No, the title has nothing to do with the biblical use of the term. In fact, it relies heavily on Mayan mythology. Since I'd forgotten that Mexico's Day of the Dead actually lasts three days, I am in no position to evaluate the authenticity of the traditions depicted herein, but that matters little in an animated comedy.
We get a story within a story as a museum tour guide (Christina Applegate) tells a group of kids -- far more rapt than their early misbehavior would portend -- one legend straight out of the allegedly comprehensive Book of Life. Set in an ambiguous post-Columbian era, it concerns two gods wagering on human love. If María (Zoe Saldana) marries Joaquin (Channing Tatum), popular son of a war hero, then Xibalba (Ron Perlman), god of the hellish Land of the Forgotten, gets to swap places with La Muerte (Kate del Castillo), goddess of the much more pleasant Land of the Remembered. If María marries Joaquin's friend Manolo (Diego Luna), an aspiring mariachi whose father pushes him to be a matador, then Xibalba has to stop intervening in the realm of the living. Both boys/men do awesome things with their divine blessings over the years, but neither has the advantage in María's heart for very long; the main change is in how they feel about each other. At no point does either god fear that she'll marry neither, though.
As you might have guessed, Xibalba is the nastier god, though not nasty enough to make an outright villain out of his champion. Due to some unfair moves on Xibalba's part, Manolo dies about halfway through the movie. But Manolo strives to return to life, not just for María's sake but to help save their hometown from the true main villain, Chakal (Dan Navarro), a bandit leader too dangerous even for Joaquin. This being the Day of the Dead, the separation between life and death is more negotiable than usual....
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Ringu (1998)
Some films get thoroughly noted for one particular aspect -- to the point that people who haven't already seen them wonder if there's enough else to justify actually watching them instead of hearing about them. Well, I learned with The Crying Game that there could be quite a lot more, and what people cite might not even be the best part IMO. With that in mind, I checked out this Japanese cult classic slightly more esteemed than its 2001 American remake The Ring.
The famous premise is certainly dated from a technological standpoint: a videotape that results in its viewers' death one week later. To my surprise, the movie wastes no time in establishing this premise as one teen girl tells another a rumor about someone falling victim to it. The listener gets concerned, as the creepily avant-garde-sounding video content description matches what she herself saw recently. The rumor also included a phone call to the victim (thus explaining the title), and sure enough, the phone rings now. No points for guessing the gist of what happens that night.
The famous premise is certainly dated from a technological standpoint: a videotape that results in its viewers' death one week later. To my surprise, the movie wastes no time in establishing this premise as one teen girl tells another a rumor about someone falling victim to it. The listener gets concerned, as the creepily avant-garde-sounding video content description matches what she herself saw recently. The rumor also included a phone call to the victim (thus explaining the title), and sure enough, the phone rings now. No points for guessing the gist of what happens that night.
Thursday, October 22, 2015
The Old Dark House (1932)
This early talkie is best remembered for two things. First, it was the first post-Frankenstein James Whale movie featuring Boris Karloff, though the latter is made up so differently that an opening written paragraph tells us who he plays. Second, legal complications on distribution rights caused it to be lost for decades until Curtis Harrington, a director and friend of Whale, campaigned to find and restore it.
Karloff gets top billing but not the most screen time, let alone the most lines (he plays a mute again). Other notable actors include Melvyn Douglas, Raymond Massey, Gloria Stuart, and Charles Laughton, all of whom play relatively good and normal characters. The gist: Two parties with a total of five people get caught in a terrible storm on a mountain road and beg shelter at the titular house. Unlike in many such setups, there's nothing supernatural about the mansion; it just has unhinged residents. Some of whom have tendencies to unprovoked violence....
Karloff gets top billing but not the most screen time, let alone the most lines (he plays a mute again). Other notable actors include Melvyn Douglas, Raymond Massey, Gloria Stuart, and Charles Laughton, all of whom play relatively good and normal characters. The gist: Two parties with a total of five people get caught in a terrible storm on a mountain road and beg shelter at the titular house. Unlike in many such setups, there's nothing supernatural about the mansion; it just has unhinged residents. Some of whom have tendencies to unprovoked violence....
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Kuroneko (1968)
The original full title, Yabu no Naka no Kuroneko, translates to "A Black Cat in a Bamboo Grove." The first three words can also refer to a mystery -- and/or a short story that became the basis of the classic Rashōmon. Given that the same bridge plays a significant role in the setting, it's probably no coincidence.
Beyond that, I failed to unearth much in the way of enlightening trivia, but apparently there's some tradition involving a strong spiritual connection between cats and owners. Kuroneko begins with a young woman and her mother-in-law home alone while their husband/son is off at a long war. A troop of samurai gang-rapes and kills them, burning the rural house to the ground. Their cat inspects the bodies and somehow fuses with their spirits to help exact vengeance -- somewhat like The Crow, but even more intimate and magical. Their MO is to lure individual samurai (whether known offenders or not) from the bridge to an illusory estate, seduce them, and kill them a la feline vampires. Little did they know that their husband/son would become a samurai and be assigned to annihilate whatever's killing the samurai....
Beyond that, I failed to unearth much in the way of enlightening trivia, but apparently there's some tradition involving a strong spiritual connection between cats and owners. Kuroneko begins with a young woman and her mother-in-law home alone while their husband/son is off at a long war. A troop of samurai gang-rapes and kills them, burning the rural house to the ground. Their cat inspects the bodies and somehow fuses with their spirits to help exact vengeance -- somewhat like The Crow, but even more intimate and magical. Their MO is to lure individual samurai (whether known offenders or not) from the bridge to an illusory estate, seduce them, and kill them a la feline vampires. Little did they know that their husband/son would become a samurai and be assigned to annihilate whatever's killing the samurai....
Friday, October 16, 2015
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)
I imagine that nobody was "ready" for this film when it arrived. For starters, it's set in Iran but made in the USA; that's why the on-screen credits are in English but the dialog isn't. Outside sources tell me the actors speak a pidgin Farsi, so it probably has limited popularity with Iranians. Seemingly the only reason for the setting is a whim of the debuting Iranian-American director, Ana Lily Amirpour. Who, admittedly, would be hard pressed to get it made in the real Iran.
If nobody had told me that AGWHAaN was a horror, I'd have had no idea for the first 24 minutes. For all that time, it's a deliberately monochrome, deliberately paced study of unwholesome characters in a bleak town called Bad City. (It sounds to me like they pronounce it "Bahd," so it must not be intended as the English adjective, except maybe for a pun.) These characters include young drug dealer Arash, his junkie father, a mean pimp, a tired prostitute, and an impish boy. And then there's the titular, severely laconic, unnamed "girl" in the black cloak, who stalks...well, I'm tempted not to tell you, but enough ads and reviewers have given it away already....
If nobody had told me that AGWHAaN was a horror, I'd have had no idea for the first 24 minutes. For all that time, it's a deliberately monochrome, deliberately paced study of unwholesome characters in a bleak town called Bad City. (It sounds to me like they pronounce it "Bahd," so it must not be intended as the English adjective, except maybe for a pun.) These characters include young drug dealer Arash, his junkie father, a mean pimp, a tired prostitute, and an impish boy. And then there's the titular, severely laconic, unnamed "girl" in the black cloak, who stalks...well, I'm tempted not to tell you, but enough ads and reviewers have given it away already....
Sunday, October 11, 2015
The Bad Seed (1956)
You may question whether a mere thriller, with no sci-fi or supernatural elements and no gore, belongs on a Halloween-type schedule. But I tend to find movies scarier when they're basically credible...and when they leave something to the imagination.
Besides, Mervyn LeRoy's The Bad Seed may easily call to mind genuine horrors like The Omen, if only because of the enfant terrible. I can't name many films about evil children, partly because not every filmmaker wants to get kids thoroughly involved in something not fit for family viewing, but they are a promising ingredient for disturbance if not fear. Think about it: Young children, especially girls, are commonly upheld as symbols of innocence. But I for one remember having worse ethics then than now; I was "innocent" only in the sense that I'd had little time or ability to do anything seriously bad. A child with a bit more of the right talent and know-how could do much worse. And eight-year-old Rhoda (Patty McCormack) is one such child.
Besides, Mervyn LeRoy's The Bad Seed may easily call to mind genuine horrors like The Omen, if only because of the enfant terrible. I can't name many films about evil children, partly because not every filmmaker wants to get kids thoroughly involved in something not fit for family viewing, but they are a promising ingredient for disturbance if not fear. Think about it: Young children, especially girls, are commonly upheld as symbols of innocence. But I for one remember having worse ethics then than now; I was "innocent" only in the sense that I'd had little time or ability to do anything seriously bad. A child with a bit more of the right talent and know-how could do much worse. And eight-year-old Rhoda (Patty McCormack) is one such child.
The Phantom Carriage (1921)
I don't believe I'd ever seen a silent Swedish film before. Fittingly, it was Ingmar Bergman's favorite from an early age, though I couldn't have independently identified any sign of influence besides Grim Reaper imagery. Interestingly, TPC doesn't have a Grim Reaper in the sense we usually think of: The task of collecting dead souls (merely carrying them, not using the purely ceremonial scythe) falls to a new dead soul each year, namely whoever dies last in the year. Apparently, the legend makes no allowance for time zone differences.
As you can guess, this story includes the stroke of midnight, with chimes dutifully supplied in addition to a haunting score. Protagonist David, a homeless drunk, has been wary of the legend but injudiciously provokes his companions into a serious fight. Then he meets the titular carriage's retiring driver, Georges, whom he happened to have met shortly before his death. David reeeeally doesn't want to take over (is it that terrible a way to spend a year in the afterlife?), and we actually never see him take the reins or a soul in his hands. Georges forces him only to come along for information....
As you can guess, this story includes the stroke of midnight, with chimes dutifully supplied in addition to a haunting score. Protagonist David, a homeless drunk, has been wary of the legend but injudiciously provokes his companions into a serious fight. Then he meets the titular carriage's retiring driver, Georges, whom he happened to have met shortly before his death. David reeeeally doesn't want to take over (is it that terrible a way to spend a year in the afterlife?), and we actually never see him take the reins or a soul in his hands. Georges forces him only to come along for information....
Monday, October 5, 2015
The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941)
Now that October has come, I've started a string of viewings appropriate to Halloween. Not all of them horrors, mind you. This rather light drama probably never scared anyone much. But the titular devil isn't just a figure of speech.
Surprise: Daniel Webster (Edward Arnold) is not one of the two most prominent characters; he kind of hovers in the background until the third act. Instead, Jabez Stone (James Craig, listed at the bottom of the abbreviated IMDb cast!), a New Hampshire farmer with a streak of bad luck in 1840, disregards his strong Christian mother (Jane Darwell) and wife (Anne Shirley) by privately declaring that he'd sell his soul for two cents. Of course, the sudden visitor who goes by the rather forthright name of Scratch (Walter Huston) offers far more than that to seal the deal: a guaranteed seven years of economic prosperity, followed immediately by payment. Stone takes Scratch's word for it that a soul is basically nothing -- which forms a fraction of his defense later on....
Surprise: Daniel Webster (Edward Arnold) is not one of the two most prominent characters; he kind of hovers in the background until the third act. Instead, Jabez Stone (James Craig, listed at the bottom of the abbreviated IMDb cast!), a New Hampshire farmer with a streak of bad luck in 1840, disregards his strong Christian mother (Jane Darwell) and wife (Anne Shirley) by privately declaring that he'd sell his soul for two cents. Of course, the sudden visitor who goes by the rather forthright name of Scratch (Walter Huston) offers far more than that to seal the deal: a guaranteed seven years of economic prosperity, followed immediately by payment. Stone takes Scratch's word for it that a soul is basically nothing -- which forms a fraction of his defense later on....
Advise & Consent (1962)
Sometimes, all it takes to get me to put off viewing a popular movie is an off-putting title. Such dry, stilted language, adapted to awkward verb form from the Constitution. I can enjoy legal dramas -- 12 Angry Men, Judgment at Nuremberg, and Otto Preminger's other great Anatomy of a Murder are among my favorite dramas in any subgenre -- but not so much when they focus on the more seemingly esoteric aspects of law. Was that the case here?
Not really, but it is a little tricky to follow. Initially, the most focal character is Robert Leffingwell (Henry Fonda), whom the curiously unnamed U.S. president (Franchot Tone) nominates for Secretary of State. It's not clear when the story takes place -- the novel was written three years earlier -- but apparently the Red Scare still has some steam, because opponents present evidence that Leffingwell has been moving in the wrong circles, if you will. By the second half, focus shifts to the hearing committee chair, Sen. Brigham Anderson (Don Murray), faced with a scandal of his own....
Not really, but it is a little tricky to follow. Initially, the most focal character is Robert Leffingwell (Henry Fonda), whom the curiously unnamed U.S. president (Franchot Tone) nominates for Secretary of State. It's not clear when the story takes place -- the novel was written three years earlier -- but apparently the Red Scare still has some steam, because opponents present evidence that Leffingwell has been moving in the wrong circles, if you will. By the second half, focus shifts to the hearing committee chair, Sen. Brigham Anderson (Don Murray), faced with a scandal of his own....
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