Tag Archives: 5/5

Night of the Hunter 5/5

Night of the Hunter

Superbly crafted movie directed by Charles Laughton, and it’s a damn shame it was its only directorial effort. It looks great, with some very stylised scenes borrowing from German expressionism, and reminds me a lot of another film that similarly borrows, The Bride of Frankenstein (Laughton was actually married to the Bride, Elsa Lanchester!)

It’s beautiful, constantly suprising, has one of the most imposing and scary performance ever put to film by Mitchum, and whilst he imposes, he meets his match in the upright, kind-hearted Ms Cooper.

The scene where they sing as she sits guard with a shotgun is one of cinema’s greatest. And the children floating downriver through a fairytale depression America isn’t far behind.

Seven Samurai 5/5

Seven Samurai

Here’s the short version: Superb, one of the greatest movies of all time.

Here’s the long version: This is a terrific film, and the version I saw at 3 hours, 26 minutes really shouldn’t have a single moment removed, in my opinion. It moved at a good pace, never faultered in maintaining dramatic tension, and uses its sparse dialogue to get to the heart of the matter straight away, with feeling like monologuing or exposition. Almost every scene lodges itself in your memory as distinct – a sure sign of a very well-put together movie.

Of the 7, I think maybe 3 of the samurai characters were a little underdeveloped, though not to the level of just being a blank. That leaves 4 distinct and interesting characters though, the leader Kambei, the master swordsman Kyuzo, the ‘fool’ Kikuchiyo, and the Apprentice Katsushiro.

Kurosawa picked his characters well. Kyuzo is one extreme of the samurai, the dedicated master who cares only for his art (though even this extreme has a human side…. we see him laugh as hard as anyone at Kikuchiyo’s antics on the horse, and smile sardonically as he wants to sleep and gets some hero worship from Katsushiro) and still as a rock, with Kikuchiyo at the other end – not too skilled, but brave, fearless, angry, emotional and funny, and scratching and twitching like a dog with a terrible flea infestation and a nervous disposition. Contrasting Kambei and his experience we get the Apprentice, who wants to learn and have glory, but lacking in any sort of knowledge about what needs to be done to actually fight the bandits or handle the villagers.

Like I say, the whole thing is a pleasure to watch, and there are a dozen+ standout scenes in the movie, but the personal standouts for me are:

  • The intensity of Kambei when watching Kyuzo for the first time…you know this old experienced warrior is watching and appreciating a master at work
  • Where the old farmer has lost the rice and gets scolded, and starts to pick up the rice thrown in anger, one grain at a time
  • Kikuchiyo railing at the samurai about how the villagers are cowardly and murderous, but it is the samurai that made them that way
  • Kikuchiyo sitting next to the bandit with the gun and bantering with him
  • Kambei drawing arrows in the rain in the midst of battle
  • The death of Kikuchiyo…he’s so lively it’s kind of stunning when he falls face-first into the dirt after getting the coward and lies so still. So Un-Hollywood, and so much more stunning and moving for it.

Groundhog Day 5/5

Groundhog Day

Beautifully constructed film that does three things nearly perfectly: entertains, enthrals, and enlightens.

The script is a million miles away from the A->Z scripts so often found in romantic comedies, and the turns taken keep you guessing, and you realise you’re seeing something akin to growing wisdom with more and more experience.

When forced to live the same day over and over and over, we get Murray (beautifully playing his part) as the cynical weather reporter caught in a never ending loop of time. During this time, he gets depressed, bored, angry in turns, being even more nasty to those around him, or using this unique circumstance to find out about the people he has to interact with, and try and exploit this knowledge (to seduce women, for example). In fact, sometimes it may appear he is actually in some sort of hell of his own making.

Gradually he learns to accept what his happening, and tries to help people – but sometimes even this proves impossible (he helps an old tramp, spends some time with him, but before the day’s out, the old fellow dies anyway).

He gradually stops doing superficial stuff, and starts to actually do something positive with all this time on his hands, and tries to use it in a less superficial or selfish way. He learns the piano for example after being charmed by a piano piece playing on the radio, and uses this new skill to entertain at a party. He takes time to help people, (stopping a kid hurting or even killing himself for example) knowing it’s pointless anyway as the next day it all starts again. (how long is all this? 10 years? 100 years? 10,000 years?). Through all this, he comes to understand himself better, and release and enjoy the nice side of himself, falling in love (not just lust) with the leading lady.

A great story, great script and perfect comedy acting all rolled up. It’s one of those films that transcends grouping – not just a comedy, not just a drama, not just a romance, and it works well on every level.

Another Groundhog Day Review

The Wicker Man 1973

The Wicker Man

Such an electrifying movie in the last act, made so by the baffling, unsettling buildup throughout the film.

This staunch, upright policeman represents us, the viewer, as he first strides, then falters, through this strange island culture where everything seems sexualised and wanton and weird. He is as confused as us, the viewers. The villagers veer between odd and friendly, and almost everything said and done seems distinctly off-kilter.

We see this staunch Christian feel himself diminished and isolated as he realises he is in an environment like he’s never encountered, where the friendly words, and seemingly joyful music has an underpinning of debauchery, cruelty and barbarity he finds hard to cope with – from the beetle deliberately tied to the pin to go round and round until it’s tied up, to the little girl made to put a frog in her mouth to get rid of a sore throat, to the odd tricks the children play on the policeman.

The film itself is indeed a horror movie, but defies genre. It’s a dark, dark comedy of sorts – reminiscent of the old TV series The Prisoner in its disconcerting changing of familiar buildings and clothes into something alien – a musical (the music infuses the film almost wholly, with the only odd music being an out-of-place funky electric guitar score very near the end when Woodward is trying to escape pursuit), and a detective story.

The vacant smiles and constant digressions the villagers and Lord make when talking to the policeman just keep building and building the tension, until the nature of the old religion makes itself clear.

Finally, you feel that both Christian and heathen are equally wrong and equally impotent as the villagers sing and dance on the windy grassland. This sacrifice feels both dreadful (Woodward is amazing in the last act) and pointless, as the villagers cavort in the windy sunset, you feel the gesture they are making to nature is pointless, and nature will do what it will do, and the actions of men won’t change a thing.

A great film, horror or not.

The Empire Strikes Back 5/5

The Empire Strikes Back

A magnificent, driving narrative, with solid dialogue, great lighting, editing, framing, visuals, acting, music, tone, mix of drama and comedy, spectacular special effects for 95% of the time, and adding a depth to the space-fantasy genre in movies that was entirely absent before it.

Contains great-must see moments, at a rate of, I dunno, 1 every 8 minutes it feels like.

Ridiculously good.

The Wicker Man (1973) Mysterious and unique horror movie 10/10

The Wicker Man (1973)

In the Cinemas in 1973 but made a few years earlier, The Wicker Man is an exceptional and very classy horror movie, dealing with a seemingly gentle though unusual society, seen through the eyes of a stout Christian.

A policeman is sent to a remote Scottish island called Summer Isle to investigate the disappearance of a young girl. He’s a dedicated old-school Christian, and is first disconcerted by the strangeness of the community, then shaken by its open sexuality and possibly passive-aggressive stance to his questions, and then finally disgusted by its adherence to Pagan rituals. Finally his investigations lead him to the truth behind the girl’s disappearance, and the more startling secret behind that…

This film is wonderful. Edward Woodward (probably known to many of you as the star of ‘The Equalizer’) is excellent casting for the dour and grim hero of this piece, as is Christopher Lee as ‘Lord Summerisle’, leader of this community. This film is also whimsical (in the folky music) and erotic (with Britt Ekland playing the pub landlord’s daughter Willow, who tries to entice the policeman by singing a slightly bawldy song while dancing). Woodward convinces you he is deeply tempted, but also a man of conviction that can hold out to such temptation.

This is a slow-burn movie, but does convey a sense of off-kilter from the very beginning, as the policeman arrives. We are aware he is an outsider given his uniform and his obvious fish-out-of-water demeanour, and we empathise with his dislocation, I think. The growing dread of the policeman as he nears the truth of the disappearance is obvious and palpable. The film builds confidently as it goes, and the different elements (music, sex, ritual, mysticism) are conveyed brilliantly through the dialogue and direction. This wouldn’t have worked with a less talented director and screenwriter, but here it is just wonderful. The sense of creeping, dawning dread has you on the edge of your seat at times, just waiting to see the next discovery in the investigation.

The film is also remarkable as it is one of the most cliche-free movies you’ll see. It doesn’t rely on the usual horror movie conventions to frame and create its tension…it’s more like a detective movie with a touch of the eerie and erotic much of the time, but it is definitely tense and ultimately horrific.

I’ve been very careful not to give away too much here, as the whole film should be a pleasure taken first-hand, and if you’ve not seen it and don’t know about the story from start to end, I envy you and urge you to see it.
Rating: ODD, 10/10
Suitable for adults only.