Harvest (2011). This understated German indie drama was a film I selected from the reviewers’ pool at DVD Talk. My review was just completed and can be seen here.
In Time (2011). Another disc that arrived from DVD Talk, surprisingly enough (I’ve requested a few mainstream films with them, but haven’t gotten too many as yet). You may recall that In Time was the Justin Timberlake “people with stopwatches on their forearms” sci-fi opus that came and went in theaters last Fall. We kept our expectations dialed a bit low for this one, but actually it’s a thoughtful and well-made film whose interesting premise only gets derailed a few times. In near-future L.A., time is a commodity. Upon their 25th birthday, people are given a certain amount of time for the remainder of their lives until the green stopwatch implanted in their wrists runs out. These stopwatches also have the ability to stop physical aging, so most of the population looks 25. These advances have created a quasi-police state in which the rich are sequestered in safe zones where they live out lives of leisure, while the less fortunate are forced into hard labor, crime and desperation to cling on to their remaining time. Timberlake’s character is part of the latter scene, eking out a living with his mom in a dingy apartment. When he comes across a suicidal rich man who gives him 100 years before offing himself, however, he winds up getting into the forbidden wealthy district with the cops in hot pursuit. He eventually meets bored rich girl Amanda Seyfried and the two go on a crime spree, hoping to unleash the time banks that are controlled by Seyfried’s powerful father (Vincent Kartheiser of Mad Men). Will they bring equilibrium back to society? This was an interesting film, casting-wise, with similarly aged Timberlake (b.1979) and actress Olivia Wilde (b.1981) playing a child and parent, for instance. It doesn’t have a lot of showy CGI like other sci-fi outings, but I think the central concept is strong enough to stand on its own. The only weak link I found was Timberlake, who doesn’t bring a lot of depth to his character. This was written and directed by the un-prolific Andrew Niccol, whose earlier Gattaca shares a lot of similarities with In Time. There are a few flaws with the execution (like, why isn’t there more murder in this place where time is so easily exchanged?), but overall I found it intriguing and not nearly as bad as the reviews suggested.
Stonewall (1996). One of those ’90s gay films that has its adherents, I put this on my Netflix queue mainly because Guillermo Diaz (whom I enjoyed in Weeds) is in it. Diaz plays La Miranda, a fiery drag queen in 1969 New York. He meets Matty Dean (Frederick Weller), an out-and-proud midwesterner on his first foray in the city. The two become boyfriends amidst the turmoil of the emerging gay rights movement. Despite the title, the Stonewall Inn figures primarily as the setting for La Miranda and his drag friends to put on lip-synch shows set to campy girl group records by The Shangri-Las (these scenes, although pretty fun, aren’t too relevant to the story). The riot itself is confined to the final 10 minutes or so, which is disappointing. The film, on the whole, is an okay if disjointed effort with a distinct British feel (it kinda reminded me of gritty UK films from that period like Let Him Have It or Prick Up Your Ears). Most of the cast was all right. For a historical recreation of the Stonewall riots and what led up to them, I’d go for the recent PBS American Experience program on the subject. It’s much more illuminating and a whole lot less drag queeny.

Nancy Drew, Trouble Shooter (1939). Our first film of a 1939 double feature we did on New Year’s Eve. We actually came across the DVD with all four of the Warner Bros. Nancy Drew films at a local Goodwill recently. These little b-movies are quite zippy and fun, mostly due to the great casting of vivacious Bonita Granville, who is the very personification of the spunky sleuth. In all four flicks, she is joined by a regular cast of supporting actors including Frankie Thomas as her boyfriend and John Litel as her dad. Trouble Shooter is honestly the weakest of the films, with a lightweight plot in which the central mystery is almost an afterthought and too much silliness (including scenes with Willie Best as a stereotypical ghost fearin’, chicken stealin’ farmhand). The plot revolves around Nancy and her dad coming to the aid of an old family friend who has been wrongly accused of murder in a small country town. As always, Nancy is on the case! The marvelous chemistry between Granville and Thomas keeps this one afloat — until the pair get stuck on a capsized sailboat at film’s end, that is.
Séraphine (2009). Unexpectedly fantastic French biopic about a lowly cleaning woman who has a secret passion for creating wild paintings of flowers and fruit. In a rural town in 1914 France, portly, put-upon Séraphine (Yolande Moreau) is cleaning the home of a woman who is renting a room to a German art critic named Wilhelm Uhde (Ulrich Tukur). The man stays out of the way of the chatty yet prepossessing Séraphine, until he sees one of her artworks tossed on the floor of his landlord’s dining room. After finding out from the landlady that the art was Séraphine’s, he encourages the woman to make more art by buying her better quality supplies. Her talent is nurtured, but the onset of WWI prompts Uhde to flee the town. Several years later, Séraphine is still scraping by cleaning homes while privately painting. Uhde tracks her down, astonished to find her still living and working on her art. He arranges for the woman to have a monthly stipend and takes some of her pieces to France to sell to naive-art collectors. As her fame builds, however, her mental capacity decreases and she is institutionalized. Excellent film, played with a muted yet compelling truthfulness. This is one of the best artist bio flicks I’ve ever seen, actually. Yolande Moreau’s performance is unflinchingly raw as a woman whose creativity comes from a sphere beyond herself. She’s matched by Tukur as the sympathetic art critic. Highly recommended.
Wing and a Prayer (1944). This was a movie that I impulsively picked on Netflix instant one morning — I wanted to check out another movie with William Eythe, the handsome 1940s actor whose career was cut short when he entered into a same sex relationship with another actor. Eythe was pretty good in this 20th Century Fox patriotic flag-waver, playing an actor who is lying low serving on a Navy aircraft carrier during WWII (based on James Stewart?). The film is more of an ensemble piece depicting daily life on the carrier in a realistic manner. Along with Eythe, there’s Don Ameche as the commanding officer, Dana Andrews as a more experienced pilot, Charles Bickford as the gruff captain, along with Kevin O’Shea, Harry Morgan and Richard Jaekel as Eythe’s shipmates. Some of the characters dip into cliché (including the lovelorn, tragically fated guy who might as well be named “Ensign Deadmeat”), but overall I found this very enjoyable. The film was shot mostly on location at an aircraft carrier using extras who looked like real WWII soldiers, something which helps the film immensely even during its less believable moments (the climactic battle uses lots of backscreen projection). On a shallow note, there’s also a lot of hunky men in this film — mostly the extras, although dreamy actor Richard Crane is one of the more substantially seen hunks.

Body Slam (1986). This stupid yet watchable wrestling comedy has been shown on ThisTV a few times, curiosity prompted me to stick it on the DVR. Dirk Benedict stars as a washed-up rock promoter who winds up unknowingly representing a pro wrestler (Rowdy Roddy Piper). He dreams up a scheme to combine the energy of live rock music with the excitement of wrestling, a wild idea that catches on so quickly that he has a rival promoter (Captain Lou Albano!) on his tail. This film was directed by Hal Needham, whose main prior achievement was the Cannonball Run movies. That oughta tell you where this movie is coming from, although the very ’80s atmosphere and an odd supporting cast (Tanya Roberts, Charles Nelson Reilly, Billy Barty) keeps this one diverting, at the very least.
A Cottage on Dartmoor (1929). This British thriller is a good example of how stylized silent films got before sound came in and changed everything. The story concerns an escaped convict who, fleeing through the countryside, finds refuge in a farm house. The woman who is tending to the house is startled to see the man, but we soon learn (via flashback) that they know each other and once worked together. The film switches locales to the barber shop, where he was a shaver and she was a manicurist. They have a friendly rapport which borders on a relationship, but that’s changed when a regular shop customer becomes engaged to the woman. He becomes obsessed with winning the woman’s love. The man’s increasingly psychotic nature is captured by some daring camerawork, highlighted by a scene where the couple go to see a “talkie” in the local theatre. Interesting film. Kino’s DVD for this film includes an absorbing documentary, Silent Britain, which chronicles the UK’s often overlooked contribution to silent cinema with plenty of cool clips.
Going Places (1974). Easygoing buddy comedy stars a magnetic Gerard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere as a pair of charming wastrels who roam the French countryside in search of men to piss off and women to bang. On a car thieving jaunt, they meet a passive hairdresser named Marie-Jange (Miou Miou), who eventually becomes the third corner in their traveling sex ‘n crime spree. I’m reviewing this DVD for DVD Talk, so I won’t go into too much detail. Generally, I found it entertaining for the first hour, including a wonderful bit with Jeanne Moreau as a jaded ex-con whom the two men take on as their latest conquest. Her character is intelligent enough to know that she’s being played, but she goes along with it and ultimately it emerges that it’s she doing the playing. The film kinda falls apart after her scenes, but it’s still interesting to watch as Depardieu and Dewaere are initially presented as stupid young punks who gradually become more human as the film progresses.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966). We’re two thirds of the way through this iconic Western, directed by Sergio Leone, starring Clint Eastwood and with Ennio Morricone’s cool and strange score. It does have some great scenes and lots of weirdly beautiful close-ups of actors’ weather-beaten faces, but overall I’m finding Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West the better film in almost every respect. Eastwood is too laconic and I’m not buying Eli Wallach as a Mexican, but I’m enjoying their banter and comradery. Morricone’s theme, once so cool, now seems so campy that I can’t help but giggle whenever it comes on. His OUATITW score is much more subtle and mood-enhancing. TGTBATU falls into more typical Spaghetti Western territory, bad dubbing and all, but the film holds my attention enough to keep me wondering what may happen in the last hour (which we’re seeing tonight).
Sh! The Octopus (1937). Preposterous yet enjoyable little b-movie is one of the earliest examples of that ’40s and ’50s staple, the horror-comedy. This one has Hugh Herbert and Allen Jenkins as a pair of police detectives who happen upon a mysterious lighthouse which appears to be terrorized by both a giant octopus and a human killer named after the octopus. This was offered as a free online stream by the Warner Archive on October 27th and 28th. It was a dumb little time waster, less than an hour long but made interminable by the stream’s constant rebuffering. The octopus was fake and unintentionally funny, but at least the special effect with one of the cast members transforming into a hideous ogre was nifty.

Climates (2006). I added this Turkish drama to my Netflix queue a few years ago, probably because it was acclaimed at the Cannes film festival that year. It’s a sensitive, deliberately paced drama about an upper middle class Istanbul couple played by director Nuri Bilge Ceylan and his real life wife, Ebru Ceylan. The film’s essence is encapsulated early on in a scene that’s an uninterrupted take showing Ms. Ceylan staring off into the distance, a single tear falling down her cheek. We see the couple’s relationship falling apart, the man not comprehending as the woman’s emotions spiral out of control. They separate, then the man (in a creepy scene) forces himself upon an old friend. The woman accepts another job in a smaller town, then the man follows her in a pursuit that is awkward and uncomfortable to watch. This was a beautifully photographed film, but I couldn’t truly get into it because the characters ended up being so vague — and ultimately unappealing. By film’s end, you wish the woman grew a spine much earlier and avoided putting up with this creep.
The Final Destination (2009). Fourth and lamest of the Final Destination films. Like the other F.D. flicks, this one follows a teen who has visions of his friends’ deaths which somehow portend their own early, ever-complicated ends. The lackluster script and lazy dependence on cheap CGI in this one puts it more on the cheesy level of cable TV’s 1,000 Ways To Die — which is about 1,000 times more fun than this sorry mess.
Ma & Pa Kettle (1949), Ma & Pa Kettle Go to Town (1950), Ma & Pa Kettle at the Fair (1952), Ma & Pa Kettle on Vacation (1953) and Ma & Pa Kettle at Home (1954). Seven down, three to go in the Kettle movie-a-thon (I’m reviewing a set of their complete filmography for DVD Talk). Remember, this is the comedy franchise with wonderful Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride as the parents of an unruly brood of 15 kids in Washington state (not the deep South, as I previously thought). The Kettle films tend to work better if they stay with the family and their oddball neighbors — whenever they take off to a far-off locale (as in Go to Town or Vacation), the movies tend to get pokey. The original Ma & Pa Kettle is a fun little outing in which the family wins a dream home in a jingle-writing contest that Pa entered — and probably all most casual viewers would want. Digging deeper, I’m finding that I’m enjoying these flicks. Universal Studios didn’t lavish a lot of money on them, but they are efficiently directed, fast paced and breezy affairs that one could consume like potato chips. If there’s a bad one in the bunch, just move on and you will find a good one. My favorites so far are At The Fair, which contains probably the funniest, most sitcom-esque gags in the series, and the first Ma & Pa Kettle. I also found a lot to like with the strangely sedate At Home, a film whose climactic Christmas party scene presents the family as a well-adjusted and even downright normal bunch. Go to Town is routine and On Vacation is entirely skippable, but even those have the marvelous chemistry of Main and Kilbride to recommend. I’m curious to see what the final two entries, minus Kilbride, will be like.
A Rage to Live (1965). This adaptation of a pulpy best seller by John O’Hara held a lot of promise as a campy delight; it ends up being a serious examination of a young woman’s sexuality that generally works thanks to a sensitive performance by Suzanne Pleshette. The gorgeous Pleshette plays Grace Caldwell, an heiress whose out-of-control libido has the people in her town pegging her as a slut (sometimes the truth, sometimes inflated by gossip). She meets nice young man Bradford Dillman at a holiday party and the two hit it off. They marry and have a child, but the tranquil family life is shattered with the reappearance of Ben Gazarra as a construction worker who once had a casual acquaintance with Pleshette. Will they have an affair and start the town talking? A soapy delight that is let down by an unsatisfactory ending, but Pleshette is great. I got a kick out of the scenes with her and Peter Graves as the married newspaper editor who has the hots for her — Emily Hartley and Jim Phelps having a forbidden tryst? No way!

Return to Peyton Place (1961). The sequel to 1957′s Peyton Place, which I unironically enjoyed a few weeks back, treads in the same soapy waters as its predecessor but isn’t nearly as satisfying. The most glaring change, four years later, is that all of the roles from the previous film have been recast with inferior actors. Diane Varsi’s inquisitive teenaged writer from the first film is now essayed in a smarmy manner by Carol Lynley. The role of her Ice Queen ma, formerly Lana Turner, is now played by a trembly Eleanor Parker. Mostly the film revolves around Lynley’s character (a stand-in for P.P. author Grace Metalious) attempting to find a publisher for the steamy novel she wrote about the residents of Peyton Place. The manuscript catches the eye of suave Jeff Chandler, who takes her under his wing and painstakingly grooms her into publishing’s New Hot Thing, one of several “huh?” moments in the film. One of the film’s b-stories relate to young lawyer Ted (formerly David Nelson, now Brett Halsey) attempting to ingratiate his Italian bride (flat actress Luciana Paluzzi) with his formidable, steel-veined mother (Mary Astor, whose character didn’t appear in the first P.P.). The other details the fallen Selena (formerly Hope Lange, now Tuesday Weld) as she attempts to mend her broken reputation with the townspeople while a horndog skiier (Gunnar Hellström) attempts to woo her. A dull time is had by all. Probably the most disappointing thing about this flick is that the wonderfully evocative location shooting from the first P.P. is trashed in favor of a mountainous, pine tree-laden locale that looks more like Aspen, Colorado than any New England town. It’s just one of many things about this movie that brings about a “what where they thinking?” reaction.
Thor (2011). Did you suffer from superhero fatigue over the summer? I sure did, and yet I ended up going to see one of them (the loose and surprisingly assured Captain America) in the cinema itself. Thor was a dicey proposition from the get-go, starting with the goofy concept of muscle-bound Norse lunkhead as superhero (he ranks right down there with Aqua Man and The Wonder Twins in terms of street cred). Still, one can imagine a good film possibly coming out with Kenneth Branagh directing, all the whiz bang CGI money can buy, and Natalie Portman as the leading lady. Not so, alas. The main problem I had was that the scenes on the Thor planet were too pretentious and grandiose, with everyone (including an embarrassing Anthony Hopkins) speaking in the same quasi-Shakespearian manner. That, and special effects that are like George Lucas at his most self indulgent, add up to one huge, overinflated slog. As if to counter the overabundance of the Thor planet (I don’t remember the name, sorry), the earthly scenes are all done a little too flip, with Portman’s scientist being a scatterbrain in a way that’s supposed to be charming, but ends up looking idiotic. As some consolidation, at least she’s not a thoroughly annoying dumbell like the graduate student played by Kat Dennings. As Thor, Chris Hemsworth has the rockin’ bod and growling voice down pat, but he’s curiously lacking in charisma. I was also distracted by his painted-on blonde eyebrows and facial hair. The film has a few exciting set pieces, however, and some of the designs (like the Thor planet’s spinning room) have an elegant panache.
Vidal Sassoon: The Movie (2011). One of the other films that are among the first batch of DVDs I received for review from DVD Talk. A probing documentary of legendary hair sculptor Vidal Sassoon that goes into similar, stylish territory as The September Issue and Valentino: The Last Emperor. What’s not to like? I will go into more detail in my official review, but in a nutshell I dug this portrait of a very interesting gentleman. Unlike the other two films mentioned, this one focuses less on the intersection of fashion and commerce and is more about the power of single-minded creativity and what one individual can accomplish. Very inspiring.