which has completely forfeited all of its credibility in the last five years or so), and I found my original opinion of a dumb but fun shoot-‘em-up flick turned to a waste of time. I think the first two Terminators are among the best of their genre – the thoughtful sci-fi/action movie, a rarity in modern Hollywood, giving while giving the audience. The third installment, however, is a remarkably juvenile and childish follow-up, pitched at the level of addled-brained cartoon without an ounce of wit or imagination. The film is a cookie-cutter action flick, rehashing the easy parts of the first two films while leaving the best aspects behind – even the action scenes lack flair or interest. Even Arnold is too busy parodying himself to be an interesting protagonist, and Kristina Loken is just lame. (I also note AMC’s ridiculously eclectic censorship guidelines: dozens of people being graphically machine-gunned is alright, but Claire Danes saying “Shit!” is off-limits. I guess that makes as much sense as calling this movie, or Catwoman, an “American Movie Classic” though.)
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008, Rob Cohen)
The first Mummy film was a junior high favorite, a rollicking bit of ridiculous fun with a great sense of humor. Mummy Returns was a watered-down, somewhat juvenile rehash with a few inventive elements and some fun action scenes. This installment, coming from the director of XXX and The Fast and the Furious, is so lame that even a non-discerning three year old wouldn’t get much out of it. My brother Brendan and I made it about five minutes into the tedious, overwrought prologue (about the time when Jet Li went “Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs”) that we decided that it was shit and gave it a full-on MST3K treatment. The movie has some of the worst action scenes in cinema history (particularly the car/demon chariot chase through Shanghai), ridiculously fake effects and humor that wouldn’t make a four year old laugh – plus some absolutely pathetic and ludicrous deus ex machina (Yeti’s anyone?). And forgive me, but is the bad guy’s plan of blocking Mao Tse-Tung’s rise to power REALLY such a bad thing? One line review: It sucks Yeti balls.
27 Dresses (2008, Anne Fletcher)
A banal, fluffy romantic comedy with few surprises and little wit. Pretty standard loser woman hooks up with adorable hunk story completely lacking in frills or originality. Katherine Heigel is a sweetie and it’s a shame the movie doesn’t offer much more than her pleasantness. I guess I’m just getting to the point where silly fluff, be it a dumb action film or a “chick flick” isn’t doing it for me anymore.
Nothing great, in fact several outright bad movies, but it was an odd week of eclectic films that provided some interest. But then, I had things going on inside the few centimeters of my skull that rendered movies trivial for once. At least I got a three-day weekend and a new computer out of this mess.
Oh, and in case you didn't know...
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