Humbleodeon- Book and Movie Reviews

[Vita Curator]

I agree with you Anon1mat0, Pans Labyrinth was one of the most beautiful, disturbing and thought-provoking movies that I have seen for a while.  It was wrenching to see the girl use fantasy as a tool in coping with her fear, anguish, worry, etc.  As you said a fairytale in the midst of the madness of Franco's regime.  The graphic violence at times made me hide my eyes and I did not look, sometimes peeking through my fingers.  Take someone to hold onto and don't get anything to eat.

[Bluenose]

I have just watched the two part SkyOne version of Terry Pratchett's The HogFather.

I found that the Discworld was very well realised and that the casting was just about perfect.  The screenplay seemed to be very true to the book and I found that the characters well matched my personal visualisation of them which is a pleasant surprise. The only exception to that was Albert, who was quite different to the way I have imagined him, but the characterisation worked well anyway.  Anyone who is a Pratchett fan will enjoy this IMHO.  As usual, DEATH stole the show and got to get in some of Pratchett's philosophical thoughts and comments on human nature in a very effective manner.  Great stuff.

If you get the chance to watch, do youself a favour and do so.  I can only hope that the same team get to make some more of Discworld books into movies.

[Sibling Chatty]

Wordless, breath-holding WANT is filling my soul.

They GOTTA get it on DVD here SOON.

[Swatopluk]

You may try the animated Soul Music and Wyrd Sisters first. Those are already on DVD.
Christopher Lee is the VOICE of Death there.

[Aggie]

Coincidentally, I've just watched a Canadian indie animated film called "Mr. Reaper's Really Bad Morning" - title is pretty self-explanitory.  Worth a few giggles, especially if you are a Death fan.

Not sure why, but it does my soul good to watch (and re-watch) the scene where Calgary is destroyed by a giant flaming meteor.

[Swatopluk]

Must find the time and patience to write a few new reviews.

Watched Operation Lune/Dark Side of the Moon last week.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0344160/
It's quite a nice demonstration (deliberate) of the possibility of media manipulations.
One could call it a game of "when (if at all) did you get it?"
The outward premise is that the Apollo 11 films/photos are fake (though not the moon landing itself!) and that Stanley Kubrick directed it.
The 'evidence' presented looks indeed highly convincing in parts.
The twist is that the makers seemingly do not rely on the usual conspiracy theorists but present to us the real persons behind it (Kubricks's widow, Kissinger, Rumsfeld, Buzz Aldrin, Nixon's secretary etc.) and let them talk on camera. There is also a lot of circumstantial evidence presented, e.g. the (real, not faked) clip of Nixon announcing the death of the Apollo 11 astronauts (produced just in case).
Then the film goes into high gear telling us the story of how Nixon dealt with those in the know that potentially could spill the beans. For those who still haven't realized that their leg is pulled the bizarro level is increased exponentially including the insinuation that Nixon escalated the Vietnam War in order to get some of the participants in the moon hoax that had hidden in Cambodia (after a covert CIA operation failed) or that Reagan becoming president was a payback to Hollywood for helping.

If you check the film in detail you'll find a lot of hints (=deliberate inconsistencies) from the start: a Dave Bowman in NASA mission control, an ex CIA Head talking French, a witness by the name of Ambrose Chapel etc.
If you listen closely to what Rumsfeld, Kissinger & Co. actually say, you'll realize that it is completely devoid of context, and that the context is only provided by the narrative and the combination with external material.

For those that even in the end do not get the joke the credits are combined with a blooper  reel.

What this film demonstrates is that it is possible to make a completely bogus but nonetheless convincing 'documentary' with a minimum of actual faking and even using highly visible figures to unknowingly contribute (The director stated in an interview that none of the "real" people, not even Kubrick's widow, was informed beforehand, and that everything was done by conventional editing).

One problem will be of course that the film will end up as a further "proof" for the "moon hoax" conspiracy fans.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Finally got around to seeing Pan's Labyrinth. Was a disturbing film, but compelling as well.

I saw two ways to interpret the film: it was a fantasy, and therefore the girls "dreams" reflected reality, and the human-created violence reflected a world of human-creation, and therefore was not as real.

The other way, is that a small girl was thrust into a violent situation, and the only way she could cope, was into a fantasy world of her own creation.

I like the first interpretation better-- I like fantasy genre, and always try to take it at "face value".  When it's rules are internally consistent (as in this movie), it works very, very well.

And, a fantasy-"take" on the movie leaves one with a very happy ending.

The other "take", leaves the movie as just a dark, violent portrayal of the capacity for humans to justify anything to themselves, given enough motivation.

So.  Great fantasy movie.  Lousy war movie. See it in either case-- worth the $$.

[Swatopluk]

I need to find time to watch it (the DVD is still wrapped).

[Swatopluk]

At last found the time to watch Hogfather. Both episodes in one go (and DVDs still have no commercial breaks, thank whoever)
I also say that is is almost perfect and far better than could have been expected.
Ridcully could have been a little more aggressive (otherwise a perfect choice) and the Dean a bit fatter. Mr.Teatime had an uncanny likeness to a young Hardy Krüger and Susan reminded me slightly of Kate Winslet (this is not meant as criticism, both do their role absolutely perfect). The voice of Death was also a good choice, I think, but I am too used to Christopher Lee in that role (in the animated versions of Wyrd Sisters and Soul Music), to be more than 95% happy .

So, if you have any love for Discworld at all and own a DVD playing device, GET THE DVD!
This is meant as a recommendation by me and I have no financial interest in boosting the sales .

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I just went to watch the latest Harry Potter installment with my son. To start with the end (in more than one sense) my son was almost fuming at it. Having read the whole thing a few (several?) times he was very mindful of all the things that changed from the book, but the ending is what upset him the most and from then I started thinking on the whole ordeal. Saying that the (a) movie wasn't faithful to the (a) book is normally stating the obvious and in this case while the main events from the book are there a good part of the spirit of the book died at the hands of the script writer and the director. Don't get me wrong I don't think the movie was a disaster (like that pathetic attempt of a movie called Eragon) but all the teen angst that overflows the 5th book is almost completely absent; is like the anger of a 15 y/o had been shrunk to a 9 y/o's size, and to complete the coup the very last scene is so cheesy that seems copied from a 80's TV series. The book is dark and the movie barely tries, which is perhaps what upset my son so much more than the scissors that made the 2'18" movie possible.

Apart from that, the movie is technically well crafted and quite entertaining. Imelda Stauton does a great job as Dolores Umbridge forcing you to hate her from the very first time you see her on the movie. The combat at the ministry is visually well done although it doesn't fully show the hectic scene portrayed in the book. All in all it would seem that someone tried to make the movie PG (and failed BTW) and in the process the story loses some of its potency. Pity.

[Swatopluk]

I'll still wait for some time until the cinemas are not that overrun.
There has been a tug-o-war since the beginning of the series between the Disneyoids that wanted "family-friendly" movie versions* and those that wanted the movies to follow the books into the darkness. Still a bit of overeliance on FX (the dragon fight was far too long) but I think that e.g. the maze in the movie actually improved on the book (I doubt that it would be possible to reproduce that claustrophobic effect in writing).
If it is necessary to keep the spirit of the books, an R rating should not be shunned imo. Part 2 was slightly abridged in the German version to get a lower rating (knowing that I ordered the DVDs from the UK).

*now they have Narnia, so I hop they will leave us in peace.

[Sibling Lambicus the Toluous]

I saw a really good movie on Wednesday: Four Sheets to the Wind.  It was the opening night screening for the imagineNATIVE film and media festival.

Here's the plot summary from the festival web site:

Beautifully crafted and set under gorgeous Oklahoma skies, this poignant and wryly funny story of family and healing begins the morning Cufe Smallhill (Cody Lightning) finds his father quieter than usual, an empty bottle of pills at his side. Fulfilling his dad's wish, Cufe sinks his father's body in the pond to spare him the big circus of a funeral. Cufe, his cousin, and mom decide to fake a funeral to satisfy the community, and Cufe's beautiful and tormented sister Miri (Tamara Podemski) comes home just long enough to convince Cufe to leave the reserve and visit her in the city. Once there, shy Cufe meets a girl who gently opens up his world.

I'm not normally one for a movie describe as "poignant" or as a "story of family and healing", but it was really good, funny at times, and just... wow.  Very well done, especially considering it was shot in 18 days and made for a budget of $250,000.

Apparently, it's not going into general cinema distribution (though you may be able to find it at your local art house theatre... maybe), but it's being distributed on DVD, so you should be able to find it at Blockbuster before too long.  It's worth checking out.

[anthrobabe]

Oh- that Cody is one hottie. Yes I am old enough to be his mother-- but I'm not his mother- so there 

[Swatopluk]

OK, here is the promised Häxan review

If there ever was a golden age of moviemaking, it must have been the decade following World War 1. Cinema shed its reputation of a mere sensational novelty of fairs and amusement parks and was eager to establish itself as a genuine art form. The medium had also reached a certain maturity allowing directors to follow their visions without being too constrained by the technical limitations. Also the garage shops had been replaced by larger studio infrastructure that could afford to hire professionals in front and behind the camera. But like the pioneers those studios were still willing to take certain risks, not just playing it safe (although the first cases of sequelitis did occur at the time).
In Europe (starting in France but reaching full development in Germany) there was a clear trend towards the bizarre and grotesque turning from the hilarious (pre WW1) to the uncanny, weird and dark. There began the age of Expressionism that gave us masterpieces like The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari(Wiene), Nosferatu – A Symphony of Horror(Murnau), House of Wax(Leni) or The Golem(Wegener) and also the first monumentals, exemplified by Fritz Lang's series of two-part movies like The Spiders, Dr.Mabuse – The Gambler, The Nibelungs etc.
Most of those movies also made ample use of special effects (many developed then are still used today).
What is less known is that this era also saw the coming of the large-scale documentary making use of the same technical wizardry (some stunning even by the standars of today).
This brings us to the movie to be reviewed today: Benjamin Christensen's Häxan (The Witch aka Witchcraft through the Ages). It was made in total secrecy between 1920 and 1922 in Denmark with Swedish financial backing (it became the most expensive silent film ever made in Scandinavia) and was originally planned to be just the first part of a trilogy on the topic of human superstition (the second and third parts dealing with saints and ghosts). This was not to come because the film caused an instant scandal leading to outright bans or at least severe cuts in most countries. It thus became a financial disaster and the director never again got the creative freedom he enjoyed with this one. His skill was acknowledged though and he made several other movies in the next 2 decades. Variety summed up the controversy with "Wonderful though this movie is, it is absolutely unfit for public exhibition.". I guess a reissue on public TV in the US would still cause a puritanical uproar.
But now to the piece itself. It starts rather unpromising with a dry theoretical introduction using contemporary images (woodcuts, manuscript pages etc.) and models (both contemporary and (then=1920) modern). There is even a wooden pointer employed to "highlight" details. About the only interesting thing here is the "animatronic" hell, a quite complex mechanical contraption with devils picking victims from a kind of conveyor belt and putting them into boiling cauldrons while others work the bellows below it.
But then the director changes gear and transports us directly into the house and kitchen of a witch. Had there been Academy Awards at the time, the first would have been deserved for this set alone. The depths and details are simply incredible. This is not the usual painted backdrop, it feels absolutely real and lived-in. The second Oscar would be for the make-up (apart from the director obviously having plundered the Hags'R'Us catalogue to get this collection of crones ). Now it's time for business . Two other witches bring severed body parts from the gallows to be used for potion-making and a female customer asks for a philtre to seduce a monk (allowing time for some comic relief). Having established the main scenery the director now treats us to a series of grotesque and often hilarious scenes depicting the superstitions of the day that revolve around the perceived actions of Satan (played by himself (i.e. Christensen, not the Evil One)). He leaves no doubt though what he thinks about this, i.e. that those beliefs are superstitions, and prepares the stage for the rational explanations that await us in the third part of the movie. But before that we come to the central part. A man has become ill and his realtives unwisely consults a quack that tells her that a witch with an evil eye is responsible. The suspicion falls on a beggar woman in the kitchen and the (pretty) young wife is sent out to call the Inquisition. A fatal mistake because the young monk receiving her feels temptation which in turn his superiors take for the effect of witchcraft.
Under torture the beggar woman spills out the tales expected. Everyone knows the script of course and the director takes the opportunity to start the next sequence of grotesque scenes, this time a detailed presentation of the witches sabbath. But the old woman also takes revenge by accusing her accusers of being accomplices leading to new arrests, new "revelations" about accomplices and so forth until at last the young woman is tricked into confession to safe her baby child. With nor more victims to expect the Inquisition leaves for new hunting grounds. Thus endeth the second part.
In the last section Christensen tries to give a rational explanation by drawing parallels to the present time (1920). His main thesis is that the people in the past interpreted certain phenomena that they couldn't understand based on their mythical worldview. In a series of parallel montage (using the same actors) he demonstrates that many things playing a role in the past are still around but now not seen as possession, satanic manifestations etc. but as symptoms of certain illnesses, especially hysteria (which then was a regular scientific term in the psychyatry/neurology). Autosuggestion is also a powerful argument with "witches" believing that certain actions will affect somebody  and the "victim", believing the same, actually feeling the effect. "Hysterics" fail the needle test as did the alleged witches, Thumbscrews elicit absurd confessions from voluntary students etc.
We are also told that people suffering from mental illnesses or severe trauma hallucinate nightly visits. While medival people imagined demons, modern patients may  see persons of authority or fame, although the Evil One is still around occasionally. Christensen tells us that the old woman that played the first victim of the Inquisition told him that the devil was real and that she had seen him personally sitting at night on her bed (she also showed him a modern booklet about how to detect the presence of the devil). Trauma patients can show symptoms of compulsive disorder, committing acts that are the exact opposite of their natural behaviour (a fire victim compulsively lighting matches or a war victim turning kleptomaniac). This is paralleled with scenes of nuns under severe mental stress (constantly fearing the hellish temptation) committing sacrilege (stabbing the consecrated wafer, spitting on crucifixes) claiming that Satan made them do it and demanding to be punished. The film ends with another contrast of images, a woman that flies not using a broom but a biplane and a person consulting a clairvoyant, thus demonstrating that even our "enlightened" times have not yet completely shed the mythic views of the past but that the advance of science may be a reason for (qualified) optimism.
Christensen is today occasionally accused of providing unreliable information and being misogynous for presenting "hysteric" women as the "guilty" part. I think that is unfair. Though historians now see a number of things, especially the number of "witches" that became victims during the scare, differently, the director can't reasonably be blamed for using the sources available at the time. Neuroscience and Psychiatry were also far less sophisticated than today (this was the high time of Freud!), which Christensen openly admits ("we just begin to understand"). It is also clear that the "hysteric symptoms" are at best the seed that sets the inquisitorial madness in motion leading to a chain reaction where torture brings "believable confessions" (because everyone knows the script), further corroborating the expectations about the satanic conspiracy and so forth. That this vicious cycle is a reality has been amply demonstrated in the 20th century and we have to just look at the "Global War on Terror" and the discussions about "waterboarding" to realize that this is anything but a thing of the past. So, while we have to be careful not to accept the information/details of the film as gospel, I think that the main thrust/message is still valid and by no means outdated. Apart from that this film shows such enormous creativity and is executed with so much skill that it deserves a place among the great masterpieces of cinema.
So: See it and don't get discouraged by the slow opening.

Trivia:
Major parts of he film were shot at night, which was extremly uncommon at the time,  thereby creating an atmosphere that could not have been achieved with the usual day-for-night.
With most actors being blue-eyed the use of blue filters resulted in a very uncanny effect in the finished film.
The Flight of the Witches to the Brocken was done with a landscape model on a huge turntable (the house models were up to 2 meters high, allowing for extreme details) and a prototype optical printer allowing for multiple exposures. The shown multitude of witches were individuals, not just a handful of actors performing multiple times.
Even for todays jaded standards the film is surprisingly explicit in its depiction without giving the impression of being deliberately "titillating".
The film was rereleased in 1967 in a sped-up version (105 -> 76 min, mainly through display at 24 frames per minute instead of the original 18) with a jazz score and a narration by William S. Burroughs (replacing parts of the intertitles).

[Swatopluk]

And another review I should have done a year ago

Jigoku (Hell), Japan 1960, directed by NAKAGAWA Nobuo
Monty Python meets Shakespeare on a bad trip to Dante's Inferno might sum up this movie, which seems to be unavailable on DVD outside Japan.
A student is betrothed to his professor's daughter. Without her parents knowing they already had sex and without him knowing she is already pregnant. Driving home one night with a (very uncanny) colleague, who seems to know things he shouldn't, he runs over a drunkard. Persuaded against his better judgement by the colleague he drives away resulting in the victim to die. This truly pisses off the female relatives of the man and they decide to find and kill the perpetrator. Driven by bad conscience (reading in the papers about the man's death) and against the colleague's pleads, the student decides to go to the police. His fiancee accompanies him for moral support. But the taxi they use has an accident and she is killed. To get away from it all our man decides to visit his ailing mum at a country hospital where he encounters a young woman that looks exactly like his dead fiancee. Most people at the hospital (patients and doctors) have obviously tons of bad karma of their own and on the occasion of a high holiday all the other characters from the city (including the avenging females) arrive at the scene too. In an increasingly absurd sequence of events everyone ends up dead. A few selected reasons of death: falling from a suspension bridge (in connection with high heels), suicide by train, mass food poisoning (from rotten fish), poisoned sake, strangulation, shooting, falling down stairs...
But the movie is just half over. The whole company finds itself in the Buddhist hell and is treated to assorted punishment according to the crimes and misbehaviours committed while alive. Our hero is in permanent pursuit of his fiancee's angelic soul and that of his unborn child. He is informed that finding and protecting the latter will be his only chance of salvation. In the end we see him on the great turning wheel of fate trying to reach the baby that lies on the opposite site. With his fate undecided he is actually one of the lucky ones. The director releases the whole pandaemonium on the rest of the cast (also giving us the details about the crimes they have managed to keep hidden). While the first part of the movie kept to a highly realist style, the second half is technicolor* creativity going wild. Critics have compared it rightfully to the visions of Hieronymus Bosch in a Japanese setting. Demons with tridents, boiling lakes, foggy wastes etc. It's probably not everyone's idea of fun to get dismembered by demons, put together again and repeating that cycle for eternity . It has to be emphasized though that it does not leave the impression of exploitation for its own sake (as many other Japanese movies) but one of catharsis.
I would not recommend this as a blind buy for it is clearly not for everyone's taste. But should you have the chance to watch it somewhere, give it a try. The same is true for other films by this director, who (among other things) pioneered the modern Japanese (ghost) horror but yet without the cliche vengeful child ghost in white with long hair before the eyes that today dominates the genre.

*the emphasis is less on primary colours though but more on "-ish" tones.