Mid-winter classic

Posted on January 31, 2012 by journey

“Even winter bleak has charms to me,” wrote Robert Burns. Seems like most filmmakers scribbled that memorable line of verse on a post-it note a long time ago. Snow-covered vistas are an irresistible visual, capably employed by directors from the Coen Brothers to Sam Raimi to Christopher Nolan to John Carpenter. Any movie set in a frosty environment has an automatic in with me, and one of my favorites is the little-seen 1987 thriller De ad Of Winter.

M ary Stee nburgen plays an actress who is lured to a remote, snow-bound mansion, only to discover that she’s become ensnared in a lethal game of blackmail. Shrill and largely helpless at first, she slowly turns the tables on her captors, outwitting them using her skills as a performer. This throwback thriller (loosely based on the 1945 film My Name Is Julia Ross) plays like a feature-length version of Where’s Waldo for cinephiles: spot all the Hitchcock references! Some are obvious (shrieking violins as a knife plunges), but some are quite subtle (a tall glass of milk on a platter, as per Suspicion). Roddy McDowall steals the show as the droll, effete, eccentric manservant. Meanwhile, the underrated Jan Rubes (so paternally benevolent in Witness) is deliciously evil in a hammy villain role, the sinuous tones of every syllable he speaks suggesting guile and charm in equal measures.

The movie nicely conveys the chill of winter, with whistling windstorms, snowglobe-style visuals and a sparse piano-based score. But the entertaining tone makes the film a good deal less depressing than some of the other movies that utilize similar environments (downers like Fargo, A Simple Plan, et cetera, which used barren settings to mirror the bleak desperation of their characters). Thematically, it plays much in the same key as Rob Reiner’s Misery – a violent but highly diverting cold-weather chiller.

So, when the mercury dips and you decide to stay in for the night, check out Dead Of Winter. A cup of hot chocolate in hand will help, too (just don’t let Roddy McDowall prepare it – trust me on this one).

The final home video frontier: The Next Generation on Blu-ray

Posted on January 25, 2012 by journey

Director Terence Young was once asked what the three main ingredients to Dr. No’s success were. The British filmmaker didn’t hesitate: “Sean Connery, Sean Connery, Sean Connery.”

When I think of Star Trek: The Next Generation, now spruced up on Blu-ray, my thoughts are much the same. “Patrick Stewart, Patrick Stewart, Patrick Stewart.” Just when you begin to be distracted by the claustrophic sets, soap-opera acting, and sometimes trite moralizing, on comes Patrick Stewart, and you remember what makes the series so great.

Like several other British actors of his generation (most notably Anthony Hopkins), he is able to combine the emotional authenticity and immediacy of a Hoffman or De Niro with the crisp diction and mechanics of an Olivier. The stage-bred Yorkshireman was not an intuitive choice for the French captain Jean-Luc Picard, but he makes the role his own. Dispensing with any attempt at a Gallic accent, Stewart plays it straight, and is convincing even when the dialogue he must spout is less than scintillating. At every turn, he projects a humanity, intelligence, charm and class that makes the character one of the very finest in the Trek universe.

But perhaps I am not giving the show its proper due in focusing on its one strongest element only. In fact, there is much to enjoy. The show is always concerned with thought-provoking ideas, from the nature of the human experience to the puzzles of language (sometimes clumsily explored; the immensely imaginative creator Gene Roddenberry was never well-versed in subtlety). Moreover, Brent Spiner’s android character Data is paradoxically one of the show’s most relatable characters, seeking with each episode to understand and become more like his human crewmates. The recurring villains are well-developed and suitably threatening in unique ways – John De Lancie’s Q is playful, impish and often quite funny even as he menaces the Enterprise; the Borg are relentless, mechanistic and frightening in their threat to eliminate individuality. Even Roddenberry’s decision to re-use the Star Trek: The Motion Picture theme, with its strident, perfectly pitched evocation of a starship reaching warp speed, enhances the atmosphere wonderfully.

These elements tend to overshadow the occasional black-hole of an episode (“Shades of Gray”, anyone?) and the inherent corniness of some of Trek‘s signature conceits (the Dust Buster ray guns, pajama uniforms, et cetera).

Some of the effects are dated by today’s standards, and the show has never had the same bright visual dazzle that the TNG films had. Paramount has sought to rectify this by rebuilding each episode from the original film elements (transferred to video for original broadcast) and adding all-new computer effects.

The new Blu-ray sampler, an appetizer for the complete sets that Paramount plans to release, contains four episodes: the two-part pilot “Encounter at Farpoint”; the emotionally-tinged, moving “Inner Light”; and the Worf-centric “Sins of the Father.”

5 Gags You May Have Missed In National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

Posted on December 23, 2011 by journey

Holiday films fall into two categories: those with at least a hint of magic and the supernatural (The Santa Clause, It’s A Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol) and those that leave the mystical behind and focus on family gatherings (dysfunctional or otherwise). National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation falls into the latter category, and it’s arguably the best of the subgenre: classic comic timing from Chevy Chase in his best role; hilarious comedy setpieces; zingy, fun dialogue from John Hughes; and just the right dose of Yuletide heart.

If you’re like me, you notice subtle little gags every time you watch the movie. Here are a few that I picked up only after repeat viewings:

Clumsy Cousin Eddie: When Clark and Cousin Eddie are shopping at the supermarket, watch Clark repeatedly attempt to put delicate objects like light bulbs into the cart, only to have them smashed when Eddie plops big bags of dog food on top of them.

Fashion Sense: Take a look at Cousin Eddie’s outfit when he and Clark are chatting in front of the Christmas tree shortly after Eddie’s arrival. True to his clueless, country bumpkin form, Eddie is not only wearing a far-too-tight white sweater, he’s also combined it with a painfully obvious black mock turtleneck.

Great Minds Think Alike: When Clark enters boss Mr. Shirley’s (Brian Doyle-Murray, brother to Bill Murray) office to give him a Christmas present, take a look at the gifts on the table from the other employees… they’re all exactly the same shape.

“It’s just a little dry”: The dinner table scene is full of subtle bits of physical comedy that are easy to miss if you don’t happen to be looking at the right part of the scene. Some highlights: Ellen surreptiously flicks the inedible turkey from her fork, Clark accidentally wipes his mouth on his holiday tie, and Cousin Eddie amuses himself by playing the old “here is the church; here is the steeple” game.

Only in France: Next time you watch, flick on the French subtitles. In France, the film is known by the rather bawdy title of Le Sapin A Des Boules. Translation? The Fir Tree Has Balls. Hmmmm.

Bah, humbug! Team Video gets in the Christmas spirit

Posted on December 15, 2011 by journey

humbug scrooge Bah, humbug! Team Video gets in the Christmas spirit

Grab a cup of eggnog (or smoking bishop, if you’re really keen to set the proper mood), curl up next to a cozy fire and listen to Team Video’s holiday podcast. Alex and I take on the most famous holiday tale of them all, Charles Dickens‘s A Christmas Carol. Get set for all the festivities as we guide you through nine major adaptations of the beloved story, from the high-gloss MGM version to the famous Alastair Sim portrayal, to the big budget CGI effort from Robert Zemeckis and more. Which ones bring classic Dickensian holiday cheer, and which ones are like a big lump of coal in your stocking?

Listening options:

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48 years later: JFK on film

Posted on November 22, 2011 by journey

John F. Kennedy was assassinated 48 years ago today, bringing a tragic close to a life that was filled with as many cinematic twists and turns as anything you’ll find at the local multiplex. In memory of one of America’s most celebrated presidents, let’s take a look back at the top on-screen Kennedys, and which actors best captured both his unique appeal and dark flaws.

Greg Kinnear in The Kennedys

The thrilling title sequence portends a crackling retelling of a great American story, assembling all the most energized visuals of the series to a throbbing score from Sean Callery. Alas, the series can’t deliver on the high-tempo promise of its intro. It wants to be Oliver Stone‘s Nixon - a warts-and-all portrait that nevertheless maintains a sympathetic attitude towards its subject – but director Jon Cassar has nowhere near the skill set of Stone. With no interesting or new angle, the series atrophies very quickly into a big-budget game of dress-up, where even the Cuban missile crisis is treated with the yawn-inducing torpor of a bored adjunct professor. Even so, Greg Kinnear manages a very solid performance as Kennedy, suggesting the humanity of the character (particularly in his tender moments with Jackie) without relying too much on histrionics. Bonus points for Tom Wilkinson’s scene-stealing turn as Joe Kennedy Sr.!

William Petersen in The Rat Pack

Former CSI‘er Petersen probably doesn’t need to practice saying “I’d like to thank the Academy” any time soon, but he is an effective Kennedy in this breezy movie about the Kings of Cool. In fact, Frank Sinatra’s strained relationship with Kennedy dominates the movie to such a degree that it could easily be retitled Frank And Jack. Petersen and Ray Liotta (as Sinatra) play well off one another, maintaining a captivating sense of camaraderie even as they tease out the complex emotional valences of their friendship. Rob Cohen directs with polish and confidence, making both Petersen’s performance and this film one of the better Kennedy-related projects.

Himself in JFK

Okay, this is a bit of a cheat, but who better to play Kennedy than the man himself? Oliver Stone uses archive footage and speech excerpts to suggest the presence and power of the president, only occasionally resorting to stand-ins in long shots. When you add John Williams’s heartfelt score, the movie is able to conjure the Kennedy myth with more skill than any of the straight-forward biopics. The opening sequence alone, with its chilling transition from Kennedy’s famous speech at American University to Sally Kirkland’s desperate pleas about the impending assassination, contains more emotional punch than the entire 2011 miniseries. The film’s historical accuracy may be debated, but as nerve-jangling, heartrending cinema, JFK is one of the best.

Bruce Greenwood in Thirteen Days

Greenwood retroactively poisoned this performance slightly by appearing as the commander-in-chief in National Treasure 2, but taken on its own merits, this is the definitive on-screen take of the 35th president. Eschewing the Frank Caliendo-style impersonation that plagues most Kennedy performances, Greenwood plays the role straight. This is a risky decision with any figure as familiar as JFK, but it gives the audience a direct line to Kennedy’s emotional core without the mediation of a ham-fisted accent or impression. If you have doubts, just listen to Kevin Costner’s nauseating “have you seen this report caaahd?” Boston accent, which has all the appeal of a heaping spoonful of day-old New England clam chowder.

What have we learned? The best screen JFKs leave the accent at Harvard Yard, pull Kennedy off the half-dollar and focus on the elements that render him human . . . friendships, family, moments of vulnerability, or the softer elements in his famous public addresses. We all know the iconographic Kennedy, pronouncing his new vision of America, but it’s those unguarded moments, filled in by actors and screenwriters, that make the slain leader one of cinema’s most interesting presidents.

Also check out:

Martin Sheen in the 1983 miniseries Kennedy, William Devane in the docudrama The Missiles Of October and Patrick Dempsey as a young Kennedy in Reckless Youth

American Pie redux

Posted on November 8, 2011 by journey

American Pie: Reunion will be released next April, capping the popular ’90s sex comedy series. This presumably means another round of sexual hijinks, more mugging from Seann William Scott, more awkwardness from Jason Biggs and another eye-rolling batch of pie puns in the media. The movie centers on a high school reunion, a set-up that lends itself to nostalgia but very little narrative innovation. Can Pie 4 score with such a formula?

Straight-to-video sequels aside, the franchise has been dormant since American Wedding in 2003, which had strong ticket sales but did not match the high-water mark of American Pie 2 in 2001.

The large cast from 1999′s American Pie is re-assembled almost in full for Reunion. The careers of most of these original players have flattened out to an extent, so it’s not hard to see why they re-signed for this final (?) installment. Eugene Levy, the only actor to appear in all the original films and the DVD-only spin-offs, also returns as Jim’s (Jason Biggs) dad.

Here’s a look at the first trailer:

Perhaps the R-rated portions, not permitted in this green-band trailer, will offer something fun, but the film still looks essentially like a feature-length curtain call for the original trilogy. The trailer doesn’t give us much to excite interest and instead seems to be content saying things like “Remember Stifler? Wasn’t he funny back in the day?” This is fine, as long as audiences are in the mood for nostalgia.

The filmgoers who made the initial Pie films box office hits came from an overlap of two generations. It caught the first few cohorts of the Millennial Generation and the last couple from Gen X, meaning its original audience is somewhat diffuse. Will this group, now in their late 20s and early 30s, feel enough residual fondness to make Reunion a box office success? ‘90s redux sequels haven’t fared particularly well (Scream 4, anyone?), but they didn’t trade as explicitly on nostalgia as Reunion seems to. The movie has a distinct “hey, remember shop class?” feel to it, and this might play in its favor. Who doesn’t love seeing an old friend after years apart? Sure, you both might be graying a little at the temples, but that old chemistry and sense of fun is still there. At its best, American Pie: Reunion will be like that pal from years past.

Bond 23 gets a title

Posted on November 4, 2011 by journey

The newest James Bond movie finally has an official title: Skyfall.

Well, at least it isn’t something like Modicum Of Abatement. Bond titles tend to fall into one of three categories: fatalistic poetics (You Only Live Twice, Die Another Day, A View To A Kill) codenames (Thunderball, Goldeneye, Moonraker), or villain names (Dr. No, Goldfinger, The Man With The Golden Gun). I will tentatively place Skyfall into the second category. (Despite the fact that Bond himself is the lone thing to appear in all 23 films, only The Spy Who Loved Me refers directly to agent 007. Strange.)

My immediate association with Chicken Little aside, Skyfall seems a sound enough choice. It is Ian Fleming-esque without the opaqueness of Quantum Of Solace or the banality of Die Another Day. Positioning two near-antonyms next to each other subtly sets the stage for an epic clash of hero and villain. The “K” is just close enough to the two “l’s” to evoke the word “kill.” (Lethality is always a welcome motif for 007, whose original logo of a number 7 melding into a gun-barrel set the tone.) Title now in place, will the latest in the Bond series be able to continue in the creative groove of recent successes Quantum Of Solace and in particular Casino Royale?

The team assembled by producers Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli is a good start. Sam Mendes will direct, and the impressive cast includes Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes and Albert Finney in addition to returning stars Daniel Craig and Judi Dench. Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, scribes behind quip clunkers like “Christmas comes but once a year,” are somehow still employed as the screenwriters, but welcome counterweights John Logan (Gladiator) and Patrick Marber (Notes On A Scandal) put my mind at ease to an extent.

Unlike Casino Royale and Quantum Of Solace, which essentially told one long connecting story, the new Bond will start afresh with a new, independent plotline. This is something of a return to the older template, where each Bond movie was its own self-contained adventure. The recent Bond films gave the character a long-overdue makeover, nudging the character back to his literary origins as a man on the edge. The 23^rd installment of the durable series will presumably continue that particular trajectory, at the very least.

Skyfall will ultimately boil down to the man playing agent 007, and thus far Daniel Craig’s interpretation has rivaled the two best Bonds. Sean Connery’s original performance hinged on his unusual combination of catlike grace and brute masculinity. He’d punch you in the face with the lithe elegance of a ballet dancer, yet somehow still come across the manliest guy around. His was a Bond of “bruising finesse” – a truck driver who’s gone to finishing school. Roger Moore, a highly underrated 007, personified Bond in the sense that most people know him: impossibly charming, always cool, always entirely in control. There is a bit of patrician obligation in Moore’s Bond, an upper-class duty to combat evil, instead of a deeply-felt moral imperative.

Craig’s 007, despite his immaculate suits and posh accent, is the working class Bond. Martinis don’t interest him much. Baccarat? Forget it. He’d rather play poker. There is a whiff of workaday Northern England resentment in his Bond, a bitterness at where his life has taken him. In my mind, his tuxedos should be smudged with coal dust and his shoes should have steel toes. When he throws a punch, it is charged by the rancor of a difficult life. It will be interesting to see where Craig takes this vinegary temperament in his third go-round as Bond, particularly absent the guidance of continuing plotlines from Casino and Quantum.

Mendes, director of American Beauty and Revolutionary Road, knows how to manipulate complicated fictional personages. On the surface, he is an inspired choice as director, but I do wonder how well he will handle the action sequences. To date, handing the franchise over to character-oriented directors has given us mixed results (take the efforts of Michael Apted, Lee Tamahori and Marc Forster).The best Bond films (Casino Royale, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, The Spy Who Loved Me) had a technically-oriented director who gave just enough attention to character to keep us emotionally involved. Nevertheless, any series that has so many installments that it would be a bust score in blackjack probably welcomes new perspectives and approaches. Martini glasses crossed that Mendes’s character-driven style and Craig’s on-edge Bond meld for a worthy 50th-anniversary 007 adventure.

Skyfall is slated for release November 9, 2012 in the U.S.

Halloween II, too?

Posted on October 31, 2011 by journey

Halloween II turns 30 this year and was recently given the Blu-ray treatment. Team Video discussed this film briefly in our horror sequels podcast, but in honor of Halloween, I thought I would tip my hat (mask?) to this unusually strong horror follow-up (*spoiler alert herein for certain key plot points*).

It picks up precisely where the John Carpenter-directed part one left off, giving us another 90 minutes of Michael Myers’s killing spree in Haddonfield, Illinois. In this sense, the film is a classic “more of the same” sequel – it doesn’t attempt to veer off in a different direction, but instead offers what amounts to a “second helping” of the first. To that end, Halloween II, directed by Rick Rosenthal, has the same pared-down, evocative simplicity of the original.

The film plays in the same visual key as its predecessor, thanks in part to Dean Cundey’s atmospheric cinematography, and is filled with plenty of pleasing rhymes to the 1978 Carpenter installment. Night Of The Living Dead makes a cameo appearance, just as The Thing From Another World occasionally popped up on the TV set in Halloween. Alan Howarth effectively tweaks Carpenter’s original musical themes with synth textures, retaining the same urgency of the iconic piano material while infusing it with a fresh feel. Nick Castle does not return to play Michael Myers, but stuntman Dick Warlock nicely recaptures Myers’s bizarre manner of moving – catlike at times, stilted at others. There is something of the uncanny valley here . . . his motion is recognizably human, but with certain ineffable qualities that aren’t quite right. Particularly unsettling is Myers’s final assault on the hospital entrance – Myers simply walks straight through the door, breaking glass and metal but slowing down only slightly.

One of the most striking sequences is the final pursuit through the hospital, as Myers chases last-woman-standing Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) into an elevator. We can all recall moments when we impatiently fidgeted with elevator buttons, waiting for the doors to finally close. We can only squirm with a perverse delight to imagine a scenario where our very life depends on the speed of those doors closing! The editing and music here is perfectly calibrated to keep the tension on a slow agonizing rise.

Not everyone is as lucky as Laurie. Halloween II features some of the most grimly disturbing slayings in the entire series. Sure, there are spectacular send-offs, such as the grisly boiling of Nurse Karen during an ill-timed hot tub tryst. But it’s the less over-the-top sequences that linger in the memory: ambulance driver Jimmy’s slow death by apparent brain injury, or Mrs. Alves’ Dr. Phibes-esque drip, drip, drip blood-draining demise. Both conceptually and in their execution, these deaths are disorienting, unpleasant and surprisingly subtle.

The film is not without its problems. Having hero Laurie immobilized and stuck in a hospital makes the beginning of the movie somewhat slack. (This is a puzzling decision. Although Laurie was stabbed at the end of Halloween, stalker-film heroes have soldiered on through far worse wounds than this. Perhaps this was merely screenwriter Carpenter’s way of getting the story into the hospital, an admittedly strong environment for horror goings-on.) Plus, the twist of making Laurie the long-lost sister of Michael Myers seems like a dim appropriation of the ending of The Empire Strikes Back.

Nevertheless, Halloween II is a worthy successor to the original Halloween, rich in atmosphere and matching the first film’s beautiful evocation of the Halloween season. Plus, The Chordettes’ “Mr. Sandman” will never seem quite the same ever again . . .

Freud and Cronenberg get Dangerous

Posted on October 24, 2011 by journey

David Cronenberg meets Sigmund Freud (and Carl Jung)! Now, that’s a cross-generational chat I’d love to be a fly on the wall for! Unfortunately, barring miracles of resuscitation or a sudden breakthrough by Doc Brown, it’s little more than a fun thought experiment. Perhaps the next best thing will be to check out the director’s upcoming film about the two great minds, A Dangerous Method.

Freud’s ideas no longer have the same currency in academic circles that they once did, but there is little denying that he exerted a powerful influence. The great founder of analysis entered the world scene around the same time cinema began to take form, and the two have had a tempestuous relationship ever since.

While his ideas are a pervasive element of countless films, Freud himself has not been particularly well-represented on film. Montgomery Clift played Freud in a paint-by-numbers 1962 biopic. (No, that’s not a typo – Montgomery Clift played Freud. Perhaps there’s an unfinished project somewhere with Rock Hudson as Carl Jung?) Later, Alan Arkin tackled the role in an SNL-impression style for Herbert Ross’s fitfully entertaining Sherlock Holmes caper The Sever Per-cent Solution. And unless we’re going to count light-hearted cameos in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure or Alec Guinness’s ghost Freud in Lovesick, that’s about it.

Cronenberg appears ready to rectify the situation. His films, which as often as not contain at least one “threatening” word in the title (dangerous, violence, brood, crash, dead, rage, crimes, spider), have been putting us ill-at-ease and making us think for over three decades. His latest will perhaps finally give the influential Austrian neurologist his on-screen due:

Certainly, a sexually-charged psychodrama is the sort of material particularly suited to Cronenberg’s cinematic interests (obsessions?). The “Tell me about the first time you can remember being beaten by your father? . . . It excited me” exchange in the trailer neatly encapsulates some of the darkest themes in his works. With a fine cast including Viggo Mortensen, Keira Knightley and Michael Fassbender, A Dangerous Method looks like another Cronenberg mind-twister in the making. The movie opens November 23 in the U.S.

Who ya gonna call? Big-screen big screams

Posted on September 30, 2011 by journey

Multiple sources report that the 1984 classic Ghostbusters will receive a limited-run theatrical re-release in mid October. As an avowed lover of revival screenings, I’m excited to revisit the Bill Murray horror/comedy. While I would much prefer a large-scale theatrical run for John Carpenter’s Halloween (which, with its marvelous use of the full Panavision frame, is perfectly suited for cinematic re-release and big-screen TVs), Ghostbusters will still satisfy at least some of my yearly craving for ghouls and ghost and goblin host. Halloween aside, what spooky movies would benefit from a theatrical revival (or, at the very least, a re-watching on a mammoth HD screen)? Here are four I’ve seen at revival houses in the past few years, and how much oomph they have on the big screen.

City Of The Living Dead – Lucio Fulci’s bizarre Italian horror movies compensate for their awkward dubbing and plotless “storylines” with spectacular horror setpieces. You sink into your seat, staving off Mr. Sandman as stiff, boring actors exchange meaningless dialogue, and then Fulci whams you with something like the “splinter scene” from Zombie (a girl’s eye is slowly, inexorably, wince-inducingly drawn into a door splinter). City Of The Living Dead’s similar and equally infamous drill scene almost had me hiding under my cinema seat. And really, isn’t that just what we want from a horror movie?

Nosferatu – Odds are, if you catch this silent film fave in a theater, you’ll also be treated to a live musical performance. A wide variety of musical accompaniments have appeared on the DVD editions of the film, ranging from traditional organ to spooky, ambient new age. A nice string quartet, with the bowing violin as a shrill aural representation of vampire Nosferatu’s predatory gaze and bite, seems the ideal sonic complement to director F. W. Murnau’s haunting visuals.

Poltergeist – Don’t you just hate it when they move the cemetery but they leave the bodies? Effects-heavy movies always play best on the big screen. And admittedly, some of Steven Spielberg’s (oops, Tobe Hooper’s – let’s save that old controversy for another day) matte shots do look a little bit dated on home video. The big screen experience gives them all a distracting visual sweep, allowing you to enjoy the Freelings’ clash with restless spirits without thinking much about matte lines.

The Shining – The legendary genre effort is not shot in an ultra-widescreen format (in fact, all video versions until 2006 were in a full-screen, open matte format at the director’s behest), but the oft-mentioned Steadicam shots, to say nothing of that elevator unleashing torrents of blood, are ideal big screen fodder. And when little Danny spins round those corners in his Big Wheel, you’ll feel like you’re right there in the Overlook Hotel with him.

What old-school horror movies would you love to see playing again at your local cinema? Re-watch a few old favorites and post some suggestions in the comments section.

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