This was probably my most anticipated film of 2025. I have been charmed by Paddington in two previous films, both of which I can say are of the utmost quality and have huge entertainment value. While our wonderful title character continues to provide whimsical charisma a plenty, it is not enough to overcome the story foundations of this film. “Paddington in Peru” is the first of these movies that feels completely like a children’s film. There is not enough here to sustain love for a long period of time, there is just enough to keep it interesting for it’s run time, but that’s all.
Maybe the fact that the movie switches from a simple visit back to Peru to see Aunt Lucy, to suddenly becoming a missing bear film with a treasure hunt thrown in, makes it feel contrived rather than clever. We still get the bear out of water moments that made the first two movies so winning, but here they feel a little less natural and manufactured. Paddington manages to get the Brown family to accompany him because of a new boss at Mr. Brown’s work, who wants the actuarials of the insurance company to take some risks. My, what a coincidence. The pending empty nest of the Browns is also an incentive to take a journey to the Amazon.
Once they arrive in South America, we can feel that there is something afoot. The new characters introduced are much too blasé about a missing bear, and the clues are a little obvious. When we encounter Antonio Banderas as a boat captain for hire, we start to cross the line into silliness. The captain has his own quirks and those become a side show to the main story. Olivia Coleman joins Banderas as the characters doing their best to live up to the standard provided by Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant in the previous movies, but even their combined efforts fall short. This is the storytelling, not the actors fault.
Too many things in the movie just feel random. I know that happened in the other stories too, but there was usually an explanation or a gag that made it fit together. I never felt like it jelled as well with this film. Maybe, with characters like this, you need a stronger story. Tot Story has succeeded four times, because they spent time making a story worth telling rather than a story that simply allows us to continue with the characters.
“Paddington in Peru” is not a bad movie, but it was a disappointment for me, simply because my expectations were so high. By all means go and see this film, the main character continues to be a delight. Just hold down you expectations and be sure to take some kids with you, they will probably enjoy some of the treasure hunt.
Updating a classic monster to contemporary times sometimes requires a little creativity. The Wolfman from 1940, was a Universal horror movie that featured a Sad Sack leading character slowly being turned into a murderous animal. He had a fairly warm relationship with his father, he met a girl he was interested in, and he was way laid by a werewolf and thus began his own transformation. The formula for the movie today varies this a little bit. The main protagonist is still a bit of a sad sack, but he has a great relationship with his daughter, a strange relationship with his father, and is married to a woman that he loves but is growing distant from. His transformation doesn’t wait for a full moon, and it is a slow build. We don’t have to wait for a silver bullet, we just know that there are monsters out there and that our main characters are going to be threatened.
It’s a little bit odd that I saw this movie the night after I saw Flight Risk. Both movies are essentially three character stories, mainly set in one location. A lot of horror movies benefit from the simplicity of such a setting because it forces the directors to become creative how Danger can be just about anywhere. Director Leigh Whannel, is an Old Pro at making horror films, and does a pretty good job at tightening the screws up. Wolfman is a Slow Burn is but it is generally effective.
My reservations about the film are mostly due to the casting and performances. The lead actress, Julia Garner, who was so wonderful in the TV series Ozark, is miscast in this role. She seems to be too young for the kind of character she is supposed to be portraying. She is also not as emotionally engaged in the first part of the film if she needs to be to make the second part of the film work. She does fine with the fear elements of the script, but her characters connection with her husband feels detached and Lacks energy. I did think however she had a good moment when the family picks up a neighbor as they are trying to locate instead. That may have been her best scene in the film.
The husband , played by Christopher Abbott, is also so low-key that it takes us a while to recognize anything is really a danger to him. His physical transformation is put off for quite a while, and well there are animalistic characteristics, it is mostly his physical activity rather than his appearance that makes him wolf like. There are two or three really good bits of business that illustrate this transformation without his face growing hair. I don’t want to give too much away let’s just say when he investigates a noise upstairs in the house his discovery of its source is one of the best surprises in the film. The other element of the movie that works well in showing how he is losing his Humanity and ability to relate to his family, is the 180° camera move that changes perspectives from the husband to the wife and Back Again. The filters used, and the visual effects as well as the sound editing are very clever it explaining exactly what’s going on.
There are a few jump scares, and there is quite a bit of screaming and panic as dangerous characters Chase the family around The Farmhouse and barn that are the primary locations of the film. By the way the film is set in Oregon, produced in New Zealand, and largely shot in Ireland. I’m sure this hybrid of locations is a result of financing rather than artistic choices. I did mention that there are primarily three characters in the story, but they aren’t the only ones that do play A Part. Early on, we get a sequence that sets up our main character as a young boy, and tells us of the life he led with a paranoid prepper father. I suppose it is supposed to set up the characters actions later in the film, but I found the sequence to be the most suspenseful and interesting in the movie. Too bad it’s over in the first 10 minutes.
This is not a bad film, it’s just not as good as it ought to be. The characters are sympathetic but I never felt particularly engaged by them, with the exception of the relationship between the little girl and the story and her father. It’s just too bad that most of the suspense elements of the film focus on the mother’s actions, and it simply feels like any other horror chase film where the character is being pursued they can to improvise and get away from the monster that’s chasing them. The movie sets up the idea that there is a subtext, but never delivers on that. It stays at a very surface level, which is okay for a horror film, but keeps it from being particularly distinctive.
Francis Ford Coppola has created his dream project, and I’m afraid for many people it will be a nightmare. Megalopolis is an ambitious film that is nearly incoherent in its first half, wait let me take out that modifier and say in a very clear way that it is incoherent in its first half. That’s one of the reasons that I was hating this movie for the first hour. Unless you were up on your Marcus Aurelius and your history of the Roman Empire, you will be lost on a regular basis. But even if you’ve recently read extensively about those subjects, you will still be lost because Coppola does not have a narrative structure in that part of the film. It consists of characters being introduced with long passages of dialogue that sometimes mimic the words of a Roman senator or those of a Shakespearean character. For what reason we don’t really know, and Coppola isn’t going to tell us. All of this is happening while we are being Bedazzled by visuals that are original and startling in their conception, but are not clear in function. Meanwhile there appears to be I’m going on in the time space continuum that is not clear at all. So welcome to the film.
Having said this about the movie, I do want to adjust my opinion a little bit as we get to the second hour, where there appears to be a little bit more narrative structure. And I do mean just a little bit more. It was however enough for me latch onto the film and begin to find more redeeming elements to it than just the visuals. Coppola appears to be trying to say something about consumerism, ambition, corporate capitalism, and the traditional corruption of democratic societies. Exactly trying to say about all of these things though remains ambiguous. He has big things on his mind, but we have to Wade through his mind to figure out what it all is about, and it’s a jungle in there.
As usual I’m going to forgo trying to recap the whole story for you, there are plenty of other sites online that will attempt to do that for you. I’m just going to give you my general impressions and a little bit of advice about whether or not to see the movie. I will tell you, that I hugely anticipated the film since it’s Premier back in Cannes in May. The word at the time was not hopeful, with many critics suggesting that the film was a complete mess, although visually stunning. That seemed enough for me to feel that the movie might have something for me that closes out copula’s career with something Worthy. I insisted on viewing this movie in an IMAX theater so I could get the visual impression that the director clearly wanted us to have. I think that was a good choice on my part. However as I watched the film, I was getting more and more depressed. Art needs to speak to you at some level, and without a narrative or characters that I cared about, this film was not reaching me. Even as an abstract piece of art it was problematic.
Once the characters began to function in a recognizable story, which involved conspiracy, subterfuge, and betrayal, I began to feel like there was something in the movie that I could understand. I was able to reinvest in the movie at that point, I guess is that there will be a lot of people who won’t get to that point. Even if someone does manage to stick it out with the film, they may not be willing to forgive the incoherent mess at the first half of the movie consists of. Apologists of Art that is abstract, and not easily consumed, will certainly find ways to recommend this film to the community of Cinema fanatics that might be tempted to view the movie. More power to them. For General moviegoers though this film is going to be, not challenging but off-putting. It is deliberately obtuse, and the characters are dense, and unlikable. Frequently actors engage in cartoonish performances, certainly encouraged by director Coppola. Shia LaBeouf and Aubrey Plaza are two of the actors who seem to be working in a completely different tone and mode than everyone else in the picture. It might even be true that their performances are the true soul of this extravagant farce that has been labeled a fable. Maybe if everyone else had gone in the same direction this movie would have been a more audience friendly success.
The passage of time May reflect well on the movie, but my readers, you were looking at this contemporaneously and so I must give you fair warning. This movie is not for everyone. In fact it’s probably not for most people. As a film artifact it will be interesting to look at down the road. As a film, playing in the movie theater, to a general audience, it’s simply a mess.
I’m not exactly sure why Coppola sets this movie in an imagined Roman Empire seated in the United States and headquartered in a place like New York City. Combining the Roman Empire with us hegemony seems like a interesting mix of allegories, but it also seems completely pretentious. When Adam Driver starts delivering monologue from Hamlet at the unveiling of a pitiful Casino model from his rival the mayor of New York, I started drifting. To be or not to be it needs a better answer than what this film gives us.
Matt Walsh is a conservative provocateur who has taken up filmmaking as a way of getting his message across. As a filmmaker his goal seems to be to create something entertaining not just a polemic on his philosophy. Of course that doesn’t mean that his views will not be a part of the film, it simply means that the way he’s going to present those views will be in film terms rather than in pundit form. His previous film “What is a Woman?” was available only on the Daily Wire platform, with a brief exception for a YouTube presentation to expose the film more broadly. His new film, “Am I Racist?” is being presented is a theatrical release and is available on 1500 screens around the country. This feels like a major departure for the Media Group that he is working with, and part of an overall goal to expand cultural entertainment to include conservative perspectives.
The approach that he takes in this film is similar to the one taken by Sacha Baron Cohen in his Borat films. Walsh assumes an identity, in order to interact with unsuspecting advocates of the DEI movement. When, pretending to be a fellow Traveler, he manages to get them to reveal their true thoughts and feelings about anti-racism and a variety of other ills. These are the most entertaining part of the film, because he’s letting them hoist themselves on their own petard. In an early sequence he attends an anti-racism training session, ones filled with rituals and comments that are simply shown to be odd in the way the people in the seminar act and speak. He inserts himself by asking frequent questions and offering comments to provoke responses from the seminar leader. The results are contentious, cringe-worthy, and hysterical. After being recognized, he later tactics, by arranging interviews with a variety of so-called anti-racist speakers, academics, and theorists. He poses as a DEI advocate on a journey to understand how to “de-center” racism. The questions he asks, demonstrate some of the contradictions in the whole DEI premise. Those contradictions become points at which it is easy for the audience to laugh.
For me, the most uncomfortable, and the most revealing segment of the film comes when he infiltrates one of the “Race to Dinner” sessions held by two women of color who guide white women to confront their white guilt. Walsh himself is not supposed to be able to participate, since the dinners are only open to women. He manages to insert himself into one of these dinners as a server in the facility that the dinner is being held at. What he manages to get away with is audacious, and continuously uncomfortable, much like the humor you will find in one of those Borat films. My favorite moment, came when he comedically acts out as a incompetent waiter by dropping a set of dishes at a particular moment in the monologue being presented by one of the two women who host these events. There may be people who agree with what’s being said at that particular moment, I however I’m not one of those people, and I thought that the interruption was particularly called for, and amusing.
Not everyone is going to enjoy this film, especially those who espouse some of the Critical Race Theory that underpins the DEI movement. The average person however will probably find this movie to be very entertaining, as well as enlightening. Maybe those folks who go through DEI training in their workplace will see this as old news, but there are plenty of people out there who have not been exposed to some of the details of these theories, and they’re likely to be befuddled and offended by some of the things that are being said.
Matt Walsh is basically playing himself in this movie, with a tongue in cheek attitude as a Seeker of anti-racism excellence. Of course he is also a master troll when it comes to mocking those ideas that he sees as being contemptuous. One of the times where he steps out of character a little is a sequence where he reimagines that Jussie Smollett hoax of a few years ago. It’s a funny bit, but it does take us out of the diorama that he has created for the rest of the picture.
Two sequences in the last third of the picture probably highlight the places that will be most controversial about his comedy approach. In the segment with anti-racist author Robin D’Angelo, he engages her with a series of questions that illustrates some of the convoluted thought processes that are required in order for the anti-racist ideology to function. As amusing as those contradictions might be, they end up being overshadowed by the improvised conclusion of this segment, which mocks the idea of financial reparation for past racist actions, especially slavery. D’Angelo in her desire to remain true to her position demonstrates the absurdity of that position by her actions. It will probably be the most talked about part of the movie.
The last segment consists of Walsh trying to take what he has learned about DEI and apply it by creating his own seminar on anti-racism. His ability to act in a dead pan, serious demeanor, makes most of the things that he does in the film feel satirical. In his role as DEI seminar leader, he comes across as inept because the premises of the philosophy don’t hold up. The response of the trainees to his approach provide the most insightful element at this point. It demonstrates that the goal is not to bring us together but to further drive us apart.
I completely understand that this will not be everybody’s cup of tea. If you find Sacha Baron Cohen to be a little bit uncomfortable, or if you find the films of Morgan Spurlock and Michael Moore to be less than tolerable, you will be put off by this film. On the other hand, if you are who enjoys clever trolling, and taking down untrustworthy authority figures a peg or two, I think you’ll be entertained by this movie.
The circumstances that gave rise to the aesthetics of this movie are long gone. Punk attitudes rose and fell in the 80s, and in the forty years since this came out, new attitudes of entitlement, resentment and envy have replaced the punk ethos. The contempt for normative lifestyles continues but it is much less interesting now than it was in 1984. If we set aside the angry young man motif of the film, there still remains an off beat story about losers, struggling to make it in the world, and the complications that arise when they cross paths with society. In other words, this is still a punk movie, it just has lost it’s cause.
No characters in the movie are particularly likeable. Otto, the main protagonist played by Emilio Estevez, is an angry, self centered punk, with no respect for women, who feels entitled to something more, but he doesn’t quite know what. He does seem to have some ethics, but those morals are constantly undermined by his associates, both the professionals he takes up with, and the girl he supposedly cares about. It may be understandable why he has such attitudes, everyone he interacts with lets him down in some way. Bud, the Harry Dean Stanton character, is his mentor, but also an antagonist who second guesses and manipulates Otto from the start. Thankfully, their story does get a more satisfactory conclusion than that of Leila, the girl who betrays him after he has rescued her a couple of times.
The great Tracey Walter, plays Miller , a non-driving cog in the repo man world, who passes out wisdom like candy at Halloween. The only problem is, when you look in your bag, it is full of those circus peanut candies that are disgusting. Nothing Miller says means much, and most of the time it is simply designed to provoke those around him. His commentary on John Wayne is a good example of that. Lite, is another repo man that Otto works with and his philosophy is at complete odds with the one Bud has been espousing. There is not a homogenous set of opinions in this culture. The Rodriguez brothers, who are set up as antagonists early in the film, turn out to be not so bad in the end. The UFO group that seeks the McGuffin, are not heroic revolutionaries but jaded outsiders who are indifferent to their own benefactor .
There is a ton of stuff to laugh about in the film. The banality of normal life is lampooned by the use of the “generic” products of the era. Otto’s parents are hypnotized by the television and a preacher that they are sending all their money too. The customers who are losing their cars are often nitwits or trying to pull a fast one themselves. The former friends of Otto, who have become stick up artists, are the most inept of all, suggesting that writer/director Alex Cox is is not all that sympathetic to the youth in the picture at all. My favorite moment in the film is an exchange between two of Alex former friends,
Debbi: Duke, let’s go do some crimes.
Duke: Yeah. Let’s go get sushi and not pay.
I wrote about this movie originally on my 30 Years On Project, saluting the films I saw in 1984. This Screening at the Paramount was the first time I have seen the movie in a theater since 1984. It really holds up well. Just as a side note, the Chevy Impala that Bud drives in the movie, had a parking decal on the bumper from Fullerton College, which was a duplicate of the one I had on my car because I was teaching there in 1984.
If ever there was a movie that I could make people watch, and hopefully love, it is “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension”. You are completely safe to watch the trailer, there are no spoilers there. In fact, there is no real information in the trailer at all. It tells you what kind of movie this is with just it’s tone. There are only two lines of dialogue and they are a flippant response to starting World War III. The main hero is not shown doing anything more challenging than walking down a sloped concrete flood channel, and he is doing so while wearing a suit and a bow tie. This movie is confounding to people from the very start, after all, the very title is offputtingly odd. The short trailer just uses the weird theme and shots of a variety of strange people joining the lead character on his walk. Then you get a couple of brief shots of who knows what, and finish with the hysterical exchange about destroying Russia. No wonder the film never caught on in 1984.
Of course it caught on with me, because I was a film weirdo and tried to see as many movies as I could that year, and this Science Fiction concept had been hyped a little in “Starlog” magazine, and that was enough to get me into theaters to see it opening weekend. Apparently, I was the only person in the San Gabriel Valley who read “Starlog” because I was mostly alone in that first screening. However, I have not been alone for 40 years, thousands have become fans of this cult experience and like me, now consider themselves Blue Blazer Irregulars. The Alamo Drafthouse has been screening films from 1984 during their time capsule series this year, and I got another chance to see this on a theater screen, I think this may be the fourth time. The theater was not packed, but there was a reasonable smattering of Irregulars in the auditorium, and you could tell by their reactions during the film and their comments afterwards that they were as pleased to be there as I was.
The title hero, Buckaroo Banzai, is not just a physicist, he is also a neurosurgeon, test pilot, and rock star. Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Stephen Hawkings would be jealous of his expertise but like everyone else, they would be charmed by his down to earth manner and sardonic humor. The Zen like statements that he uses to reassure his team, also suggest he is an Eastern Philosopher. Yet at no time is he condescending to the political dolts around him, the non-scientists that he works with, or the public at large. Peter Weller will always be “Robocop” in his biography/obituary, but I will also always think of him as Dr. Banzai. Weller’s low key demeanor, and willingness to let the crazies around him have the spotlight, make this a subtle performance. Oh, by the way, I should refer to him as Dr. Peter Weller, since he did not get a PhD in art history and literature, just to be referred to as Mr. .
“Buckaroo Banzai” is an 80s science fiction film that makes up with creativity and humor, what it lacks in budget. The locations are filled with conduit pipes, heat vent tubes and what might be some form of foam rubber molding. The humorous self awareness of the film can be observed in the scene where the cast members look at a holographic message through goggles that are made of bubble wrap. There are deliberate attempts to show us that this story is both a salute to and a parody of those kinds of pulp heroes that have come before. “Why is there a watermelon there?”, is not a question you will get a straight answer to. I also don’t know why lithium is no longer available on credit. That’s because I am a monkey boy who does not have the insight of a red lectroid like Lord John Whorfin.
John Lithgow had been nominated for a supporting actor Oscar in both of the two previous years. His take on the character of Dr. Emilio Lizardo, should have made it three in a row. Lizardo, is a scientist who in a failed attempt to break the dimension barrier in the 1930s, allowed the evil Dictator John Whorfin to possess his mind and plot a return to power while in a mental hospital for thirty years. The cross pollination of Italian accented scientist with megalomaniacal Red Lectroid, results in one of the most demented and delightful performances to ever be committed to film. Lithgow runs wild with bulging eyes, slathering monologues, and accents that would befuddle any linguist, regardless of their credentials. His obtuse interactions with his underlings is a great contrast to his opponent, Buckaroo.
Another reason that the film may have been overlooked at the time is that the supporting cast, which is filled with great performers, was in the early part of their careers, and audiences had not yet recognized their potential. Clancy Brown was not yet Kurgan from the Highlander film, Dan Hedaya was still waiting for the Coen Brothers to make Blood Simple. Christopher Lloyd was a well established oddball character actor, but he was not an above the titles name. Neither were Vincent Schiavelli, Matt Clark or Ellen Barkin. The only supporting player with some potential drawing power was Jeff Goldblum, and he was also at his nascent point in his career. Goldblum, as fellow brain surgeon and sidekick, is a complete joy to watch as he trapses through the movie in one of the most ridiculous cowboy getups since Hopalong Cassidy.
The action scenes aren’t great, but they are adequate. What you need to know however, is that they are merely a frame to hang the wry dialogue and arch attitude on. The film skewers and salutes these kinds of movies simultaneously. This is smart film making that looks like cheap, dumb sci-fi filler, but is one of the greatest treasures in a year that was filled with great films. Jump in your jet car and find an Alamo that is playing this, NOW. You will thank me, and if you miss it, you will hate yourself.
Another double feature at the Paramount Theater on a Saturday afternoon. Two films featuring Orson Wells, one of them was also directed by him. Both films have classical elements to them which might put them on anybody’s Best Lists.
The Third Man
Carol Reed directs a post war thriller created by Graham Greene specifically for film. This was a David Selznick Production so everything was first class but it is certainly an unusual setting for a Selznick film. The actual producer was Alex Korda so it is more accurately a British Film and it thoroughly feels like that. The film is considered a noir, although some traditional elements of a noir seem to be minor. The thing that most justifies that classification is the style in which the film is shot.
The use of black and white is highly expressionistic and the shadows, silhouettes and sudden reveal of Orson Wells character are famous for the atmosphere they create. One characteristic that does not feel noir like at all is the soundtrack, infused with zither instrumentation, it is terrific for the film but rarely ominous or sinister. Still, a non-traditional noir is still a noir when it features a mysterious murder, duplicitous characters, unfaithful women, and a villain who is charming, even if he has no scruples.
Joseph Cotten is Holly Martins, a writer of pulp westerns, who has travel to Vienna to join his friend Harry Lime, only to discover that Lime is dead, and Vienna has no use for him. There are a number of bumbling American tropes thrown in to make him feel even more out of place, but his loyalty to his friend may be the one that is most subtle and important. It takes a lot for Holly to recognize that his friend would not be recognizable to him, if Holly knew his real business. The famous shot of Harry Lime being revealed is the start of Holly’s doubts. Before he could dismiss evidence and opinion, but his own eyes tell him that Harry can’t be trusted.
In addition to the mystery, and ultimately a chase through the sewers of Vienna, there is an unrequited love story. Anna Schmidt loves Harry, Holly falls in love with Anna, Harry never really loved Anna, and apparently loved Holly’s friendship under false pretenses. It is all very complex, and it gets more so as Harry’s confederates murder witnesses and even help frame Holly for the crimes. The British, who were fooled at first but Lime’s deception, don’t fall for any of the subsequent traps, so Holly is never really at risk, but it does make for an interesting twist two thirds of the way into the film.
Two quick James Bond connections; future Bond director John Glen was working in the editing department at Shepperton Studios when the film started production. He had a similar build to Joseph Cotten and was enlisted to supply the sound of his footsteps in post-production sound dubbing. Bernard Lee, who plays the sympathetic British Sargent and fan of Western Novels, would go on to play “M”, 007s boss in eleven Bond films.
I don’t think anyone left after the first feature, it looked like the house stayed the same size for the second film.
Touch of Evil
I have seen this film several times, but I have to admit, they have all been after it was restored in 1998. The stories of how the film was butchered after it was delivered by Welles seem to echo the experience he had with “The Magnificent Ambersons”. Still the film had a solid reputation even before the repairs were made to it in 98. I should probably admit to an affinity for the movie because it also came out in the year of my birth, so whenever one of those calendar references comes up, it is sitting right there.
The drug gangs of today are certainly more brutal than the mob that is in this film. Here the criminals seek to tarnish the legacy of their main adversary through a complicated plot. Today’s cartels would simply torture him, cut off his head and display the body in public to discourage follow up. I don’t think we are getting more civilized as we move forward. I suppose it is justifiable to say that in modern times, Charlton Heston would never be cast to play a Mexican using brown face make up, but that social constraint is mild compared to the truth of border town life these days.
The movie opens with the famous continuous tracking shot, culminating in an explosion. Director Orson Wells is showing off here, but it seems that the studio largely left him alone while the film was being made, so he had a lot more fun playing around with these moments then he’d had on other studio films. Wells was a husky but handsome figure in “The Third Man”, but ten years later in this film, he is clearly overweight and looks unhealthy. Much of that was the make-up and prosthetics but not all of it, and it shows at times.
Wells did have control over the story, since he is the one who switched the nationalities of the two leads and made Charlton Heston a Mexican. Much of the film is shot at night so we get many sequences that make the film feel noirish. Wells seems to have wanted to confound the audience with the plot, and used characters in several over the top moments (notably Dennis Weaver) to distract the audience from paying too close attention to what was going on. The score is jazz infused and dark, which fits the mood of the picture well. It is no surprise that the Mexican Government was not keen on letting the film be shot in the planned Tijuana, this is not exactly a tourism ad. Venice California substitutes for TJ, and my understanding is that this is an even more accurate switch today, because of thew homeless problem.
So it has only taken me fifty-two years to catch up with this movie, a film that was very popular in it’s release during my favorite decade of movies. So why have I missed it for so long? I can’t exactly say, although I suspect I was hesitant because of the downbeat drug elements in the story. Billie Holiday died decades before Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison, but she died from the same disease, out of control drug use. As I was watching the film, I saw that the producers did their best to create an upbeat ending with a redemptive arc, that was not really the way the story ends. In a way, that should have made it more appealing to me as a film, because it focuses on entertaining us, but I still think it is a bit of a cheat.
Nevertheless, “Lady Sings the Blues” is an entertaining biopic that tries to capture the talent of it’s subject, while also describing the hard luck existence that describes her life. The biggest plusses the film has going for it are the musical sequences and the star turns by the two leads. I am not an aficionado of Billie Holiday, and I have seen in some places that Diana Ross’s interpretations of her songbook are not as impressive, but on their own, they are very effective and I think anyone listening would enjoy her song stylings. Diana Ross also has great star quality, which I don’t think was captured in any other screen performance. Of course she only made three films, and was woefully miscast in “The Wiz”. She was a better fit for the fashion show that masqueraded as a movie “Mahogany”, although that film is not good at all (See my comment on 1000 Nights at the Movies with Dee).
Her acting in this film is stellar, and she maneuvered through a range of ages convincingly, as well as showing us the dark side of addiction. The scene in the bathroom where she threatens Billy Dee Williams with a razor over her drug kit is chilling and sad. The motionless lump that she becomes in the aftermath may seem like an easy shot, but there is physicality to it that requires the actor to commit and boy did she. Her cluelessly high performance while Richard Pryor is being beaten is another spot where her acting talent gets a moment to shine. Billy Dee Williams as her co-star husband gets credit for spilling his charisma all over the screen. His part is underwritten and I know it is a compendium of characters that his role encompasses, but the script gives him little to do and it is in fact antithetical at the climax of the film. Still, it doesn’t matter much when that face appears on the screen and the smile crosses it. That will fill in for a lot of unexplained back story.
There are of course historical markers in the film that are important, but they really come across as cliched, although I think that in 1972, they would have played more dramatically. The incident that provokes the song “Strange Fruit”, in particular, feels like it is dramatically staged rather than a natural incident. The screenwriters and director Sidney Furie, try to make it work for the movie, but it feels so staged that it undercuts the moment. Holliday’s defiance of a Klan March while she is on the bus with the band is a good moment for Ross to show off in, but another moment that feels dramatically staged.
Overall, I quite liked the film and I was impressed with Miss Ross as an actress. She certainly deserved the accolades that she received for that performance. I am not sure, but the soundtrack album may be in my collection in the garage. If it is, it was something that my wife brought to the marriage, because I know i did not buy the record. When I look, if it’s not there, I will correct that because the music in the film worked for the movie. This was the third musical in a row that we saw at the Paramount. July is heavy with their theme of “Pop (corn) Idols”. They are not all musicals, but I’m happy these were.
It is almost beyond comprehension to me that the first time I saw either of the Paddington films was not in a theater. It is however sadly true so this is the first time I get an opportunity to properly write about one of them on this project. For those of you unaware, “Paddington” is the name of a bear who has migrated from Peru to London, and is taken in by a kindly and quirky family, the Browns. The stories are full of fish out of water moments as Paddington moves from being a stranger in a strange land to a loved member of the family and community.
Everywhere you look in the movie, there are charming images and clever little visual prompts. Paddington hops on a bicycle, driven by a local, makes a quick connection to a trash collector’s truck that he hitches a ride on, and then meets a bus where he can end up at his destination. There is always a slapstick moment or two for the kids, but adults will smile at the good natured way that Paddington gives everyone he meets the benefit of his trust. Of course we know that doing so is a dangerous thing and the poor bear ends up in trouble as a consequence.
There were frequent moments in the film, where I was reminded of a Wes Anderson movie. The sets, the camera angles and the movements of the actors in the scenes mimic some of the tropes of an Anderson film. The color palate of the prison where Paddington ends up, with the accidentally pink inmates garb is especially reminiscent of some of those Anderson films. Here however, we have an exceedingly polite bear as our central figure, rather than one of the grotesque figures from “The Hotel Budapest”.
Enhancing this second Paddington movie is the presence of Hugh Grant, playing the heavy part, but doing so with an incredibly light touch. In many places in the film, you can spot him mocking his own career and joking about his thespian skills. The first film had Nicole Kidman as the villain, and her plot line and tone were quite a bit darker than might be fitting for a kid’s picture. Grant however is a perfect, goofball style foil for our intrepid bear with the positive attitude.
This film was at the State Theater, next door to the Paramount. Several of the Family film series pictures will be screening here rather than in the grand movie palace next door. I was happy to see the theater full of families who had small children, most of whom were very cooperative with the idea of staying seated and quite during the film. The delightful howls of laughter when Paddington cuts hair in a barbershop or cleans windows at a high rise, were an extra bonus for a Sunday afternoon. I know some people don’t like kids, but those people are deranged. A kid having a good time at a movie is one of the joyous things we should share in our culture.
This is a movie that would have worked so much better if the premise had not been given away in all of the advertising and the trailer. What starts off as a tense kidnapping story, takes a turn a quarter of the way into the movie, and it’s a very clever twist. The problem is that we all knew it was coming, which undermines a lot of the stuff they get set up at the start of the film. That said, there is still fun to be had here because when it hits the fan, there’s a glorious amount of Gore, violence, and ironic comedy.
Basically this is a variation of 100 other horror stories over the years. 10 Little Indians, Alien, The House on Haunted Hill, and dozens of other movies where a group of people are trapped in a situation where they will be picked off one at a time. Will they be able to figure out a solution? Will the antagonist reveal a motive? Is there any point to the story? The answers to these and other questions will come if you stay to the end of the movie. As in a lot of contemporary films, the people involved are not particularly pleasant, and we may very well feel that as things go along that some of them are getting what they deserved. Let’s face it, everybody in this house was there because they were kidnapping a little girl. Maybe some of them are worse than others, and maybe there is possible redemption, but we’re going to have to get a lot of dead bodies before we get to the point where we’re glad that anybody is surviving.
Imagine if you were Claudia from the film “Interview with the Vampire”, and you had to spend your eternal life as a child. What kinds of amusements could you come up with to keep you interested and at the same time allow you to continue your cover as an innocent child? Well that’s basically what this film attempts to answer. The fact that the house it’s full of booby traps, secret passages, and dark foreboding images adds to the fun. Characters betray one another and sometimes they actually support one another, but we’re never sure of which outcome we’re going to get before the events play out. This is where some of the fun comes in. This movie is not quite as engaging as “Ready or Not“, the film from the directors that preceded this, but it’s unlikely that you’ll feel ripped off by watching it. Especially if you enjoy over the top monster action that results in blood splattered all over the screen on the set.
Actor Kevin Durant is a Canadian performer that I have seen in movies since the late 1990s. He’s a big guy with a distinctive face and I’ve enjoyed most of his performances. This week, after not having seen him in films for several years because he was working regularly on on several television series, he turns up in two movies that I saw back to back. In “Abigail” he is the muscle on the team of kidnappers, and in “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes”, he performs and voices the King, Proximo. It’s strange sometimes how little things line up and create interesting coincidences. He’s actually very good in this film trying to be a sympathetic monster of a human when faced with a real life monster it’s even more evil than he is.
It’s true that in most survival stories, the participants are going to be faced with choices that they have to make which involve moral dilemmas. It’s also true that we can probably pick out some of the characters who will not have any moral qualms about stabbing their fellow survivors in the back in order to be the ones who are still standing at the end of the story. We got a couple of those in this film, Complicated by some storytelling that is a little shaky. The resolutions come however they’re kind of satisfying.
Don’t be too panicked, the people who deserve to go will. Some people who don’t deserve to die will. And logic will go out the window pretty quickly, actually just as fast as the windows are shut to close people into the house. Then all bets are off and you should just enjoy the bloody Mayhem.
Kirkham A Movie A Day 