MOVIE MADNESS
Psycho
I don’t
know how much I can add that hasn’t already said about this masterpiece, but I
did watch it through new eyes with my daughter recently. It was probably the best time I’ve had
watching a movie. Alexandria is 10, and
loves non-fiction. She knew about Alfred
Hitchcock from the “Who Is/Was..” biographies aimed at kids. She is a bit OCD about spoilers and wanting
to know what she is getting into, so she asked me, “What is this about”? “A woman steals money from her boss and runs
away”, I replied as I started the movie.
I didn’t lie.
I was
then treated to an hour and a half of a classic by a master of the medium
punctuated by some of the best commentary as she tried to work the movie out:
‘Oh,
she’s so paranoid she goes Psycho!’
‘You
dummy, the police are watching you. He
sees you buying the car…’
‘His
mother did it!’
‘I know
she’s his mother, but he shouldn’t cover for her.’
She got a pleasant surprise from the movie’s denouement, and
I had a blast.
Dracula (1931)
I sat
down yesterday to watch some classic monster movies to get in the mood for
tonight. I sat down and watched Dracula
because my daughter had called it boring.
We watched it about 6 months ago, and she said she liked it at the time,
but since I fell asleep because it was later at night and probably my sixth
time seeing it, I was hard-pressed for a rebuttal, so it was the first
Halloween movie of the day.
I enjoy
the Universal monster movies, but I find a lot of them survive on nostalgia
factor. For me, horror has to work on a
suspense factor, or it doesn’t work as a horror film. That doesn’t mean they are bad, just, to this
modern film lover, not scary. Dracula
has a lot going for it. The set design
is excellent. The best acting in the
film comes from Dwight Frye who delivers a truly creepy performance as
Renfield, the highlights being his character being found on the Vesta and when
he explains to Van Helsing he was asked to do ‘..what has already been done’. The other standout is Edward Van Sloan as Van
Helsing. It is no surprise that Lugosi’s
best scenes are with the two of them , as I feel they elevate his game. Lugosi is fine. I can’t classify him as a great actor, but he
certainly had a commanding presence which benefited his performance. Todd Browning makes good use of edits and
camera angles as special effects, my favorite being when they are used to make
it appear as if Dracula has ascended the staircase, draped with a large thick
web without disturbing it.
The Conjuring (2013)
My wife recommended this as a good
scary movie for my daughter to watch, so the three of us tucked in. It’s a good suspenseful thriller in the
haunted house genre. The plot if fairly
typical: Family moves into a ‘new’ old house, strange occurrences start, family
reaches out to outside expert for help, etc.
There are some really nice shots like a sheet in the wind taking a shape
for a split second or a pair of hands in the dark that are on screen just long
enough for you to process what you’ve seen and be scared/shocked by them, but
they don’t overstay their welcome. The
only thing that deterred for me was that the film was set in the 70’s and
everything was fairly period accurate, but the cinematography was too crisp and
sharp for a film set in the time. I
actually think this would be better in standard definition than high definition.
Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
I
reviewed the silent version here, and it is hard for me to review this version without comparing the two. There are some story differences that are
foundational. Carew in this version is
the fiancée’s father and not a colleague.
Therefore the impetus of the experiment is different. Here Jeckyll is already obsessed with duality
instead of it being fostered by Carew’s needling. The music hall girl, named here as Ivey
Pearson has a much larger part.
I found
myself having complex feelings about this version. On the one hand there was more plot and
relationship building conveyed because of the advantage of dialogue to convey
information vs. the silent version, but the silent version I believe had a more
effective Hyde. Frederic March is a fine
actor, and I like Jeckyll (pronounced
JEEK-EL in this version which is really annoying)with his darker tones. This isn’t a saint brought low; he
experiences lust and rage, but suppresses it.
His Hyde however is really let down by the makeup. It has a monkey-man feel and March plays Hyde
that way. His Hyde has no charm and is
ugly from the beginning, no slow degeneration.
I found myself rolling my eyes are glancing at the clock when Hyde was
on the screen. I still think this is a
film worth seeing, but the Hyde has no subtlety and the film suffers for it.
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