Humbleodeon- Book and Movie Reviews

[Swatopluk]

Unheimliche Geschichten (Weird Stories), Germany 1919
Prologue (Frame)
In an antiquariat after closing hours 3 paintings, showing Death (Veidt), Devil (Schünzel) and Strumpet (Anita Berber), come to life. After scaring the shop owner away, the amuse themselves by reading stories from the books lying around. The trio takes the leading roles in the following five episodes
Episode 1: Grausige Nächte (Nights of Fright)
Veidt comes to the aid of a woman (Berber) that is harassed in the park. After learning that the guy (Schünzel) is her insane ex-husband, who has tried to kill her in the past, he provides her with a hotel room and there leaves her because she claims to feel not well. Returning late at night and drunk after an evening with friends he wants to check the room but finds it empty and completely stripped of everything. Thinking that he got the wrong room he goes to bed and tries again in the morning. Now the room is completely refurnished and everyone in the hotel claims that he had come alone without a female companion. The guestbook also lacks her signature. The police says the same (without explainging how they should know). There he also encounters the mad ex who thinks that he had disappeared her (he had followed them to the hotel). When he learns the truth in the end is quite a shock (also for the viewers that are completely unprepared for the turn of events).
Episode 2: Die Hand (The Hand)
Veidt and Schünzel compete for the hand of Berber. When Veidt wins a play of dice intended to decide the matter, he is strangled by his rival (and later found by her). The story jumps a few years ahead (logic hole: nobody seems to suspect the likely culprit). She has started a career as a dancer and invites her surviving suitor to the theatre for her first public solo performance. But he is not going to enjoy it because he finds the spectre of his victim behind his seat. Unwisely persuaded to take part in a seance afterwards he begins to behave rather erratically (think Macbeth and the ghost of Banqo). After everyone but her leaves, Veidt manifests and kills his murderer either through strangling or by shock.
Episode 3: Die schwarze Katze (The Black Cat)
An adaption of the Poe story. Veidt takes an interest in the pretty wife of a drunkard (Schünzel, who else?). After a quarrel with his wife about her black cat and her unwillingness to drink a large mug of beer he attacks her and she ends up dead. This was clearly not his intention but he has to get rid of the body and simply walls her up in the cellar. He can't find the cat afterwards but doesn't care anyway. Nonetheless there is talk in the neighbourhood that he has killed her and Veidt, hearing that and being quite unconvincingly lied to by Schünzel, goes to the police to demand a search. At first nothing is found and the police is already leaving when Veidt remembers the existence of the cellar. That almost proves a dead end too but then the cat is detected behind the fresh wall. Unknowingly the murderer had immured it with his victim.
Episode 4: Der Selbstmörder-Club (The Suicide Club)
This is an adpation of a story by Stevenson.
Schünzel (who is not what he seems to be) follows a hint towards an officially unoccupied house and encounters Veidt, who runs the suicide club (such societies seem to be taken for granted). Joining the company (it is not completely clear whether voluntary or not) he walks into a room with the ominous Dante quote of Lasciate ogni speranza voi qentrate (abandon all hope you who enters here) above the door. A number of men sit around a table and Veidt lets them draw cards. The one getting the ace of spades is going to die at midnight. I think you can guess who gets that card and is left trapped in the room.
Episode 5: Unheimliche Geschichte (Weird Tale)
This is in a completely different mood, signaled from the start by the use of funny rhymed intertitles.
A young Baroque lady feels neglected by her husband (Veidt) and shows a keen interest in the nobleman (Schünzel) who is brought in unconscious after a chariot accident. Waking up he loses no time trying to impress her with his "fiery temperament" but has some trouble to get his theatrically drawn sword back into the scabbard. The husband observing this scene decides that is time for a prank. He declares to have been called to fulfill an important mission and would leave his wife secure in the brave nobleman's hands. The hilarious haunting (e.g. pictures and the chandelier going up and down) that follows is (surprise, surprise) too much for the "brave baron" and everyone else has a good laugh. The lady who finds that there is obviously more to her husband than she hitherto suspected gives him a big kiss. Veidt comments that with the last fourliner saying that a tale must be really called weird when it ends with the wife lovingly kissing her husband.
Epilogue (Frame)
The shopowner returns with the police but the trio has already gone back to its frames.
Left alone he eyes all three and they grin back with the devil blowing some  smoke in his face.

This movie is clearly a precursor of the episode films a la Amicus and the Corman series with Price, Lorre and Karloff with Schünzel taking the role of Lorre (there is even quite an outward similarity plus a hint of Lugosi) and Veidt that of Price. But this is not technicolor and happily hamming it up (except the last episode) but an early example of the dark German Expressionist (silent) movie with the heavy makeup and eyeliner typical for the time. This makes everyone look creepy from the start. But Veidt doesn't actually need that. He could outcreep Nosferatu himself in his sleep and gives a first-rate performance as usual. In real life he was an extremly pleasant person also possessing great integrity. He was one of the few that openly defied the Nazis and stood up for his Jewish colleagues. Like Chaplin he took the (false) claim that he was a Jew himself as a badge of honour. As an actor he specialized in ambiguous* sinister roles and I think he has not been surpassed in this by any later actor** (Alas, we won't see the likes of his again!).
Schünzel, as already said above, delivers a performance at least on par with Lorre at his darkest being creepy, slimy, insane but also fully convincing as the (seeming) victim of Veidt in the suicide club or the bufoonish baron in the last episode. That his frame character is The Devil (in Mephistophelian mode) is only appropriate. Anita Berber is mainly reduced to the role of playing the reason for the Veidt-Schünzel conflict but she also keeps the ambiguity of her partners, so we can't be sure, whether she is playing a game of her own. That's most important in the first episode but leaves us also guessing in the last. Is she really drawn to the baron or does she just pretend to tease her husband?
The movie keeps the promise of its title (German "unheimlich" lies somewhere between creepy, uncanny and sinister) even almost a century after its production. If you have a chance to see it, I heartily recommend it. I think it works best completly silent without distracting music. That's the way I have seen it and I was impressed.

*For example the "Spy in Black", (in) the Powell&Pressburger film of 1939.
**It was a true revelation for me to see Veidt play Jew Suess in the British movie that induced Goebbels to make the infamous antisemitic film we today associate with that title. It demonstrates just how bad the Veit Harlan piece really is. Veidt masterfully portrays a complex character torn between different loyalties and failing in the end because he is not the monster he is claimed to be. Marian in the German movie is a pure caricature that sows destruction for destruction's sake and his own sadistic pleasure (the "good" Germans around him on the other hand give the impression of having an IQ that would allow Paris Hilton to outwit them while stoned).

[Swatopluk]

The Spy in Black, UK 1939, Powell&Pressburger
World War 1. A German Uboat commander (Conrad Veidt) returns from a successful war patrol but finds a huge discrepancy between his own experiences, the situation on the homefront (even luxury hotels can't provide a devent meal anymore) and the newspaper headlines ("England Starving"). Before that has time to sink in, his leave is cancelled and he is sent on a secret mission he resents  from the start on. He is to proceed to the Orkneys, meet with a German agent that will bring him in contact with a British traitor, a naval officer whose career is not looking well. From him he will receive information that will allow a wolfpack to catch  an important section of the Grand Fleet in the open and thus level the playing field for the German High Seas Fleet. Veidt will do his duty as ordered but makes clear that he considers it to be against his honor as an officer (he is also uncomfortable with unrestricted submarine warfare but sees it as unavoidable). The contact is actually a woman (Valerie Hobson), the new schoolteacher of the village. The real new teacher (a pretty young woman) has been drugged and thrown off a cliff by other German agents (you can imagine the reaction of Veidt's character, when he learns about that details). The first thing Veidt does after entering the house is to get his uniform back on (If I am captured it will be as a naval officer). The (drunk) traitor arrives the next day and there is an immediate clash of characters that Miss Spy can barely keep under control (additionally fueled by both men being interested in her). He nonetheless promises to deliver the data the next day. But not everything is as it seems and Veidt barely escapes capture when his contacts turn out to be British Intelligence planning to lure the Uboats into a trap. Unable to reach his own ship Veidt catches the leaving ferry boat and commandeers it with the help of German prisoners. Trying to warn the waiting pack he is spotted by his own Uboat and shelled. After helping the passengers into the lifeboats, including the spy missus that her husband (the false traitor) has put on the ferry to get her out of the firing line, he voluntarily goes down with "his" ship (he has to persuade the original skipper first who thinks that he has to honor that tradition too). The Uboat is in turn surprised by British destroyers and sunk.
So much for the bare plot. This should be enough info to see that this movie could not have  been made in the US (or Germany). Even for Britain it is remarkable considering that WW2 was just about to start when it was made. But it is also the first cooperation of Powell & Pressburger who would make it their trademark to go against the common style and conventions by choosing "tainted" heros and complex "villains" that defy the simple black and white scheme, often telling the story from the point of view of the "bad" character. Veidt is the perfect choice for this kind of role. He displays the ruthlessness one can expect from a German officer in wartime and the strict understanding of honor and duty of the same. But he is also a person that cares for others. Foremost of course his crew but also noncombattants, provided they do not try to interfere with his job. This puts him in stark contrast to the spies of both sides who sacrifice innocents without hesitation. When Veidt threatens the people on the ferry boat with immediate execution, should they try to stop him or talk without permission, the viewer has no doubt that he would do it. But when he notices a mother holding a crying baby he immediately adds a "with one exception" in quite a different voice without losing credibility. I think there are few actors able to get away with something like that*. The trouble is that the movie as a whole has to rely on Veidt's extraordinary skill a bit too much. The other actors do an acceptable job but none is really strong enough to be a sufficient counterweight. The plot (based on a novel according to my movie dictionary) is also not the strongest. Later efforts of the P&P team manage a better balance by either giving the protagonist a strong opposite or forming a dramatic triangle (not necessarily based on erotic rivalry). The Spy in Black can therefore be seen as a promise that would be fully fulfilled only later. By itself it is worth seeing because of Veidt lifting it above the average but I would not consider it as "essential viewing". So, should it come your way, give it a try but don't be too upset if it doesn't. To my knowledge it is not currently available on DVD.
A slight irony: Christopher Lee idolizes (his own words) Veidt and this was the first movie he saw him in. Lee should later play typical Veidt roles and also had a minor part in Ill met by Moonlight, the last of the P&P movies** (Spy in Black being the first one as mentioned).

*In the US Veidt had to play German officers without that complexity. Most notorious of course the role of Major Strasser in Casablanca
**He can also be spotted in Battle of the River Plate as a Spanish speaking barkeeper (a role he got just for being available and fluent in Spanish).

[Swatopluk]

Beowulf: Epic and new film adaption
There is a general problem today with the adaption of classic epics for the big screen that did not yet exist e.g. in the 30ies. The audience of today (even the mainly action-crazy crowd) expects a certain psychological depths to its characters and some kind of non-straight motivation. Simple honor, obligation, custom won't do anymore. And today even the monsters have their advocates that demand more than a simple "this is an evil monster and those have to be slain by heroes, no questions asked". This does not mean that those old epics are shallow but that the expectations of the target audience were different from those of the (jaded) people today. WW1 has probably played the largest part in that change (though one might say that the US lags behind a good deal on that, simplistic b/w views still have their appeal).
The epic of Beowulf has its underlying moral grounded in the shift from the Pagan to the Christian era. It's unknown author is undoubtedly a Christian but one with remarkable respect for the ways of old (which many contemporaries lacked). No surprise that Tolkien was attracted to it because that was also his own position. But the existing moral is difficult to transport to the screen without becoming either too blatant or risking it not being understood by an uninformed audience.
So, now let's compare the original with its newest adaption.
King Hrothgar (Denmark) has built a new mead hall, Heorot, for his entourage to celebrate in (think loud discotheque with free drinks). The noise late at night annoys the neighbourhood monster Grendel living with his single mum in the nearby bog (film: cave). Since Grendel doesn't trust the authorities to enforce the noise regulations, he smashes the party personally until Hrothgar is forced to close shop and put an ad in the papers "Hero wanted for vioent pest control. High awards in case of success". In Southern Sweden Beowulf hears the call and books a passage to Denmark for himself and a bunch of volunteers. In the epic he asks his king and relative, Hygelac, for permission. This is not mentioned in the film where he seems to be a mercenary. In the movie his main companion is Wiglaf who in the epic appears only at the end as a young man while here he is of the same age or slightly older than Big B. They meet the coast guard who admits them to the court of Hrothgar where they are welcomed by the king but challenged by his chief counsellor Unferth. This scene was copied down to detail by Tolkien for the arrival of the remnant fellowship at Theoden's golden hall (Meduseld, the name is taken from the hall of Beowulf in the final part of the epic btw). Beowulf answers the challenge with a telling of an earlier act of heroism. While the epic takes it as genuine, the film insinuates that Beowulf may exaggerate the event. The film introduces a parallel plot absent from the epic with our hero falling in love with the queen who has some quarrel with her husband. Hrothgar offers him a golden drinking horn in the shape of a dragon as reward, should he be able to dispatch of Grendel. In the epic this piece plays a role in Beowulf's final adventure but here it becomes a central part of the plot from the start. After a noisy celebration to lure the monster everyone goes to sleep and Beowulf decides to fight it without weapons. In a fight that smashes the hall he wrestles with Grendel who loses an arm in the attempt to flee and bleeds to death when coming home to his mother. Mum is pissed and swears revenge. Great celebration at Heorot until in the next night Grendelmum goes on a killing spree. Here begins the main split between epic and film. While in the epic it is just about finishing the job, in the movie Hrothgar promises to make Beowulf his heir, if he deals successfully with Grendelmum. In any case Unferth apologizes and gives his famous sword Hrunting to Beowulf who enters the monster's den alone (Wiglaf would follow if asked but seems happy when beowuld declines).
Epic: Gendel's mother pulls him down to her lair and tries to kill him. The sword fails and he grabs another from the wall. This sword kills her but melts up to the hilt (so, she is either a relative of the Lord of the Nazgul or of the Alien). Beowulfs goes back to the surface with her head, the sword hilt and Unferth's sword that he gives back to its owner (playing down the fact that it failed). Hrothgar rewards him kingly and Beowulf and his surviving comrades go back to Sweden.
Film: Beowulf uses the golden drinking horn as a magic lantern and meets Grendel's mother who turns out to be a beautiful woman that seduces him promising him eternal power in exchange for the horn and becoming the father of her next child. She also melts his sword blade. When he returns to court he tells the story as in the epic. Hrothgar who was actually the father of Grendel knows that he is lying but also knows that the curse has now rests with Beowulf. He names him heir of kingdom and wife and jumps out the window to his death.
Jump forward a few decades (50 years in the epic). Beowulf has to fight the Friesians, in the epic for his king who dies in battle (making him first regent then king when the last heir is murdered), in the movie as king himself.
Epic: a servant fleeing from his master steals a precious drinking vessel from a dragon's hoard to get back into his master's favour (cf.Bilbo in The Hobbit). The dragon goes on a rampage destroying among other things Beowulf's hall. The hero, old but still in good shape, goes out to fight armed with a metal shield against the dragon's fire and accompanied by (young) Wiglaf and about a dozen highranking men form his entourage. He wins the fight with Wiglaf's help (the others flee) but is killed himself. Wiglaf, the last member of the royal family, orders a royal funeral and the hoard is entombed with Beowulf in the mound. The  scene was also copied by Tolkien for the burial of Theoden.
Film: A mistreated servant of Unferth finds the golden horn in the bog and brings it to court. This breaks the covenant between Beowulf and Grendel's mother (as obviously happened to Hrothgar when he too regained the horn). Their son in the shape of a golden dragon devastates the country and, when Beowulf goes out to meet him, tries to kill the queen (and his young mistress). They are saved by Wiglaf while Beowulf dies in slyaing the dragon. Wiglaf becomes Beowulf's heir anf gives him a Viking burial (flaming ship). He sees Grendel's mother coming from the sea claiming the corpse. She begins to stare at him while he stands on the shore with the golden horn in his hands. Will the cycle start again? We will never know because the movie ends at this point.
So, what are the main differences? The movie keeps the story completely in Denmark, transferring the role of king Hygelac to both Hrothgar and Beowulf. I think this is a completely legitimate simplification, the same as expanding the roles of Wiglaf and Unferth by giving to them (additionally) the parts of nameless characters ("spear-carriers") in the epic. The main change is to give the monsters a background that connects them to the main characters by a cycle of guilt. Thereby it also partially taints the character of Hrothgar and Beowulf making the point that the "songs" and the real persons behind them can differ significantly. This is not just implied by also explictly stated by several persons in the movie. This process is seen as fatal (e.g. the Frisians attack to dethrone the legend in order to become famous in song themselves) but inevitable (because the heroes are fallible and have no means to stop posterity from exaggerating their deeds anyway).
I think this is an interesting re-interpretation of the old epic and one that has its own standing. Thus I consider it a justifiable adaption for the present age, not a rape of an old text that can't defend itself (like so many other "adaptions" of classics). My problem with the movie lies not in this idea but in the execution in detail. Especially in the second half the effects take over from the story. The dragon from the epic for example seems to be a good deal smaller and (following Nordic tradition) not airborne but more like a big armored snake (worm) able to breathe fire. The movie dragon is huge and flies in a spectacular fashion (the effects people did a marvelous job indeed). There is also a tendency here to show off with the 3D effects (used with restraint in the first half).
In my opinion the movie is worth watching (especially given the chance to see it in 3D) but less would have been more.
A few last words on the moral background of the original epic.
Beowulf's actions decline in justification while the means he uses increase.
First adventure: Grendel
Grendel is a disturber of the peace (complaints about noise do not justify murder). To kill or stop him otherwise is legitimate from both a Pagan and (contemporary) Christian point of view. Beowulf fights him on equal terms, i.e. unarmed (btw, the epic says that he is immune to mortal weapons anyway) and on the scene of the monster's crime. Grendel dies as result of losing his arm by trying to escape (selfinflicted wound).
Second adventure: Grendel's mother
From a Pagan point of view Grendel's mother has a certain right of revenge (she has not from the Christian POV) but this makes her also a disturber of the peace. Both parties act therefore from an at least partially legitimate position. Beowulf attacks her in her home with a weapon, while she is unarmed.
Third adventure: The Dragon
The epic makes clear that the dragon is the rightful owner of the hoard. The previous owner hid it but died without an heir. The dragon found it and could therefore claim rightful ownership. A precious piece is stolen from the hoard by a person lacking legal status (buying it back with the stolen property). The dragon's ensuing rampage may be excessive but he acts from a position of violated rights. Beowulf's actions are motivated not purely by his duty of defending the realm but also to a degree by greed (the desire to get possession of the hoard). He uses special weaponry (a metal shield because the standard wooden model would not withstand the dragon's fire-breath) and is accompanied by a dozen warrior companions (although only one of them proves to be helpful). He wins but also dies in the effort. The won hoard stays with him in death, so the "armed robbery" does at least not benefit anybody.
Just try to transmit that message to a cinema audience that for the most part has no idea about Pagan/Medieval Christian legal reasoning. The author of the epic had enough room to provide the message without explicitly stating it  (because his audience was in the know), a movie can't spare that time and it would have to be wordy (breaking the flow and boring most viewers). Leaving that part out on the other hand would make the movie just another mindless noble-hero-slays-evil-monsters flick. Too many of those around already.
As said above this makes the attempt by the scriptwriters to give the tale a new meaning a debatable but justifiable undertaking (without making them the undertakers of the old song ;-) ). Just a bit lower on the special effects please.

[Darlica]

Very interesting reading, thank you Swato!

I'm actually tempted to go and see the movie with your review in hand. And to reread my copy of the Beowulf epic.    


Also, you are completely right about the traditional looks of Scandinavian dragons.I've read somewhere that winged dragons first appear on stained glass windows in in churches (pictures of St George I presume) during the middle ages in Sweden.
The wingless Scandinavian are also called Lindorm  in Swedish and was usually born by a woman (often royal) but fathered by dragon. The word Lindorm  refers to the tradition of wrapping an infant in swaddling clothes, a Lindorm  is an orm (=dragon/snake) once wrapped in cloth like an infant since it was born by a woman.

[Swatopluk]

The Beast (aka The Beast of War)
The Beast is an US produced war movie but a rather uncommon one. It is set in Afghanistan in 1981 during the Soviet occupation and based on a stage play. All characters are either Russian or Afghan, no Americans etc. in sight (or even mentioned iirc). The mocie was shot in Israel using locals for the bulk of the Afghan characters. The tanks seen in the film are Soviet-built T62, captured by the Israelis (probably during the Yom-Kippur War), credible stand-ins for the unavailable T72. Apart from the unusual setting another decision proved controversial. The Afghan characters speak their native tongue (Pushtu?), the actors had to learn their lines phonetically, and are subtitled (though I have read that this was not the case for all distributed copies). The Russian characters on the other hand speak English with the natural accent of the actors, no fake Russian accent is used. The tank drill also follows the American model. This naturally offended both purists and ordinary US cinema goers (who consider subtitles a violation of their human rights) and probably had something to do with the movie becoming an (undeserved) flop. A (possibly) more reasoned criticism is directed against errors in the portrayal of Muslim religious customs but if there are (I do not know enough to judge), they are clearly not deliberate or offensive. An in my view very wise decision by the makers was to open the film on an ultraviolent note, showing everything, and then for the rest of the movie to just hint at the violence happening. This way the film avoids to be just a gorefest (there is actually pretty little blood) but without falling into the trap of sanitizing.
A desert village in Afghanistan. Sudenly explosions everywhere. Out of the dust a group of Russian tanks approaches. But the village is not defenseless, an RPG is fired but to no avail except making the Russians extra angry. They dismount and go to work with grenades, flamethrower and assault rifle (the latter used to mow down a herd of sheep). They also poison the well. But do not underestimate the tribespeople. One tank goes up in flames when a grenade is dropped down the hatch. Interestingly the Russian leader does not commit a massacre (only one civilian victim yet) but he lets his men grab the only present male (who fired the rocket launcher and now is wielding an antique musket) and puts him in front before one track of his tank. When the man refuses to talk, the tank driver is ordered to go forward. He does so only after direct threads (and hair-pulling). What follows is the most gruesome scene in the whole movie, and the camera does not shy away (I wonder how they did it without really killing the actor).

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Now it's time to go home to base (the rest of the group has already left) but unfortunately the map was in the destroyed tank and part of it got burned. As a result the tank takes a wrong turn and drives down a valley that seems to lead directly to the Kandahar road but is actually a cul-de-sac (the is a canyon at the end with the road on the other side). When the men of the village return (they are indeed Mujahedin) and learn what happened they swear revenge and go into pursuit. The son of the crushed man (who was the village Elder as it seems) is named the new leader despite not feeling up to the job ("That's the proof that you are!"). The group is clearly divided from the start. Taj the leader acts out of duty, his rival is in it just for the fun and possible loot. The village women, seeking revenge, follow them against orders (btw, the movie opens with a Kipling quote that a wounded man should better shoot himself than to fall into the hands of Afghan women).
In the takn harmony is also absent. Dazal the commander who as a boy fought at Stalingrad is a pranoid fanatic who only cares for his machine and will sooner sacrifice his crew than it. Koverchenk the driver is a bespectacled intellectual with a still working conscience. The other two standard crew members are spineless opportunists. This leaves the fifth man, the Afghan translator who on the hand is a devout Muslim but also believes in the progress the Russians promise. The film makes him a likable character, clearly not a traitor or Quisling. Dazal believes him to be an agent of the enemy and also fears that Koverchenko will report the events in the village. Paradoxically despite this fear Koverchenko is the only one he can confide in. In a sense they are both idealists – that connects them – but Dazal has become a monster who will sacrifice everything for his once noble but now totally perverted ideals (then defending his country against the Nazis, now behaving like one with his country invading another). This becomes important at the very end of the movie.
The tank develops technical trouble, the engine overheats, and they have to slow down or even stop on occasion, allowing the pursuers to gaon on them. The situation becomes especially tense at night. One night attack fails (reducing the Mujahedin to just one RPG round) and the tank gets away. On another occasion the tank does a 360° turret turn with all weapons firing (including the flamethrower, very impressive) but the crew finds out that they have actually fried a herd of deer.

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Dazal also tries here for the first time to kill the translator but Koverchenko refuses the order to gun him down from behind. Koverchenko and the translator also have a chat about local customs including the vital information about the formalized plea of mercy.
The chase goes on. A waterhole on the way is poisoned and Dazal now machineguns the translator personally. When Koverchenko threatens to report it, Dazal has him tied up boobytrapped with a grenade and left for the dogs or the Mujahedin. The mercy plea he learned comes in handy when the pursuers find him (though the women want to kill him noenetheless). He later even earns their trust when he repairs their damaged RPG launcher.

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The tank reaches the canyon nearly out of fuel but the crew is able to contact a helicopter. Dazal refuses to abandon his tank and forces the helicopter crew to provide him with fuel (otherwise he will open fire). Back it goes down the valley and past the pursuers who can't come close enough for a secure kill with their only round. At the water hole the helicopter crew lies dead from the poison. When the Mujahedin arrive there too the group splits because Taj will follow the tank but his rival is interested only in the money he hopes to gain for the helicopter ("can anyone of you fly this thing?").
At the valley entrance it is time for the great showdown which I will not go into to leave at least a bit of suspense.
So, what makes this movie special? Despite a moderate budget and no really grand names the makers deliver a very well-made product with impressive action scenes but at no point doing effects just for effect's sake. As stated above the extreme brutality at the start allows for restraint for the rest of the movie without cushioning the impact. The emphasis is on the characters (this being originally a stage play), and the leads deliver absolutely convincing performances. Extremly uncommon for an US war movie is also the avoidance of pure b/w painting. The Afghans are clearly not your traditional good guys and despite their atrocious acts the Russians are not just one-dimensional monsters. The roles of the nominal good guys, Taj and Koverchenko, may be a touch too noble but both have to reach that state through obstacles. The end is kept deliberately open (another uncommon thing for a US movie) avoiding the trap of cliche.
So I say, give this movie a chance* but keep it away from the kiddies (The original age limit of 18 in Germany, now lowered to 16, is not completely without merit). 8/10

*even if you are not a special fan of the rolling heavy metal. For tank enthusiasts this is of course a must-see in any case.

[Swatopluk]

I Tre Volti della Paura (Mario Bava It/Fr 1963)
Literal title: The 3 Faces (=aspects) of Fear
English title: Black Sabbath

The movie with the prophetic cover motive . The movie poster unmistakably shows Michael Jackson after turned into a cosmetic surgery zombie as one of the faces of the title.
The English title was chosen to draw a connection to another Bava movie, La Maschera del Demonio(1960), that ran as Black Sunday in the States very successfully.
I3VdP is an episode film based on stories by A.K.Tolstoj (not Leonid of War and Peace fame), A. Tchechow and Guy de Maupassant.
The American cut is not as Bava intended it, I will therefore refer to the original here, if not explicitly stated otherwise.

Boris Karloff, who stars in the second also introduces the other episodes and delivers the directors final joke after the last.

Episode 1 – The Phone
A call girl (A) is threatened repeatedly on the phone by someone who seems to not only  know her intimately but also what happens at any moment in her flat. He announces that he will come and kill her soon. She calls a friend (colleague?)(B) for advice who promises to come but then calls her back with disguised voice with another death threat. Is she actually the psychopath or in league with him? She comes to her friend's flat willing to stay there until the situation is safe again. After supplying her (A) with a knife and sending her to bed she (B) sits at the desk. The psychopath enters the flat approaches the sitting woman(B) from behind and strangles her. Mistaken identity? No, he knows exactly what he is doing and now approaches his next victim. Now the knife turns out to be really useful. In the original cut the episode ends here, in the American cut the phone rings again and the ghost(?) of the murderer announces that he will terrorize her for the rest of her life.

Episode 2 – Vurdalak
Vladimir, a young nobleman rides over land. He finds a headless corpse and is later informed that is the body of a bandit, suspected of being a vampire (vurdalak). In the evening he comes to a farmhouse and asks, if he can stay overnight. The nervous family waits for the return of the father who is out to kill the above-mentioned bandit. But there is a catch. Should he not return before midnight of this day, he has asked his family not to let him in but to kill him because then he would have become a vurdalak himself. Unlike the vampires we know, vurdalaks only kill/transform people that belong to the family or those they love otherwise. The old man (Karloff) arrives but midnight has just passed. Nonetheless the family lets him in when he demands it. A fatal mistake because one after the other his family members become his victims. Vladimir flees with one of the daughters he has fallen in love with. But when they have to rest the vampirized family catches up with them and take the woman back. Vladimir returns to the farm to rescue her but since she loves him (see condition above) he becomes her prey. We don't stay for the wedding but move to the last episode.

Episode 3 – Drop of Water
A nurse and occasional layer-out is called to the flat of a dead medium/clairvoyant. The dead woman looks simply hideous (nobody one would want to meet after dark) but she has an obviously very expensive ring on her hand. The nurse falls for the temptation and takes the ring when she is left alone for a moment. The weather is not good this night, the electric light fails, and additionally all water taps in her own flat seem to be dripping. The sound begins to unnerve her, her conscience awakes, and she has the impression that someone else is in the flat. Has the medium come back to reclaim what is hers? There she is in the rocking chair, now she moves trough the hall towards her...
In the morning the nurse is found dead with her hands at her own throat. It looks like someone forcefully removed a ring from her finger.

Epilogue
Karloff with his youngest son/victim rides rapidly past pine trees shaken by the wind to give us the appropriate farewell. Then the camera pulls back and we see that he actually sits on a mock-up and that the trees are actually men with pine branches running round him while a fan produces the wind.

Many consider this Bava's masterpiece and it is said to be his favorite too. It is perfectly balanced with the longest episode at the center, flanked by the two shorter ones. The "improved" recut/expansion demanded for the American market spoils a lot of that. The first episode is completely real (and could have been made by Hitchcock), the second completely fantastic, the third deliberately ambiguous. With the epilogue Bava pokes fun at cheap but effective "special" effects and the audience's ease to fall for them.
The latter was not taken well by US audiences, from what I read in imdb commentaries.
For myself I have to say that I suffered something like a temporary personality split while watching the movie, the third episode in particular. On the one hand I could clearly see and rationally analyze the tricks (technical and psychological) Bava used, on the other hand I was totally frightened, when the dead lady went for the woman who stole her ring. While one side of me cried "that's a very cheap rubber doll on wheels", the other side was grabbing for the insta-faint button. Also very unnerving without actually showing anything frightening was the scene in the second episode, when Karloff uses his first victim, the already buried youngest boy, to plead to his mother to open the door for him. "Mother, I am cold! Let me in!".
Few directors at the time would have chosen the ambiguous approach to the third episode (a very good choice in my opinion). Is there really a vengeful ghost or is it all in the victim's mind caused by bad conscience and the eerie atmosphere? Has the ghost taken the ring back or has it been stolen from the thief and/or will there be a new victim the next morning?
The subtlety of the treatment makes it still a very effective chiller even almost half a century later and definitely worth a look. But try to get the original cut, not the US version.
And look out that Michael Jackson does not haunt your dreams!

[Swatopluk]

The Calamari Wrestler, Japan 2004
Another one of these movies that raise the question what kind of dope Japanese film directors and script writers smoke before going to work.
Taguchi Koji has just won the Japanese pro-wrestling championship and proudly lifts the trophy belt above his head, when suddenly a large calmar climbs into the ring and rips it from his hands. The irregular fight following ends with the victory of the maritime challenger (the standard grips don't work on an invertebrate). Independently several people believe to recognize the fighting style of The Calamari Wrestler (as he is immediately named) as that of the former champion Kanichi Iwata who mysteriously disappeared exactly 3 years ago. The trouble is that Myako, Taguchi's fiancee, was formerly in love with Iwata (and knows more than she will admit at this point). Taguchi wants a re-match but his bosses ban the Calmar from the ring when he refuses to take part in a rigged fight (with the human winning). But the huge fan base the calmar immediately attracts, the appeal of some old wrestling hands and the promise of huge profits lead to a change of mind and the new match is announced. Meanwhile not all is well with Taguchi, Myako etc. and Taguchi, thinking that he has no chance, takes the offer of the shady trainer and promoter of the calmar to undergo a special training in the same location in Pakistan. You can guess what happens ;-). In the great fight between the Calamari Wrestler and the Octopus Wrestler the calmar triumphs again and now has a bit of trouble to deal with his glory. But a new challenger arrives: The Sqilla Boxer, a giant mantis shrimp (those actually have an absolutely deadly punch that can with ease crack the armour of other crustaceans). Who will be the master seafood in the wrestling world?
The Muppets meet Godzilla in the ring as some critics have called it was made by director Minoru Kawasaki, the self-professed Japanese Ed Wood with talent. Whatever one may think about this film, it his highly entertaining from start to end. That the squids are clearly men in rubber suits (the shrimp looks far more realistic) does not matter at all, on the contrary it is remarkable how well the operators/actors do cope. The fights are impressive. But maybe even harder is the task to transport emotion and personality with a non-human body. But one has to see the calmar in Zen meditation, going shopping, handling a mobile phone etc. to believe. This is a first-rate performance easily outdoing most of the human competion. Given the whole cast the acting is straight and only slightly exaggerated, no Oscars in sight but adequate (what do you expect in a wrestling or boxing sports B movie?). A lot of the humour arises from the fact that everybody takes the giant intelligent sea creatures for granted and the only debate is about whether they can enter human wrestling contests. Of course no sports movie cliche is left out and people knowing Rocky 1-3 and the like will probably laugh even harder. I read that some participants are in the business in real life and known to the Japanese audience, providing "credibility" (and extra amusement).
Amidst the pure fun there are also a few traces of social criticism (aimed at both the wrestling business and the Japanese society as a whole) giving it a bit of depth but the movie should be taken as what it primarily is, a shameless opportunity to have 90 minutes of unadulterated fun. Btw, is the dope the makers used available outside Japan?

[anthrobabe]

That last one does sound like unmitigated fun--- have you had the pleasure of "Warning from Space" or Uchujin Tokyo Ni arawaru  1956-- you should see it a real treat and the 'transmutation' scene is pretty good for the era(IHMO).
Directed by Koji Shima starring Keizo Kawasaki, Shozo Nanbu- etc


here is a review -short one

"House of Wax" remake 2005
Run away, stab your own eyes out, really don't go near this turkey, don't let your teenagers choose movies from NetFlix.
Best part: when what's her face gets a pole through the forehead
I repeat-- do not let your teenagers choose movies from NetFlix

[Swatopluk]

Is a warning actually needed ? That movie has Paris Hilton in it, and I know people that went to watch it just because she dies in it (and imagining it to be for real )

[anthrobabe]

I also think some went to see it in the hopes of having a 'Big Screen' version of the One Night In Paris experience....
(imo)
I call them all "what's her face" 

[Swatopluk]

El Vampiro
Mexico 1957, directed by Fernando Mendez, starring German Robles

A forgotten jewel of a gothic horror movie from a place where one would least expect it.
Mexico is known for its cheap mass production of pathetic horror movies that will only terrify cinephiles and cause potentially fatal laughing attacks in everyone else. But El Vampiro (The Vampire) is a rare exception. Not only it is not just a cheap imitation of Tod Brownings Dracula, it is quite original, but also well acted and with production values that look much higher than they probably were. It has also to be suspected that someone showed it to Terence Fisher, who made the first Hammer Dracula the following year. If this is indeed the case, it would be the eponymous missing link, for El Vampiro stands about halfway between the Browning and the Fisher depiction of the compulsive sanguiphile. German Robles, who plays the Count (that is definitely not Dracula under a false name), could easily change places with Lee and ol' Chris would have to put some effort into just equaling the performance of his Latino colleague (he speaks Spanish fluently btw, so it would have been theoretically possible).

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x97/Swatopluk/ElVampiro1.jpg
As in the Spanish Dracula version made at the same time and in the same sets as Browning's, the acting is less restrained (and less stilted) here but without going over the top. The score is quite effective and (for the time) not very intrusive. Of course there are the ominous strings, serving as the early warning system but it is not overused. Quite remarkably the film does not follow the (macho) cliche formula. The nominal heroe(s) are quite ineffective and the dirty work has to be done by those one would not usually expect it from. It is also quite a rare thing that the women are not reduced to the damsel-in-distress or window dressing role but carry at least equal weight as their male counterparts. One might even say that the two aunts are the main antagonists, not the count and the doctor (whose duel ends essentially in a draw). The movie also manages to keep some characters quite ambiguous for a good deal of the running time. When I first saw this movie, I could not decide for quite some time, whether Aunt 2 was dead or alive and on which side she actually stood (though the fact of her handling a crucifix made it unlikely that it was the count's). The doctor was clearly the inevitable love interest but his actual intentions were not revealed until quite late (and he did not come to look for undead aristocracy). What owns this movie a prominent entry into the genealogy of the vampire movie in any case is the fact that probably for the first time the vampire actually showed his fangs. Bela did not (probably due to censorship) and old Nosferatu was clearly a rodent with elongated incisors not canines. Another attempt to deviate from the tradition that did not catch on was the two-bite rule. A person would only turn into a vampire after the second attack, provided the first bite was survived. Later movies made it the decision of the biter, whether to kill or vampirize the victim and whether to do it immediately or feed over a longer time from the same victim. El Vampiro is able to get some suspense out of its invention, and it became the central point of the sequel (which I hear is quite inferior though). If you can lay your hand on a decent copy of El Vampiro, you should not miss the opportunity. But watch it in Spanish with subtitles, the English dubbing is said to be dreadful. Most of the movie can be easily understood even without the dialogue (that does not mean it is in-your-face or redundant), acting and directing do a very good job here.
Btw, this is possible also the first movie with a vampire spelling his name backwards to hide his identity. Mr.Alucard is just a copycat.

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x97/Swatopluk/ElVampiro2.jpg
Maybe now it is time to lose a few words about the plot, so this is the SPOILER ALERT.
Marta, a young woman returns to the remote hazienda she grew up on because her aunt Theresa has fallen ill. When she arrives at last, the aunt has already been buried for a few hours. She is said to have gone insane through the fear of vampires. As it turns out the old lady was actually right. The second aunt, Eloisa, has become a vampire and is in cahoots with Count "Duval", who has come to avenge and revive his brother Karol de Lavud, who has been killed a century ago and buried in the crypt of the hazienda (together with he movie's director, if we believe a certain burial slab). Despite aunt Theresa's precautions (she is not as dead as she seems) Marta is bitten by the count but only the second bite will turn her into a vampire too. Meanwhile a romance develops between Marta and the stranger Enrique she arrived with (he was actually called by her uncle to testify on Theresa's mental state). When Marta notices the tell-tale signs that Eloisa is a vampire she and the count poison her and she is laid out for dead.  Just before she is buried too the housekeeper spots a finger moving and she is revived.
No Theresa's coffin is searched and found empty. The housekeepers now reveal that the same treatment was applied to the old aunt and she comes out of hiding. But now, while everyone else is in the crypt, the count abducts Marta to apply the second bite. Eloisa manages to get most pursuers off the count's trail but Enrique reaches him seconds before it is too late. In the following duel sabre against torch Enrique barely manages to hold his ground and the count only flees when the room catches fire and his henchmen arrive. With his pursuer occupied the count reaches his coffin just in time for daybreak. But aunt Theresa who has dispatched of Eloisa in the meantime (by strangling her!!!) enters the room and drives a furniture leg into him. Enrique carries Marta out of the flames just in time. Time to go back to civilization. The film ends where it started, at the railway station.
Moral: don't underestimate old aunties, they can be vicious.

[Sibling Chatty]

Moral: don't underestimate old aunties, they can be vicious.

Yep. You rite...

[goat starer]

Ossibiss - Dragan Stanloz
ISBN 0-9523647-0-0

let me preface this book review by saying that you may find it difficult to acquire a copy of this work. It was self published by the author (with the bizarre statement on the back that this "exciting trilogy" is "now published as one volume for the first time in this country". I found one copy on a rare book website so happy hunting...

And happy you will indeed be if you find a copy of this masterpiece. If you like a good laugh it will provide endless hours of fun. I would not recommend that you try to read this cover to cover - it has no discernable plot and when i tried I got to page three before my brain started to bleed. Simply dip in and out - preferably in company - and enjoy the wonders of a book that is without doubt the worst ever written in the English language.

Stanloz appears to believe that he is a writer in the L Ron Hubbard mould. The book claims to contain mystical truths and whilst I have found much that is mystical there is no discernable truth. At a whopping 686 pages of close packed text in 137 chapters there may be some truth in there but is so intermingled with the various dinosur fights, talking computers, witches, scorpions, spheres and sundry other delights culled from a bizarre range of authour and B Movie influences, as to be completely unintelligible. Stanloz has attempted to create a vast sweeping canvas covering time and space - think Asimov's Foundation and Empire meets Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. What he has in fact created is a vast porridge of drivel. The constant technobabble, pseudo science and mysticism is bewildering and bizarre. I believe the truth may be something about umbilical cords of humanity, dimensions and circles but it is very hard to tell.

The language is startling in its originality. I am reminded of the quote from Iago Montoya in The Princess Bride "you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means". Heaven alone knows what 'ultramundane' means but surely something cannot be both ultramundane and weird? If the language is unusual then the dialogue is simply extraordinary. I cannot describe it adequately but sentences are interspersed with the lighting of pipes and the conversation is strangely stilted. The Author uses language like a vast pick and mix. Characters alternate between sci-fi technospeak and the patois of the olde worlde. The scenes of intimate affection need to be seen to be believed. When you put intimacy and conversation together you get passages such as...

the sweet smell of her body filled his nostrils;the air and the sun danced on their bodiesas their souls swayed in a torrent of exquisite sensations.
"we have found a real paradise in this wilderness," he said. "Happy?" he asked her between two passionate kisses.
"Happiness is now such an inadequate word to express how I feel at this moment darling," she said, her face illuminated by her happiest smile. "too trivial to convey my sense of wholeness, completion. It's rather an awakening to the real unity with this virgin, unspoiled world."

I could go on, Stanloz does, but suffice to say that within moments the moment is ruined by Pteranosaurs.

So why am I reviewing this terrible, terrible book? Because it is BRILLIANT! It is so utterly awful that it needs to be seen by everyone at their earliest possible convenience. had it been one fifth the length it might have found a publisher as a passable spoof pastiche of the whole of science fiction and fantasy writing. In its unabridged form it is a monstorous white elephant, a sprawling cataclysmic catastrophe of a book that demands respect for the sheer audacity of the author to have put this into print. Stanloz clearly believes evereything he is writing. Ossibiss has an earnestness born only of the true zealot. It would be a terrible shame if more people were not given the chance to unravel the truths it apparently contains.

So buy it! lend it to your friends! Recommend it to your Book Club! Did I mention the dinosaurs, witch burnings, spaceships, scorpions, spheres, umbilical cord of humanity, Crystaloids and talking computers.....

[Griffin NoName]

I'm not sure about a review, I'll try. I have posted this film before, but for some reason it keeps recurring in my head and I walk round giggling. I also cannot stop signing the "song".

So, Nuts in May, Mike Leigh, quinticentially English, utterly cringe- worthy (more than anything I have ever come across) mike Leigh is the most brilliant film director ever. His fiilms are not scripted and rely on the cast getting into character and improvising, but they do then rehearse once the improvisations become co-herent. He has made quite a lot of films, some are excrutiating to watch, like this one, they make you squirm, unimaginabe how he can capture these moments, but also some of his films are more ordinary life well observed, a bit like Pinter.

If you haven't seen it, watch and squirm

[youtube=425,350]ptugM-zad9A[/youtube]