Recommend a movie

[thecolorsblend]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkGEfrRT1Rw&pp=sAQB

Walk The Line, the Johnny Cash bio. And looky here, it's streaming free on YouTube.

This is a safe, inoffensive choice, frankly. There's pretty much nothing here that will challenge the viewer, the issue of a son struggling to win his father's approval has broad appeal beyond just men, Johnny Cash's fanbase has probably only grown since his passing, the movie itself plays fast and loose with the facts (Cash's sobriety issues extended beyond the time period shown in the film) and this is a pretty obvious Oscarbait movie.

Those things notwithstanding, it's filled with winning performances from Phoenix and Witherspoon. Robert Patrick has a small but powerful (and memorable) role as Cash's stern father. Honestly, I just can't find much going on here to criticize.

I always thought it was a bit of a shame that the film never got a sequel. Then again, there's plenty of time for the cast to better age into their roles. So, we may not be out of luck yet. There's quite a lot of story to be told about Cash's life in the Seventies and Eighties leading into his career resurgence beginning in the Nineties.

Either way, this is definitely worth watching.

[thecolorsblend]

Just finished the original 1987 Hellraiser film.

I should start off by saying I don't usually go in for the demonic subgenre of horror. Slashers? Cool. Monsters? Bring 'em on. Ghosts? Eh, I'll make do. But out and out demonic entities typically lose me*. Everybody has biases and that's mine.

* For every rule, an exception. Yes, I can (occasionally) watch The Exorcist. But otherwise, my point stands and I just don't enjoy this kind of stuff.

On that basis, I suppose Hellraiser is exemplary of this subgenre. A very high quality example of what can be done with this type of material. And if I'm being honest, I think a big reason why the movie works for me is because Julia and Frank are such pieces of... work. It becomes clear after a while that Julia is starting to enjoy her task of bludgeoning men to death so that Frank can feed off them. She begins developing a taste for murder in the same way that Frank long ago developed a taste for hedonism.

They're both horrible people. So, goings on with the Cenobites is, from a certain point of view, Frank and Julia being served justice for their crimes. They went looking for trouble and they found it.

All in all, I do recommend this original film to fans of the demon stuff in the horror genre. If that's your brand of vodka and if you somehow haven't already seen Hellraiser, go ahead and give it a look. But my biases mentioned above made this a bit of a challenge for me to get through at times, I have to be honest. I don't care to rewatch this film and I don't think I have much inclination to check out the sequels either.

[thecolorsblend]

Watched The Skull a few months ago. There aren't very many horror movies that have a genuinely menacing and creepy atmosphere to them. But The Skull is amazingly powerful in that respect.

Plus, how many horror movies have enough self-confidence to go for significant periods of time without dialogue? Well, the last half hour'ish of The Skull has almost no dialogue. That would be a massively brave decision TODAY. But back in the Sixties, that had to have been practically unheard of.

Plus, the movie boasts Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee arguably at the heights of their horror film powers. Best of all, Cushing plays the villain while Lee... isn't exactly the hero. But he's hardly the villain of the piece either.

All in all, I highly recommend The Skull.

[Silver Nemesis]

Ah, The Skull. I watched that for the first time in 2021. It's a strange movie, written by Psycho author Robert Bloch and produced by Hammer rival Amicus Productions. Amicus used a lot of the same actors as Hammer, but unlike Hammer they also used Vincent Price in several of their films. Price, Cushing and Lee were the three great horror icons of that era.

I've always thought it was a pity that they never collaborated on a Hammer movie together. They worked together on several other films, but never a Hammer picture. In real life, the three of them were good friends.

Tim Burton has often spoken of his admiration for all three actors. He cast both Price and Lee in a number of his films towards the end of their respective careers. Had Burton's career overlapped with Cushing's, I'm sure they would have worked together too. The obvious project for them to have collaborated on would have been Batman '89.

I've recommended this film before in other threads, but it's a great one to watch around Halloween: Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965).

This was the first in Amicus Productions' series of horror anthology films. It has a strong EC vibe and was followed by the EC adaptations Tales from the Crypt (1972) and The Vault of Horror (1973). Other entries in the series include Torture Garden (1967), starring Burgess Meredith, Peter Cushing and Jack Palance, The House That Dripped Blood (1971), starring Cushing, Christopher Lee, Ingrid Pitt and Jon Pertwee, and Asylum (1972), starring Cushing, Britt Ekland, Robert Powell and Herbert Lom. Torture Garden, The House That Dripped Blood and Asylum were all written by Robert Bloch. The final film in the series was From Beyond the Grave (1974), starring Cushing, David Warner, Donald Pleasance and Lesley-Anne Down.

All of these anthology films are enjoyable, but the best, IMO, is Dr. Terror's House of Horrors. It's campier and more humorous than the other entries in the series, but it's still got great spooky visuals and a strong atmosphere. There are five stories featuring a werewolf, a killer plant, a voodoo curse, a severed zombie hand, and a vampire. The excellent cast includes Cushing, Lee, Michael Gough, Donald Sutherland and Roy Castle. There's no Vincent Price, unfortunately, but it's still an impressive line up. The entire film is available to watch free on YouTube. It's only 98 minutes long, so it's worth watching if you've got the time. Here's one copy, though the end credits have annoyingly been cut off.

Here's another copy that includes the end credits, but has an interruption in the middle from the channel's hosts. If you don't mind skipping the commentary section, it's a decent copy.

[thecolorsblend]

The Masque Of The Red Death (1964)

Vincent Price plays a satanic prince who torments everyone around him for his own sick pleasure. Based on Poe.

Whatever the narrative may be lacking in pacing, it more than makes up for in atmosphere. Conveniently, this relates to a burgeoning quibble I have with modern horror films. Namely, that the horror genre (and, I would argue, modern cinema) has developed a very unwelcome obsession with realism. Everything in modern film must be presented in as grounded and credible a manner as possible.

Obviously, The Masque Of The Red Death comes from a time when cinema did not aspire to be realistic. As a result, the shadows are impossibly dark, the clouds are impossibly ominous, the always-full moon is impossibly big, etc.

The stylized tone suits the material well. This was a very enjoyable movie. It can be very easily argued that this is Roger Corman's finest moment as a director. I'll leave that for others. But if the consensus becomes that The Masque Of The Red Death is high water mark, I'm in no position to disagree.

[thecolorsblend]

The House That Dripped Blood
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_That_Dripped_Blood

Watched this tonight. It's an anthology film centered around peculiar goings on different, unrelated characters experience in the same house.

What I appreciate is how the different stories touch upon different subgenres of horror. You have a conventional murder mystery, love curse, supernatural magic and a vampire story.

Plus, it stars Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, which is never a bad thing in my book.

There's a lot to enjoy here, honestly.

[The Dark Knight]

After re-reading Watchmen I've given the Tales of the Black Freighter animation another look to get that story clear in my mind. After letting it simmer, I see it as being about the pitfalls of good intentions. Despite the carnage of the pirate attack it begins on positive terms. We have one man's mission of survival and a desire to protect others. But that quickly involves becoming increasingly desperate and comfortable with the grotesqueness of death. Through the journey the protagonist loses perspective and goes too far.

The story is essentially asking the question if Veidt did the same thing. Was he overthinking the threat like the pirate and attacking unnecessarily? Or at least too soon? We already know without a shadow of a doubt that the pirate made a mistake. The Freighter was not descending on the town to kill his family. As for Veidt, he knew the global temperate was heating up. That part is not a hallucination.

Consider that the pirate was thirsty, hungry and baking in the sun. Veidt had the luxury of having none of those encumbrances and thus a better chance at being rational. But interestingly, does that even matter in the end? Both characters still had certainty and thought their situations were to set in stone. Man is capable of great violence, and mistakes, in a variety of different mental states. I see the pirate's story as a parallel but not an exact mirror. We know the pirate's actions had no positive benefit other than his own physical survival.

Even if war does begin soon after, is Veidt a monster for at least trying something to avert it? Three million dead is small potatoes if the entirety of humanity is going up in flames anyway. Or on the flip side, is he the one who ends up causing it? In any case, Veidt does own those three million deaths. Just as the pirate used the bodies of his dead crew to float along the ocean, Veidt used the bodies of dead New Yorkers to try and float humanity to world peace.

I feel there's still a lot more left to say about the story, but I'll leave it there.

[thecolorsblend]

Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood

Finally watched Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood near the end of December. Missed it in theaters because reasons but I saw the price had dropped way down on iTunes after Christmas and knew I had to check it out.

My thing has been Cape-Free Cinema in recent times. That means no superheroes. I want to watch FILMS. Priority is given to period pieces, true stories/autobiographies and the cinematic works of David Fincher (for whom Mank was all of the above, btw).

Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood. Rly enjoyed it. Rick Dalton is obviously a composite but the movie is better for that, if you ask me. I don't think using an irl has-been actor as the lead character would've worked. Esp considering that jaw-dropping ending.

Probably my favorite scene is where Cliff half-spars/half-rly fights Bruce Lee. There are apocryphal tales of Bruce Lee getting owned by westerners and this seems to fit in that milieu. I remind myself that Bruce Lee was his own best publicist so there might be something to those stories of Lee getting his ass kicked.

For me, the promise of the premise of Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood is Hollywood as it was in the late Sixties. The founders of Hollywood from the Twenties and Thirties were retiring and selling their movie studios to corporations. The industry was radically shifting, the tastes and preferences of wide audiences were moving away from all those plot-free beach movies of the early Sixties and basically nobody rly knew what to do or which direction to go in.

That aimlessness along with the general insanity of the late Sixties personified by the Manson family are what rly give Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood its mojo.

At this point, I've seen this movie three times. And it gets better each time. A true modern classic.

I've taken the time "recently" (most of 2022) to rewatch Tarantino's entire directorial canon. And I have to say, he's one of the most consistent directors of all time. We can rag on Death Proof. And maybe we even should. But the fact remains that Tarantino offers a bona fide experience.

And there's no better example of that than Once Upon A Time...in Hollywood. I'll even say that I think this is the best thing he's ever done. And may ever do. Just can't get enough of this movie.

[The Dark Knight]

Get Back is incredible and it could be my favorite movie. I love how you see things unfold naturally, with the guys just being themselves. If such a project was made today it would all be planned out and the songs already written, with a pretence of authenticity. But the guys just had the balls to make something happen in the studio from sheer inspiration and confidence in their ability.

Watching the documentary again on Blu-ray (it's actually very hard to locate) has made me think about the tracklist of the original album. I don't dislike it. As it stands it's good, but not among their best. Instead I'm imagine something like this:

Get Back (Single)
Two Of Us
Dig A Pony
Across The Universe
I Me Mine
Dig It (1969 Glyn Johns Mix)
Let It Be (Single)
Maggie Mae
I've Got A Feeling
One After 909
The Long And Winding Road (LIB...Naked)
For You Blue
Don't Let Me Down (1969 Glyn Johns Mix)
Get Back (Reprise) [1969 Glyn Johns Mix]

I went for a 14 song tracklist, like Please Please Me, With The Beatles, Beatles For Sale, Help, Rubber Soul and Revolver. 14 is a good number I think. The Get Back Reprise is essentially filler to get to that, but putting Get Back as the opener gives the album a nice symmetry. I'm also treating it as something like Her Majesty, perhaps added on after a silence of ten seconds or so.

The lack of Don't Let Me Down in the official album is criminal, especially how often it was rehearsed during the sessions. The Glyn Johns Mix is the best version in my opinion, and that's what I went with. I like Dig It, but shortening it so much was a poor decison by Phil Spector. Glyn Johns did a much better job presenting it as a jam rather than a short interlude. I actually really like the album version of The Long and Winding Road, but the fact it's not how Paul wanted the song has to be acknowledged. He envisioned a stripped down, simpler melody, so that's what I chose. I think the single version of Let It Be serves the song better, but that's personal taste. Anything else from the list is from the original album.

This would've been one of their best albums, in the top three or four. The material was all there, it was all down to presention.

[thecolorsblend]

Just picked up Night Creatures (as it's called here in the States, for some reason; the title is "Captain Clegg" everywhere else apparently). Technically, I'm speaking a little out of school here since I haven't watched the thing yet. But iTunes offered a decent enough preview. I think it looks decent. So, I guess we'll see how this plays out.

Hammer tended to have good cinematography. Even if a film itself was substandard, the lighting and other technical stuff was usually done right. So, on that basis, I've never came away from a Hammer production completely disappointed. Because even the lesser Hammer works still have a certain level of quality behind them.

So, that's the minimum of what I expect from Night Creatures.