Sunday, October 26, 2014

Vampyr (1932)

Many early talkies aimed to take full advantage of sound, but some would have lost next to nothing as silents. Apart from some eerie, mysterious noises, Vampyr, the first talkie from The Passion of Joan of Arc director Carl Dreyer, falls in the latter camp. The music is nearly constant, several narrative intertitles appear, and it has about one minute of dialog in total. In fairness, dubbing was more difficult in those days: The same people had to speak or at least convincingly mouth German, French, and English for different releases. (I settled on German with subtitles.)

Dreyer didn't care for Nosferatu and resented Dracula for stealing his thunder in 1931, but I assure you that Vampyr is no retread. In fact, of the dozen films I've seen that include vampires in some capacity, it is probably the most singular and certainly the most artsy (eat your heart out, Warhol). It is also the most confusing, to the point that, for the first time in my life, I watched the whole thing again with commentary. Hey, it's only about 74 minutes.

Friday, October 24, 2014

The Changeling (1980)

Having nothing to do with Clint Eastwood's Changeling (2008), this horror-mystery takes a while to explain its title. What you need to know up front is that a late-middle-aged George C. Scott plays John Russell, a man who copes with personal trauma by moving, specifically to a mansion that hasn't (officially) been occupied in decades. He gradually, yet sooner than I expected, discovers and believes the reason.

If you guessed a haunting, give yourself a smiley face. But unlike in some such stories I could name, the protagonist is not in much danger of dying, getting trapped, or going insane. He could quietly walk away and never look back if he wanted. Instead, he gathers that the usually invisible ghost here wants help and, like many in fiction, doesn't know an efficient, noncreepy way to communicate.

I questioned the decision to cast Scott. He's a bit like Michael Douglas: a very good actor, but not when it comes to projecting fear. Mainly he just seems annoyed. But that didn't prevent the movie from creeping me out to my satisfaction.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

The Wicker Man (1973)

It seems fitting to start with this film, since I was talking about it when a listener recommended that I launch this blog. (That could have been a subtle way to get me to stop running at the mouth, but I prefer to think otherwise.)

If the title puts a bad taste in your mouth due to the 2006 Nicolas Cage remake, let me assure you that the original is much more popular, despite the condemnation by a producer at the time who might have had something to do with the poor theater distribution and the suspiciously lost negatives. I have not seen the remake to compare, but at least this time there are no bees. Partly, I suppose, because they did the shooting well into fall in Scotland, a fact that might be most discernible when more than half the outdoor "nudes" are in body stockings.

Greetings

If you know me from anywhere, you probably know that I'm the kind of guy who makes profits more difficult for Netflix. I watch films more frequently than anyone else I know (tho they likely have me beat in the TV show department); my total is in the thousands by now. It hardly matters which genre, decade, or nation of origin, as long as it has enough fans for me to suspect I'll like it too, or at least to feel obligated to educate myself. Generally, I arrange to watch very different movies in a row, but I narrow the field when approaching certain holidays or other special occasions. For instance, all October becomes Halloween to me.

Entries in this blog will focus primarily on whatever I saw most recently. I'll consider taking requests for reviews of films I saw earlier, some of which I may have written up elsewhere, but most likely I'll just mention them in passing with regard to other viewings. I may even expand to comments on other entertainment media, but I have a feeling I've cast my net wide enough already.

Hopefully someone out there will value my opinions. If not, at least I'll have the peace of mind that comes from putting my thoughts into written words.