Only six this week. The one night I was out rehearsing was a date on which I'd never previously posted a review. But I'm making up for it with a trio of video clips, because I'm just that special.
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Arguably the best found-footage horror film and one of the few in which that format makes dramatic sense, Jaume Belaguero and Paco Plaza’s [REC] (2007, Prime) is a totally immersive film experience. A news magazine host (Manuela Velasco) and her cameraman, Pablo, are filming a typical night at a fire station when the crew to whom they’re assigned is called to answer a distress call from an apartment building. What they discover is the start of an infection that turns people into fast zombies, and before long they’re trapped with the tenants as the government seals off the building until the plague can be identified and a cure developed. You could get whiplash watching the film. Pablo is pretty quick on his feet. But Balaguero and Plaza wisely build at least one oasis into the picture — a series of often comic interviews as Velasco gets the tenants to talk about what’s going on. The infection has its convenient side. The medical examiner sent into the building states that the time between exposure and full-blown infection varies depending on one’s blood type. And since we don’t know the characters’ blood types, they can turn at whatever point suits the filmmakers. One has been holding on for over a day. Another gets bitten and it’s presto, instant zombie. But it’s the rare horror film that gets to me, and when my dog jumped off the sofa at a key point, I had to peel myself off the ceiling. Back in 2007, the film got some resonance from 9/11, with its depiction of policemen and fire fighters risking their lives in a building that reeks of death. It’s also got a more contemporary power now that we’re dealing with COVID. There’s even a character who’s a Spanish Karen. Balaguero and Plaza didn’t think the film would go anywhere and considered releasing it direct to DVD. But it took off at the international box office, inspiring three sequels in which one or both were involved, a tepid American remake, a spirited take-off on DRAG RACE ESPANA and even an immersive theatrical experience.
Women Talking
How far should forgiveness go? When does forgiveness become permission? These are the questions at the heart of Sarah Polley’s WOMEN TALKING (2022, Prime). The film is based on an actual case in Bolivia in which men in a Mennonite community gassed and raped 151 women between the ages of 3 and 65. Miriam Toews’ novel has the community’s elders, some of whom were complicit in the assaults and their cover-up, order the women to forgive their attackers or face ostracism. When the women are split between staying to fight or leaving on their own, members of the key families debate the issues. This could make for a very dry film, but Polley wisely breaks up the action visually with images, some from the past, some simply showing the children going about their lives in the community. She has the wisdom to get inside the women’s heads so you can understand people whose positions might be very far from your own. She also captures the power of an approaching utopian moment as women raised to see themselves as objects struggle to figure out how to become the subjects of their own stories. And she’s cast an amazing ensemble — Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Judith Ivey, Frances McDormand, Sheila McCarthy, Ben Whishaw (as the sympathetic teacher taking notes at the meeting) and August Winter — to bring the issues to life. The script is filled with tantalizing details about their lives. Mara is pregnant after her rape and will be forced to give her child to a married couple, possibly even her rapist. Winter has lived as a man since their rape (some critics have questioned the religious community’s accepting a trans man). McCarthy deals with problems by talking about her horses. It’s hard to single out a single cast member for praise, which may be why the highly regarded film didn’t score acting nominations in any of the major industry awards. But I was particularly impressed with Foy’s complete transformation into the angry Salome who tries to kill one of the rapists at the film’s start. And McCarthy has held a special place in my heart ever since I first saw her in I’VE HEARD THE MERMAIDS SINGING (1987). Her Greta is a masterpiece of understatement. Polley’s direction is clean and totally at the service of the material. It may seem sparse at first compared to the more frenetic films that tend to rule the box office. But if you can adjust to it, you’ll be well-rewarded for your openness of heart.
Relic
“Everything Decays” is the tagline for Natalie Erika James’ debut feature RELIC (2020, Shudder). Apparently, that applies to critics’ memories as much as the aging Edna (Robyn Nevin), whose mental and physical deterioration is a concern for daughter Emily Mortimer and granddaughter Bella Heathcote. The film won praise for its use of thriller and horror conventions to create a metaphor for the effects of aging on both those growing older and their younger family members. The three actresses do some good work, and early on the script by James and Christian White paints a realistic picture of intergenerational conflict with Mortimer trying to convince Nevin she can no longer care for herself alone while also confronting Heathcote over her life choices. But the script writes some checks it can’t cash. At one point, Nevin says there’s something under her bed. Mortimer looks, hears something breathing and then forgets about it. At various points, Nevin has conversations with something that isn’t there, but we never resolve whether it’s some kind of supernatural presence or a product of dementia. Later the metaphor takes over so completely there’s no real sense of what’s going on. The film ends with a potentially powerful image, but it’s presented so baldly you’re just as likely to laugh as to gasp with recognition. If you really want to see a good example of how to use horror to deal with the problems of aging, check out 2014’s THE TAKING OF DEBORAH LOGAN (Prime, Tubi), with magnificent performances by Jill Larson in the title role and Anne Ramsay as the daughter who’s not sure if her mother’s problems are dementia or demonic possession.
Five Miles to Midnight
For a while in the middle of Anatole Litvak’s FIVE MILES TO MIDNIGHT (1962, TCM, DailyMotion), I wondered why the film had never turned up on Eddie Muller’s “Noir Alley.” Sure, it has a weak opening. We’re thrown into the middle of the disastrous marriage between Anthony Perkins and Sophia Loren with no context and, like her friend Jean-Pierre Aumont, are left wondering how the two ever wound up with each other. And at first, Perkins doesn’t seem all that comfortable in the role. He’s posturing instead of acting. Then he’s seemingly killed in an air crash, and with the plane’s descent the picture takes off. It’s a relief to be freed from the performance he’s been giving, and Loren looks smashing in her widow’s weeds. When he turns up again, having miraculous escaped the crash with a plan to get rich defrauding the flight insurance company, his performance falls into place. You can see the boyish charm that must have attracted her in the first place, and then you see that charm coalesce into something more neurotic and almost menacing. It all reeks of corruption, and Loren plays her predicament quite well as the normal person pulled into her role as Perkins’ accomplice. Henri Alekan’s black-and-white cinematography, Alexander Trauner’s art direction and Guy DeRoche’s costumes, particularly Loren’s black vinyl trench coat, come together to fit one of Muller’s definitions of film noir as the place where style meets suffering. Then it all goes kerflooey in the last act. I can’t go into specifics about what doesn’t work without creating spoilers so let’s just say that by the end you’re wondering how an earth mother like Loren could get sucked into all this — both her husband’s plot and the Peter Viertel-Hugh Wheeler script, which includes a rather unfortunate mad scene. After the debacle of DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS (1958), their first film together, I kept expecting Loren to turn to Perkins and say “This is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.”
The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue
I originally saw Jorge Grau’s THE LIVING DEAD AT THE MANCHESTER MORGUE (1974, Shudder) during its U.S. theatrical release as DON’T OPEN THE WINDOW. It’s also been released as LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE, DO NOT PROFANE THE SLEEP OF THE DEAD, DO NOT SPEAK ILL OF THE DEAD, ZOMBI 3 and ten other titles. Don’t let that questionable provenance fool you. Although it’s far from the greatest zombie film ever made and has its share of flaws, it’s also far from total monkey dump. It’s got a strong environmental viewpoint, beautiful location photography of the English countryside, a camp performance by an Irish-accented Arthur Kennedy as the world’s dumbest police inspector and the lovely and talented Ray Lovelock one of the hottest hunks in European genre films. Lovelock is an antiques dealer on the way to Windermere when a beautiful redhead (Cristina Galbo) backs into his motorcycle. He dragoons her into giving him a lift, then accompanies her to visit her drug-addicted sister (Jeanine Mestre) in Southgate, an area where experiments with a sonic pesticide have caused the dead to rise and feast on various body parts. Grau contrasts shots of pollution and overcrowding in London with the idyllic countryside to position the deadly sonic pesticide as another step in humanity’s destruction of nature. At one point, Lovelock turns off the car radio when a commentator starts trying to debunk environmental concerns. What did he expect listing to the Vivek Ramaswamy station? The scenes with the zombies are truly frightening, though they may be too gory for some. But the fight scenes are clumsily, almost laughably staged. And though the two male leads are good, Galbo is basically a blank face and Mestre’s depiction of a drug addict is almost ludicrous, like Marion Cotillard channeling Andrea Martin’s greatest hits. But the film has a queasy power, not just because of the gore but also because of the different types of zombies, from the seemingly normal homeless man who starts the apocalypse to an accident survivor with a bandaged head and profuse autopsy scars. You may laugh in a lot of places, but there are images you won’t soon forget.
Thank Your Lucky Stars
During World War II, most of the major studios produced all-star musicals, usually built around some kind of benefit performance, to raise money for the war effort. David Butler’s THANK YOUR LUCKY STARS (1943, TCM) was the first of two such films Warner Bros. made to support the Hollywood Canteen, which is natural as it was founded by two of their biggest stars, Bette Davis and John Garfield. Early on, aspiring composer Joan Leslie says of a makeshift community of show-biz hopefuls, “It’s either very quaint or very corny.” I wasn’t feeling well last night, so I leaned toward the former as a cure for what ailed me. The plot is negligible. Producer Edward Everett Horton and composer S.Z. Sakall want to do a benefit with Dinah Shore, but since she works for Eddie Cantor, they can’t find a way to get her without letting him take over the show. Meanwhile, aspiring singer Dennis Morgan tries to get into the show with help from Leslie and an actor who can’t get work because he looks too much like Cantor. Yes, it’s Cantor in a double role, though the joke is that Cantor as Cantor plays a nightmarish egomaniac while his double is more like Cantor’s real image. Arthur Schwartz and Frank Loesser wrote some catchy upbeat songs — including the title number, impeccably sung by Shore, and Davis’ “They’re Either Too Young or Too Old” — and some soupy ballads. Part of the film’s charm is seeing performers not noted for musical skills sing and dance, with special honors to Garfield for doing a version of “Blues in the Night” that spoofs his screen image. Choreographer Leroy Prinze deserves a lot of credit for coming up with a dancing style to suit Errol Flynn’s image, throwing Davis into a jitterbug number, turning Olivia de Havilland (dubbed) and Ida Lupino into bobbysoxers and staging a bang-up number headed by Hattie McDaniel, who should have done more musicals. Watch closely and you’ll catch Ruth Donnelly as a surgical nurse, Henry Armetta as a barber, Frank Faylen as a sailor, Mike Mazurki as Cantor’s trainer, Mary Treen as an autograph hound and Butler and producer Mark Hellinger as themselves. As icing on the cake, you get to see Spike Jones and his City Slickers do “Otchi Chornya.”
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