Life of Pi, The Wild Robot, and Conclave--all excellent films

Traveling to and from the USA gives me the opportunity to catch up on my movies on the plane. On my recent flights to and from New York, I watched two excellent movies, Life of Pi from 2012, and The Wild Robot from 2024. I don't know why I didn't see Life of Pi earlier; there was a lot of hype surrounding the film when it first came out, and I often avoid films that are over-hyped because they often don't live up to all the fuss. But Life of Pi delivered. The director, Ang Lee, has made films like Brokeback Mountain, which was also excellent. He seems to be an eclectic filmmaker, which intrigues me. Life of Pi is an unusual (some would say very strange) story about a young man from India who is traveling to Canada with his parents and brother and some of their zoo animals (that are to be sold) to start a new life. They are traveling on a cargo ship that hits rough seas and capsizes, killing nearly everyone on board except Pi, a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra who has injured its leg, and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. All of them end up in one lifeboat, with the expected consequences. The hyena kills the zebra and the orangutan, and the tiger kills the hyena, leaving Pi alone with the tiger in the boat. Pi understands that he can't stay in the boat with the tiger, so he fashions a boat out of life rafts and attaches it to the life boat. The movie is essentially about the relationship that develops/evolves between Pi and Richard Parker. It is not a comfortable relationship by any means, and Pi knows that he can never trust the tiger to not attack him. But he trains him to keep his distance, and a wary relationship between the two results. When Pi is finally rescued, he is asked to recount his survival story to the insurance company that insured the cargo ship; they want to know what happened to the ship and how he survived for over two hundred days in the Pacific Ocean. He tells them about the animals in the lifeboat and the tiger, and they do not want to believe that this was possible--that he could coexist with a Bengal tiger for so many days. He then tells them a second story--that the orangutan was his mother, the zebra was a sailor who had been friendly to him on board the cargo ship, the hyena was the odious cook on the ship, and the tiger was Pi himself, essentially saying that the cook had murdered his mother and the sailor, and that Pi had murdered the cook. The insurance company has problems with the second story, and though they do not really accept the first story, they end up using it (fewer moral implications). Pi himself tells a visitor who arrives at the beginning of the film and who has asked him to recount his strange story, that either story will suffice as an explanation for his survival. It's a film that captures your attention and draws you along for the ride. 

The Wild Robot is a beautiful animated film about an intelligent robot called Roz who ends up shipwrecked on an island inhabited by various wild animals. Roz is designed to serve human beings, but in their absence, she sets about trying to offer her services to the different animals with whom she comes into contact. They begin to flee when they see her, but she ends up befriending a fox named Fink and taking care of a little gosling that she names Brightbill, together with Fink. Along the way, she helps the animals on the island deal with surviving the winter and with showing them how important it is that everyone try to work together. I won't give away the ending, but it is very touching, as is the entire film. It's heads and shoulders above most of the drivel that passes for animated films these days, which are for the most part bland, boring and poorly-animated (perhaps generated on demand by AI programs?). I can wholeheartedly recommend The Wild Robot. It's already a classic in my book. 

And finally, Conclave. I saw it at the movie theater last night. It's an excellent film about the process of electing a new pope in the Catholic church. That might not sound so interesting, but trust me, it is, because the process encompasses the humanity, the foibles and failings, the politics, the drama, and the gossip involved. It's a riveting film with excellent performances by Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, and Isabella Rossellini, and it has one heck of a surprise ending. I think it's destined for Oscar recognition, and that would be well-deserved. 

Alien: Romulus--back to basics

It's not often these days that I buy a movie ticket to the premiere of a new movie, but I did so recently so that I could attend the first showing (last night) of the new Alien film--Alien: Romulus. I chose to watch it in ScreenX format, which simply means that the screen extends to the walls on both sides of the theater, about halfway up on each side. I wasn't impressed with this format, and interestingly enough, it 'disappeared' about a third of the way into the film. It's simply irritating and added nothing to the movie, which was very good, by the way. I give it four out of five stars. It's a non-stop roller coaster ride into an alien universe that is neither friendly nor habitable for human beings. It's simply a fight for survival by humans and aliens alike. And most of the time, the aliens win. 

The film takes us back to what made the original Alien films (Alien from 1979 and Aliens from 1986) so good. Those films were sci-fi horror at its best. The original Alien film was marketed with the tagline 'In space, no one can hear you scream'. The new film pays homage to these films while finding new ground; the xenomorph monsters in this film are essentially the same as in the original films (with one exception)--murderous and bent on survival at all costs, with corrosive acid for blood and the ability to prey on humans for food and for reproduction. They have a multi-stage life cycle, exhibit hive-like characteristics in terms of how they develop and live, and are fairly intelligent. In short, you don't want to mess with them. But the humans in all these films have no other choice, usually at their peril. 

The overall story is simple enough; a group of young people leave the slave-like working conditions on the perpetually dark planet they live on (Weyland-Yutani's Jackson’s Star mining colony) for a better life on the planet Yvaga III where the sun shines. In order to accomplish this, they need cryosleep chambers that will make the nine-year trip possible. They end up stealing these from a decommissioned space station that was actually a research station, now deserted, that was studying the aliens. Of course we know that this space station is not deserted, but rather inhabited by the xenomorphs, who have killed all the humans on board. I won't divulge the last part of the film or the ending, but suffice it to say that the director, Fede Alvarez, has done a great job of providing non-stop action and scares. The ending didn't really open for a sequel as far as I could determine, which is probably just as well. This film stands on its own as one of the best new entries into the repertoire of Alien films. 

Odds and ends, part two

As I get older, I am more willing to accept that I won't get the answers I seek, particularly where faith is concerned. Faith is a mystery that I will never truly decipher. My faith in God has wavered from time to time up through the years. Ditto for my desire to attend Sunday mass. But I've realized that I won't get firm proof that God exists; he/she is not going to suddenly appear before me (like in the story of doubting Thomas) and convince me that way. So I accept God's existence on faith. Attending mass is similar; I go, no matter how I feel. Ten to fifteen years ago, I often wondered why I should go to mass when so many things seemed to be topsy-turvy in my life and definitely in the world. Not anymore. It's become something I do without thinking about it too much. That works for me. I like being there, being part of something larger than me. Being together with (presumably) like-minded people, in the sense that they are also believers. Even if they aren't, it wouldn't change my wanting to be there. I've realized that I can just offer up who I am on any given day--happy, sad, moody, bored, angry, irritable--and hope that I am acceptable. Being human means being imperfect. That is my reality, even though I try hard each day to be the best version of myself (as Matthew Kelly says). 

I watched the film Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret from 2023 last night. It's a touching, funny and sweet story about a twelve-year old girl on the cusp of adolescence, and how she deals with life at home and in school. The film is based on the book of the same name by Judy Blume; I never read it when it was published back in 1970. Margaret is the daughter of an interfaith marriage--Jewish father and Catholic mother, but neither of her parents are religious and they have chosen to raise Margaret without any religious affiliation. She does however hope to eventually find some sort of religion to belong to. She is assigned a school project that allows her to explore different religious beliefs, which she hopes will give her some idea of what religion to eventually embrace. She does talk to God however, telling him about all the things that are happening in her life and sharing her joys as well as disappointments. Abby Ryder Fortson did a wonderful job as Margaret, as did Rachel McAdams as her mother and Kathy Bates as her grandmother.

I also watched the film Dog from 2022 with Channing Tatum the other night--also very good. He played a former Army Ranger suffering from PTSD who wants to return to military duty but whose superiors deny him that chance due to his condition. However, he agrees to bring his former partner's dog Lulu to his funeral (he has committed suicide) as part of a deal for him to return to active duty. Lulu is anxiety-ridden and aggressive (suffering from a kind of PTSD too) and destined for eventual euthanization, and the trip from Oregon to Arizona is fraught with different problems and troubles along the way. It's a beautiful story about the bond that forms between man and dog, and how they both save each other. 

I've spent the past four days without tv news of any kind to invade my life. Bliss. I don't want to know what's going on in the world because I know it's the same old, same old--wars, aggression, conflicts, shootings, murders, political divisiveness--the list is long. And the news media love reporting it all; sometimes I get the feeling that 'the worse, the better'. I know that's cynical, but hey, the news media are cynical institutions. You get back what you give. 

I haven't been on social media much either. Also bliss. I don't really miss it. As I've written about before, I'd remove myself from most of it if it wasn't for the fact that friends in the US still use it. It's a way of staying in touch with them, although these days we mostly chat via Messenger and WhatsApp. 

Count your Blessings (Instead of Sheep) from the film White Christmas

The 1954 film White Christmas is a sweet and sentimental film to be sure, one that's worth watching. I had seen it many years ago but didn't remember it. We watched it the other night and I really enjoyed it. It will join my list of Christmas films to watch each year. The song Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep) was written for the film by Irving Berlin, who wrote the songs for the film. Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney sing this beautiful song. I'm including the lyrics here:

Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep) 

When I'm worried and I can't sleep

I count my blessings instead of sheep

And I fall asleep counting my blessings

When my bankroll is getting small

I think of when I had none at all

And I fall asleep counting my blessings

I think about a nursery and I picture curly heads

And one by one I count them as they slumber in their beds

If you're worried and you can't sleep

Just count your blessings instead of sheep

And you'll fall asleep counting your blessings

If you're worried and you can't sleep

Just count your blessings instead of sheep

And you'll fall asleep counting your blessings

Odds and ends

We're watching The Rockford Files these days, one of the better American tv detective series from the 1970s that ran from 1974 to 1980. I remember watching it sporadically back then; my mother was a fan of the show and of James Garner who played private detective Jim Rockford, and sometimes I watched it with her. Here in Norway it's available for streaming on SkyShowtime. We're only seven episodes into the first season, and the guest stars have been Lindsey Wagner, Susan Strasberg, Sian Barbara Allen, Gretchen Corbett, Roger Davis, James Woods--all actresses and actors I remember well from the 1970s and 1980s. 

Last night we watched Where Eagles Dare, an action-packed WWII thriller from 1968 starring Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood. I'd never seen it before, and it was well-worth watching. Pretty amazing scenes--fighting atop a cable car, climbing up the side of a castle--definitely not what you see everyday. It made me realize that some of the action films with Bruce Willis were definitely influenced by films such as this one. James Bond films as well. Enjoyable to watch, even though the body count in Where Eagles Dare was over the top. You don't forget for one minute that you're dealing with Nazi Germany and that the enemy has to be vanquished. 

I am drawn more and more to the older films and series, possibly because they are more enjoyable to watch than many of the newer films, even if they are less realistic. And if they deal with dark subject matter, they still manage not to sink into a morass of despair. I watch them and can then let them go after they're finished. I don't know if that's good or bad in the context of war films, but there are plenty of the latter that will leave you in a despairing frame of mind for a long time afterward. I watch them too, but it's hard to say I enjoy them. I can comment on them as quality films, well-acted films, etc. Realistic films. Where Eagles Dare is not a realistic film by any stretch of the imagination. In the same vein, we watched A Haunting in Venice two nights ago, Kenneth Branagh's new Agatha Christie film about Poirot who is now retired and living in Venice Italy. He is pulled out of retirement by an author friend of his to solve a presumed murder (that end up being multiple murders) in a spooky old house in Venice. Fun to watch, and again, the dark subject matter doesn't bring you down. I don't know how Agatha Christie did it, but she managed to write entertaining books about murders and murderers. Much like Dorothy Sayers. Both had a way of writing that drew you into the novels without burying you. 

Winter arrived early this past Monday. No one I know was ready for it psychologically. Too soon for snow and accumulation. Luckily most of the snow has melted due to the steady rain that we've had for the last twenty-four hours. But this has been the year for windiness. It seems like the wind has blown continually this year. I wish it would stop and I wish that the sun would shine more. But we're living in the era of climate change, so I'm not sure I can wish for anything of the sort.

Halloween was fun for the kids this year. But of course we always have the killjoys and the sourpusses, the ones who can't and won't let anyone off the hook for having a bit of fun. God forbid you should have some fun. How many articles I've read by young people/parents who criticize that 'American' Halloween has arrived in Norway and appears to have settled into the October repertoire. They resent having to spend money on costumes and candy. For the first, Halloween isn't originally an American holiday, but I'm not going to be bothered to get into that aspect of it. A young man I worked with years ago, who was studying to become a doctor, referred to some of his fellow students as people who walked around with rods up their rear ends. That's how I view some of the killjoys--stiff, uptight, unable to just 'let it go'. If they don't like it, no one else should, and by extension, no one else should be able to enjoy it.

Why can't more people just 'let it go' or 'live and let live?' Our society comments ad nauseam about everything under the sun. The more that gets criticized, the more I want to uphold and support all that gets criticized. I'm 'trassig' (defiant in English) that way. And I intend to remain defiant. 

And finally, I've switched off the ability to comment on my blog posts again due to a troll that leaves disturbing comments. Notice I refer to the troll as a 'that'. Not a 'who'. You never know these days. It could just be a robot or a non-human posing as a human. I thought I had set the filters correctly, perhaps I didn't. But if it's a human doing it, that person is an 'it' in my book. In any case, it's now a moot point. No more comments. 

A slippery slope

We live in a strange world now, one that promotes mediocre books, movies, music and art as very good or even excellent. The reviews are often stellar; I know because I read them. I'm always interested in what others mean or have to say. I will often watch a film or read a book because it's gotten good reviews, but it happens more often than not these days that I disagree with the reviewers, professional and non-professional. That was the case with the Oscar-winning film Everything Everywhere All at Once (I don't understand how this film won so many Oscars) and with some recent best-selling books (The Midnight Library, Euphoria, and Normal People come to mind). All of them received stellar reviews, but I was disappointed by them. My criteria for judging them to be less than stellar are the following: poor plotting, disjointed plots, disguised preachiness, banal fluff that passes for philosophical thought, lack of depth concerning the serious matters that are taken up in the film or books, and so on. That being said, there were some classic books I read when I was growing up that I didn't like or didn't make me feel good, but objectively I know that they were good books. I have read books considered to be classics, by authors who are considered to be excellent that I haven't liked--for example, some few books by Ernest Hemingway and Graham Greene. I evaluate them as mediocre because they had poor plots or rather ridiculous or superficial plotting and a failure to create engaging characters--mediocre at best. Most writers would probably agree that not everything they've published is up to snuff. How could it be? My point is that we need to be able to discuss some of these aspects when reading and writing reviews, because otherwise we can just accept that reviews have become sycophantic. Real objective discussion is rare at present. It seems as though the criteria for judging something as excellent or not have been pushed aside in favor of how one feels about the book, movie, art or politician in question. In other words, using subjective criteria for evaluations rather than objective criteria. If one likes a book, movie, piece of art, or politician because it/he or she made you feel good, I have no problem with that, but it can't end there. There have to be logical objective reasons as well for why one thinks something is excellent. But that's the slippery slope we're heading down right now. The definition of a slippery slope is a dangerous pathway or route to follow; a route that leads to trouble (Slippery slope - Idioms by The Free Dictionary). On that slippery slope, feelings alone matter, not logic or common sense. Feelings determine nearly everything, and it's easy to get fooled into thinking that something is good merely because other people feel that it is good. But it isn't. 

Nowadays we read about a classic book or film being 'cancelled' because it contained some off-color language or outmoded ideas that the woke crowd found insulting and wanted to rid the world of. One simply cannot do this. I am not in favor of cancelling books, films and pieces of art simply because they are outdated or not relevant to current societal mores and ways of doing things. One can teach students about those novels or films in reference to the age in which they were written or made, in other words, place them in their proper historical context. But we cannot rid the world of everything we don't like or pretend that it doesn't exist. We cannot cancel everything we don't like merely based on feelings. 

The potential for harmful situations exists when we abandon logic in favor of feelings alone. Basing judgments solely on feelings leads to a mob mentality, and mob mentalities never lead to anything good. In political situations, we've seen what can happen when mobs get out of control--the January 6th Capitol attack, for example. Even if it didn't start out as a planned attack, it became an attack and got out of control, no matter what Tucker Carlson says and feels. Again, Carslon knows (feels) that it was basically a sightseeing tour. He's concluded for us all and we should just accept his word. Except that I don't. His evaluation is not based on facts, but on feelings, his feelings. It's also based on his network's greed; how much they can milk this situation for all it's worth. 

The Nightmare Before Christmas--a Halloween film that's become a classic

I remember the first time I saw The Nightmare Before Christmas (The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) - IMDb). It was in 1993 and we were still living in San Francisco, although our year there was coming to an end. The film was released in the USA on October 29, 1993, just in time for Halloween, and I saw it during the first week of November in a movie theater on the north side of Golden Gate Park. I remember that day very well, because I was the only one in the theater for the 3 pm afternoon showing, which they did not cancel, thankfully. I had left work early in order to see the film and it would have been disappointing not to have seen it. I left the theater thinking that I had seen an amazing film, and some years later I actually bought a video cassette of the film and watched it one or two more times before VHS films were phased out. I never purchased a DVD version of it; it was always on my to-do list but eventually streaming channels came along and I figured it would be possible to watch it on Netflix or HBO or the myriad of other streaming channels at some point. Sure enough, it's available on Disney+ (no surprise there since it's a Disney production) and Apple TV, among others. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it highly. The story of Jack Skellington the Pumpkin King, who decides that he can better his life by 'producing' Christmas one year instead of Halloween as usual, is a memorable one. The songs, the text, the creatures, the animation--all of them combine to make a film that is truly exceptional. As I said, at this point it's a classic.

Apart from It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, which is a wonderful Halloween classic, there aren't that many films that can be considered classic Halloween films for the entire family (meaning kids and their parents), not in the same way as for Christmas films. I know that there are a lot of Halloween horror films and that many of them are classics, but they are for adults and teenagers (the Halloween movie series comes to mind, and yes, they are creepy). 

There is something about seeing some movies on the big screen together with other people you know are fans. That was my experience today. Frogner Cinema in Oslo, which dates from the 1920s, set up two showings this weekend of The Nightmare Before Christmas. I went to today's 3 pm showing and the theater was almost filled, which was good to see. The majority of the attendees were teenagers and young adults, men and women alike. At the end of the film, people actually clapped, and that hasn't happened in ages in my experience. It was good to see because it gave me hope that there is still 'room' in modern society for movie theaters. I don't want them to disappear because there is nothing like seeing a movie for the first time (or even second and third times) in a dark movie theater. It's always a memorable experience, especially if the film is worth seeing. Many of my memories from youth are of times spent going to the movies. I thank Frogner Cinema for setting up these showings this weekend; it was a fun way to spend a couple of hours on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Just in time for Halloween......

Water by Golda May

Water, sung by Golda May, is the ending song to the movie The Weekend Away, now showing on Netflix. The movie was a pretty decent thriller starring Leighton Meester, and the ending song seemed appropriate for what the movie was about. I'm including the lyrics: 

Water 

I hear water in my dream

Lapping at my feet, talking to me

All red shoulders in the heat

So I step into the sea, floating softly

It's tryin' to say somethin'

A warnin' or maybe nothin'

Oh, this water keeps on showin' up

Oh, I'm a daughter drownin' in a cup

It's filling my lungs up

Dripping from my tongue now

Oh, this water keeps on showin' up

In deep, sister by my side

These waves are twice our height in the high tide

In life I usually despise her

But here she saves my life, I don't die

It's tryin' to say somethin'

A warnin' or maybe nothin'

Oh, this water keeps on showin' up

Oh, I'm a daughter drownin' in a cup

And It's filling my lungs up

Dripping from my tongue now

Oh, this watеr keeps on showing up

(Oh, this water keeps on showing up)

It's filling my lungs up

Dripping from my tongue now

Oh, this water keeps on showing up

Ah ah ah ah

I thought I could hеar you

I thought I could hear you

When you came to me every night

I thought I could hear you

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Brian Brundage / Ariella Golda Sosis

Water lyrics © Bad Ponjo

Top Gun: Maverick and Tom Cruise

I went to see the movie Top Gun: Maverick today and was very impressed by it. I wasn't sure what to expect, since this sequel comes thirty-six years after the first Top Gun film. It's said that Tom Cruise held off on making the sequel; if so, I give him credit for having good instincts, because it comes at a time when society could use a real blockbuster film that draws viewers in and thoroughly entertains them. I'm talking about being entertained the way we were entertained by movies from the 1980s--'big' films, amazing flight/action sequences, little to no CGI, real stunts, decent plots and good acting. 

I preface this review by stating up front that I do not care about Tom Cruise's religious affiliations, his personal life, or how much he stands to make from this film. He made a film he believed in and worked hard personally to get it made and to actually make it. He doesn't need me to defend him against any criticism, that I know. But I thank him for making this film, because it restored my desire to go to the movies and not just sit night after night watching series and movies on streaming channels. There is something about the experience of sitting in a movie theater in the dark together with others that appeals to me and always will. I used to love going to the movies. If the movie industry can get back to making films like this, I'll be going to the movies a lot more often. I made a promise to myself that I will try to go to the movies at least once a week from now on. I prefer going to the movies rather than sitting in front of the tv night after night mindlessly flipping through the channels trying to find something interesting to watch. I'm picky, I know. I don't care. I'm 'seried-out', as in, I'm tired of watching/binging an endless series of series. What I want is to watch a really good movie, and Top Gun: Maverick fits that bill. Seeing the film also restored my faith in actors, in the sense that there are still actors out there who love what they do and it shows. They're not just going through the motions. I've got to hand it to Tom Cruise; the man just turned sixty years old and still does most of his own stunts. He deserves a lot of credit for that. You can see in his smile that he loves what he is doing; it shines through. He is a true entertainer, one of the old school, and is probably one of the last top Hollywood actors. 

Of course it takes a village to make a movie; in this case the large numbers of people involved in the collaboration between the movie makers and the US Navy. The flight sequences that Cruise and some of the other actors are involved in are incredible, and that's putting it mildly. They of course did not pilot the F/A-18 Super Hornet planes themselves (non-military personnel are not allowed to do so); that was done by Navy pilots who are experts at piloting these planes. I read online that Cruise wanted the actors to experience firsthand the stress of the immense gravitational forces that the pilots of these fighter jets experience when they fly them, so he and the other actors sat behind them in the planes for some of the flight sequences. That's what makes the experience of the movie even more authentic. The story itself is touching and nostalgic at times, especially when it refers to the original film and the death of Maverick's wingman Goose. The relationships between Maverick (Cruise) and Goose's son Rooster (Miles Teller) and between Maverick and Iceman (Val Kilmer) tug at the heartstrings and actually makes you care about the characters. And the romantic relationship between Maverick and Penny (Jennifer Connelly) is respectful and humorous. 

So thank you to the movie makers, Tom Cruise, the US Navy and everyone else involved in making a memorable and thoroughly entertaining film. Quite an enjoyable way to spend a Wednesday afternoon....

The modern dance film Ritual In Transfigured Time from 1946

I am a Friend of Untermyer Gardens (located in Yonkers New York), and I often receive emails from Stephen F. Byrns who is the President of the Untermyer Gardens Conservancy. He sent out an email this week that included this clip of a modern dance film from 1946 called Ritual in Transfigured Time by Maya Deren, who was an American experimental avant-garde filmmaker. Born in the Ukraine, she was also a choreographer, dancer, film theorist, poet, lecturer, writer, and photographer (info from Wikipedia). 

The reason Byrns included the film clip was because Deren filmed the dance at Untermyer Gardens. I found the film to be moving and quite mesmerizing, almost menacing in some places. I'd never heard of Deren before, but I'm glad I know about her now. 

The Family Way--a touching film from 1966

The film The Family Way, starring Hayley Mills and Hywel Bennett as a young married couple who have problems consummating their marriage, is billed as a comedy/drama/romance. I watched it yesterday and found it less a comedy than a serious drama with some comedic moments included. My first thought when I saw that it had shown up on Netflix was that I will finally get to see this movie. When it was released in 1966 my parents told me that I was too young to see it, and after having seen it, I understand they were right because I wouldn't have understood it. But I was old enough to have read about the film in The New York Times, and because it starred Hayley Mills, I wanted to see it. 

Hayley Mills was an actress we grew up with and whom we all wanted to be. She starred in so many films that we loved as children--Pollyanna (1960), The Parent Trap (1961), The Moon-Spinners (1964), and That Darn Cat (1965), to name a few. Pollyanna was shown in our grammar school, in the auditorium as I remember. Schools did that way back when--got a hold of a film for general audiences and gathered us all together to watch it on 'movie day'. We didn't see it in 1960, rather around the late 1960s. The Moon-Spinners was shown on television's The Wonderful World of Disney and we were fascinated by the story as I remember, which was a crime adventure, a romance, and a travel film. We saw it on television in the late 1960s. I liked this film especially since it also had a romantic interest for Hayley Mills who was already a teenager (18) by that time. My mother took us children to see That Darn Cat when it was released in 1965; I remember the lines to get into The Music Hall on Main Street in Tarrytown. We enjoyed that film as well, as we did most films because going to the movies was always a fun time. 

Hayley Mills was 20 years old when she made The Family Way. The film was quite a departure for her in terms of theme; it was a 'grown-up' film because she played a young woman, Jenny Piper, who marries a young man, Arthur Fitton (played by Hywel Bennett), about her age. Due to circumstances beyond their control, they cannot go on their honeymoon and they end up living in her husband's parents' house. There is very little privacy, and Arthur has a difficult relationship with his father Ezra Fitton, played by Hayley Mill's real-life father John Mills. Jenny and Arthur do not consummate their marriage on their first night together, and as time goes on, it seems less and less likely that they will. The reasons for this are not completely clear--lack of privacy is one of them, a practical joke played on them involving a collapsing double bed is another (Jenny laughs but Arthur doesn't), but his overall  inexperience with women is another. He is the bookish sort, a quiet, non-rowdy, serious young man. It is hinted at one point that he might be homosexual, which turns out not to be true. What he really needs is a push, but that doesn't come until close to the end of the film, after both sets of parents have gotten involved and after his humiliation (as Arthur sees it) is complete. When he finally gets angry and expresses his feelings, he overcomes the hindrance in the way of his being a true husband to Jenny. While this storyline could have been played for laughs, it wasn't, and that's why I liked the film. It made viewers feel sorry for the couple, it made them want to wish them well, to try and work out their marriage. It also presents their parents as real human beings with problems and regrets of their own. I won't give away the film's ending, but suffice it to say I'm glad I finally got to watch it after all these years. 

 

The film Orders to Kill--a morality tale from 1958

Netflix Europe has been expanding its repertoire of classic films, especially films from the United Kingdom. Many of them are black-and-white films from the WWII- or post-WWII era. Orders to Kill from 1958 is one of them that made a lasting impression on me (Orders to Kill (1958) - IMDb). It's a morality tale about an American soldier during WWII who is ordered by his superiors to kill a French lawyer (living in Paris and married with a teenage daughter) who is thought to be collaborating with the Nazis. The information that the US Army has on the lawyer is that several agents working in the French resistance movement have been killed after having had contact with him. The army believes he has sold out these agents to the Gestapo in Nazi-occupied Paris. The soldier who agrees to kill him, Gene Summers (played by Paul Massie), has flown bomber planes and is considered to be a good choice for the mission. 

The first hour of the film deal with the Summers' preparation for the task before him--assume a French name, familiarize himself with all the details about his new persona and the person he is to kill, connect with Léonie (played by Irene Worth), the woman in Paris who helps him with the practical aspects of being there (a place to live, having a 'cover' job, necessary papers to present to the Gestapo in case he is stopped on the street, getting him out of Paris when the job is done). This part of the film moves rather slowly in contrast to the last hour (the film is almost two hours long). When he finally makes contact with the lawyer Lafitte (played by Leslie French), the suspense builds as the viewer wonders when (or if) Summers will kill him and if in fact Lafitte is actually guilty of collaborating with the Nazis. 

Spoilers ahead--Summers gets to know Lafitte, an extraordinarily friendly man who takes Summers under his wing, allowing him to stay overnight in his office when the Gestapo are searching for a young man in that area of Paris who has killed a Nazi officer. Lafitte invites him home for a drink to meet his wife and daughter. Lafitte has had a cat stashed in his office that he feeds, which is against his wife's wishes since food is rationed and she does not want another mouth to feed. She finds out that he is keeping the cat in his office and tells him to get rid of it, so he tells his wife that Summers will take the cat to live on a farm outside of Paris, when in reality Summers is to return the cat to Lafitte the following morning at his office. Lafitte's friendliness, empathy and compassion (for both animals and people) creates a picture of Lafitte as a decent man, which Summers finds confusing. Summers is in a quandary--is this man a traitor who deserves to be killed, or is he innocent? He delays killing him as he tries to sort out his feelings and thoughts. He tries to share his hesitation with Léonie who is horrified that he is sharing any details of his job with her, since the less she knows the better off she will be if she is captured by the Nazis and tortured into giving them information. Ultimately she tells him that he is too sentimental and that Lafitte could in fact be a traitor. She reminds Summers that he has killed innocent people before when he has dropped bombs and that he had no qualms about that; her point is that in war, both innocent and guilty people get killed. When Summers brings the cat to Lafitte's office the morning following his visit to his family, he sees a Gestapo officer leaving the building. When he arrives at Lafitte's office, he sees him handling a large sum of cash and he assumes that he has gotten it from the Gestapo officer. He doesn't let on that he thinks this, but when he hands over the cat, Lafitte bends down to pet it and Summers hits him on the head with a heavy object. Lafitte falls facedown and the cat runs for cover, but when Lafitte moans and turns over on his back and faces Summers, he asks him 'why?' before dying. This pierces Summers to the bone as it tells him that Lafitte was innocent. He messes up the office to make it look like a robbery, and then takes the money that Lafitte had and goes to a cemetery where he buries it. Too late, he receives a message from Léonie telling him to not go through with 'the job', and when he tries to reach her, she uses a code word on the phone to warn him that she and he are in danger (she ends up captured, tortured and killed by the Nazis without revealing any information about the resistance). For the next month he drinks himself into a stupor, using the money to purchase liquor. When he is finally rescued by the US Army following the liberation of Paris, he ends up in a military hospital, where he is visited by two of his superiors, one of whom tells him that he has done a good job and that Lafitte was in fact a traitor. The other one tells him the truth when the first one leaves the room, that Lafitte was innocent, as Summers had surmised. Summers insists on knowing the truth, and when he understands that he has killed an innocent man, he absorbs the information and asks for all of his pay that has accrued. The film ends with his visiting Lafitte's wife and daughter and giving them this money, and telling them that Lafitte was his colleague and a hero in the French resistance and that they should be proud of him. 

Watching this film, especially the scene where Lafitte asks Summers 'why', was gut-wrenching, as it was intended to be. The knowledge that you have likely killed an innocent man must really break a person, mentally and emotionally, if not physically as well. But Summers, once he finds out the truth in the hospital, seems to 'accept' the reality that he murdered an innocent man. Perhaps he had to accept it in order to go on living. It made me realize what soldiers have to deal with during wartime, the moral quandaries that arise and that have to be dealt with every day. It is not always easy to know who is the enemy; in this film, based on circumstantial evidence alone, Lafitte could have been guilty. Even though Summers suffers knowing he killed an innocent man who looked him in the eyes before he died, was it any better that he flew airplanes that dropped bombs on people he could not see? Women and children died, men too--some of them enemies and most of them innocent civilians. The film doesn't answer these questions as much as it asks them and then shows the results of certain decisions in the life of one military man. It also raises the question of following orders; soldiers must do that, but sometimes the orders are wrong or immoral or both. If they follow orders that result in the deaths of many civilians and even fellow soldiers, what then? Who is responsible? Can one argue that all deaths are acceptable in a war? How many innocent deaths are acceptable? One need only look at some of the atrocities of the Vietnam War committed against civilians to know that this is a real problem in wartime.

Films like this are uncommon in today's world. We have become used to watching war and spy films where mass killings are de rigueur. The body count mounts and there is little reflection on that fact. We are witness to the atrocities, the violence, the brutality. We see arms and legs lost, soldiers shot up, twisted bodies on the battlefield. We rarely get a glimpse into the workings of a soldier's mind, much less into the workings of the minds of ordinary civilians. Orders to Kill is worth seeing, and I hope to watch more films like it, even though I know that most of them will probably be classic films like this one. 

Memories and the movies Nocturnal Animals and Dark City

Both Nocturnal Animals (from 2016) and Dark City (from 1998) are movies that deal with memories, albeit in different ways. I watched both recently and both made lasting impressions on me. Nocturnal Animals is a 'story within a story' thriller about a divorced woman, Susan Morrow (played by Amy Adams) whose ex-husband Edward (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) has written a novel and sent her a copy for her to read. They've been out of touch for twenty years; she left him for another man, Hutton Morrow, (played by Armie Hammer) whom she eventually married and with whom she had a daughter Samantha (now twenty), but not without first aborting her ex's child. Edward has not remarried. It was apparently a bitter divorce, as he pleaded with her not to leave their marriage. His pleas fell on deaf ears, as she was more interested in acquiring a lifestyle more in keeping with how she grew up, whereas he was more of a romantic dreamer who was not interested in money. She characterizes him as a weak and unambitious person. Her present life is unhappy; Hutton is cheating on her and she knows and accepts it. She doesn't sleep well (hence the title Nocturnal Animals, a term coined by her ex-husband to describe her). She hates her job as a modern art curator, and when she receives the novel from Edward on a weekend when Hutton is out of town on business (as he tells her), she begins to read it and finds herself immersed in its story. It is dedicated solely to her, and while she reads it, it brings back many memories of how she and Edward met, fell in love, married, and then parted, as well as memories about what they each wanted and how different they were. His novel is a violent and unsettling story about a man (Tony Hastings) whose wife (Laura) and daughter (India) are raped and murdered in west Texas while they are on vacation and how he was unable to protect them. The story spirals into a revenge thriller where Tony gets the chance to take revenge on the killers; he is given that chance by the local sheriff Bobby Andes who is dying of lung cancer. But even though he gets his revenge, the outcome for him is not a good one. The movie goes back and forth between events in Susan's present life, events in the novel, and her memories of her life with Edward. By the time she finishes reading the novel, she understands that she still loves him, and she makes plans via email to meet him for dinner at a restaurant while he is in town. He never shows up, and she understands that this is his revenge on her for how cruelly she treated him. His novel has jolted her out of her inert and unhappy life and made her feel something besides boredom. She may even be feeling guilt. She understands that her treatment of Edward has found its way into his novel; Tony calls himself weak because he could not protect Laura and India. They are raped and murdered by three depraved psychos out for a 'good time' on a deserted Texas highway. The anxiety and dread are palpable; we know that his memories of their relationship are so harrowing that the only way he can deal with them is to 'kill' her and to kill the man/men responsible for killing her (and his relationship with Susan in real-life). Their daughter is already dead (aborted years ago). He could not protect his marriage or his daughter. Susan understands this when she read his novel, so how she could actually think that he would be interested in her again after all that has transpired between them simply shows what a superficial and cruel person she really was. I may have misunderstood the ending, but the fact that she removes her wedding ring and dresses up to meet Edward is indicative of a woman looking for a second chance with Edward. But he never shows up. All she has left are her memories, now that his novel has awakened her heart and emotions. They will haunt her and likely persecute her for years to come. One could hope that her awakening leads her to change her life, but that remains a mystery to the viewers. The ending is ambiguous and you can read into it what you'd like, which in my estimation makes the movie a memorable and outstanding one.  

Dark City asks the questions, who are we without our memories and how are our souls involved? Are our memories and our souls intertwined? If you remove the memories, do you render people soulless and identity-less? Dark City is controlled by aliens called The Strangers who want to know the answers to these questions. As we find out along the way, they have created a world and populated it with a group of human beings in order to experiment on and to study them. Their civilization is dying and they need to understand what it is in humanity that makes humans survivors. The city is perpetually dark because they cannot tolerate sunlight. They wear the bodies of dead humans as their own, giving them a vampiric appearance (they reminded me of Nosferatu at times--tall, thin, white entities floating in the air). Their civilization is defined by collective memory, where no individual has his own private memories. Collective memories are what each of them experience, so they have no individuality, no soul. They mistakenly believe that the soul is found in men's minds that hold their memories, so they create experiments with the help of a neurological scientist, Daniel Schreber (played by Kiefer Sutherland), to remove the individual memories from the brains of each human being and to imprint their brains with new memories that are concocted by the scientist following the orders of the Strangers. This naturally leads to a sort of chaos in the city, as people can wake from one day to the next and not remember who they were or what they did yesterday. They no longer know who they are. But one man, the main character John Murdoch (played by Rufus Sewell) has not been imprinted completely; he awoke while he was being imprinted and he begins a quest to find out who he is/was based on the flashes of memory that plague him. What he knows is that he is not a serial killer of prostitutes, as his imprinting has told him he is. Unfortunately the imprinting of individuals is leading to collective memory in the humans; they have begun to forget who they are. It is almost impossible to fight against the Strangers because a person never knows when he or she will be picked out of the crowd to be imprinted. But John Murdoch decides to fight the Strangers with the help of his wife Emma (played by Jennifer Connelly), a police officer, Frank Bumstead (played by William Hurt), and Daniel Schreber who wants to end the experiments. They succeed in finding out what Dark City really is and about the experiment in which they are involved. In doing so, they destroy the community of the Strangers. The movie is quite good, even though it deals with an extremely complex topic. But sci-fi is allowed to do that--to entertain us and to create questions that perhaps cannot be answered (in our time). 

In the first movie, it is the individual memories of Susan and Edward that define who they are and their very different lives in the present. Both suffer but in different ways. Susan's husband betrays her as she betrayed Edward; Edward writes a novel to help him deal with the crushing memories of her betrayal. In the second movie, the idea of collective memory negates individual memory. Individual memories would eventually become part of the collective memory and humans would cease to feel and to be human. There would be no need for revenge, guilt, sorrow, or forgiveness, because all individual memories would be erased for the good of the whole. This is what the society of Strangers has misunderstood. Our physical (chemical neurological) memories may be found in our brains, but all facets of memory are not. They are also found in our hearts and souls and are probably a very complicated and hitherto inexplicable combination of all three. 

We are who we are as a result of the memories that we have built up and stored over time. Is that buildup orderly and coherent? Does the brain control the storage of memory in an orderly fashion? How the brain stores memories › Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (fau.eu). All the more terrifying to contemplate what dementia patients experience on their gradual downward progression toward oblivion. Without coherent memory, we lose our 'selves', our individuality, our identity. This is not to say that memories have died in dementia patients, just that their disease has tangled and fragmented them, and in doing so, has fragmented their lives. Over time, the brain cells atrophy. There is much to be learned about memories and how they are created, stored, and retrieved in the brain. But all facets of memory cannot be explained by the brain alone. 

Picnic at Hanging Rock--the movie and the series

Picnic at Hanging Rock--the movie--came out in 1975 and was lauded as a great film. Indeed, its director, Peter Weir, of The Last Wave fame, went on to make some hugely popular movies, among them Witness, Master and Commander, Green Card, and The Truman Show. The Last Wave, with Richard Chamberlain, is a masterpiece of a film about a lawyer defending several Aboriginal men accused of murder, who falls under the spell of the Aboriginal culture; he begins to have premonitions about a last wave, which may or may not be a huge tidal wave or a tsunami. The film was released in 1977, two years after Picnic at Hanging Rock, which I never saw until recently. I watched it after I had seen the BBC television series of the same name (now available on the streaming channel Cirkus here in Norway). Although most reviewers and viewers preferred the film, I preferred the television series. 

I have not read the novel by Joan Lindsay on which both the film and series are based, but I plan on doing so. That said, I found the series to be quite good, and I liked it better than the film version, probably because it was longer and viewers could get better insights into the characters and what made them tick. Additionally, I had read movie reviews that kept mentioning how eerie the film was; I thought the series was far more so. It really got under my skin. I do agree with the naysayers that the series could probably have been shortened to four episodes instead of six, but regardless, it held my interest throughout.

I liked that series viewers learned a lot about the main characters--where they came from, their backstories. The series got the chance to really flesh out the characters. They took liberties with the actual story, I am sure of that. But it worked. I liked the dreamy atmosphere that hovered between the natural and the supernatural, I liked the flirtation with subtle horror and madness. Was satanism or witchcraft involved in the disappearance at Hanging Rock of four women from a Victorian era girl's school? Were there evil spirits there, or spirits protecting the rock against trespassers? Was there a time warp into which they slipped, never to return? Why did watches stop in the vicinity of the rock? Were they murdered by local men in the area, or did they commit suicide? Their bodies were never found. One of the women does return, but unfortunately, she cannot remember anything that happened, and that by itself unnerves most of the townspeople as well as the school staff. A run of bad luck ensues, and the wealthy parents whose daughters go to the school begin to withdraw them, one by one, which leads to a crisis for (and eventual suicide of) the headmistress Mrs. Appleyard (played by an excellent Natalie Dormer). 

There are many theories as to what could have happened to the girls. The film and the series tantalize us with possible answers, but never really make clear what actually did happen to them. Apparently that was the ending in Lindsay's book as well, although she purportedly wrote a a rather bizarre ending that never made it into the published book. The ending of the film and series give viewers some ideas of what probably happened to the missing girls, but it remains up to the viewers to intuit how large a role the atmosphere at the rock and legends surrounding the rock played. The series moved slowly in terms of building up to the reality of the horror that occurred; a creeping sense of creepiness as it were. I do not agree with the critics of the series that the focus was not on the picnic. It was, in every episode: it is the backdrop in every episode. The fact that the girls went missing affected just about everyone at the school, and each episode revealed that in one way or another. Bad fortune found a number of them. The music was a good accompaniment to the goings-on--eerie at times, dreamy at other times. 

I suggest watching the 1975 film first, and then the television series. The acting in both is very good, but I prefer the acting and cinematography of the television series, as well as the ever-present intense atmosphere of foreboding in the series, even in daylight. I did not get that same feeling from the movie.  

The appeal of science fiction

I'm a diehard sci-fi (and sci-fi horror) fan--books, films, and series. I don't remember the first sci-fi book I read that got me hooked on the genre. Perhaps it was A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle when we were children. The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells was another book that fascinated us as children. My parents were good at introducing us to different literary genres. The Andromeda Strain was published in 1969 and I probably read it around 1970 or so. I also read C.S. Lewis' The Space Trilogy when I was a teenager, and This Perfect Day by Ira Levin. To enjoy sci-fi, one must be able to let go of one's own world and enter into new and unknown worlds created by the authors and accept that those worlds may be nothing like one's own. That was never a problem for me. The appeal of sci-fi is likely different for each person, but there are some common elements. Part of the appeal was likely escapist when I was younger; now the appeal is more a fascination with dystopian themes and with other worlds, unknown worlds, the universe, time travel, parallel worlds--in short, fascination with stepping outside of the natural laws and our world (outer and inner) in order to experience other worlds. Judging by the interest in sci-fi, I think we will always be fascinated by the possibility of doing just that. I think man has always looked up at the stars and wondered what was out there. Or looked around at ordinary life and happenings and asked--what if they were different or changed, or completely unlike what we could ever imagine? Man has always been both fascinated by and afraid of the unknown and of the dark. Monsters and aliens may live there, and they may not be friendly to mankind. Even so, I would love to be able to travel through time to other worlds if I could do so via a transporter or through a wormhole, just as long as I could return to the safety of my own world when I wanted. That's asking a lot, but in the sci-fi realm, anything is possible.  

Some of my favorite sci-fi authors and their books are as follows:

• Ray Bradbury--The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451
• Stanislaw Lem--Solaris
• Philip K. Dick--Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
• Michael Crichton--The Andromeda Strain, The Terminal Man, Timeline
• Neil Gaiman--Coraline, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, The Graveyard Book
• John Wyndham--The Day of the Triffids
• C.S. Lewis--The Space Trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength)
• H.P. Lovecraft--The Best of H.P. Lovecraft (falls into the horror fiction genre, but many of his stories would qualify as sci-fi horror)
• Isaac Asimov--Fantastic Voyage, The End of Eternity
• David Lindsay--A Voyage to Arcturus 
• Aldous Huxley--Brave New World
• George Orwell--1984
• H.G. Wells--The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man
• Ira Levin--This Perfect Day

Some of my favorite sci-fi films and series are:  

• Forbidden Planet
• The Blob
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Soylent Green
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind
• Star Wars
• The Man Who Fell to Earth
• Westworld
• Alien
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers
• Aliens
• Blade Runner
• Brazil
• Deep Impact
• Event Horizon
• Jurassic Park
• The Lost World: Jurassic Park
• Men in Black
• Alien3
• Alien Resurrection
• The Day After Tomorrow
• I Am Legend
• WALL-E
• Jurassic Park III
• 28 Days Later
• District 9
• Pitch Black
• Minority Report
• Solaris 
• Another Earth
• IO
• Extinction
• I Origins
• Prometheus
• Interstellar
• The Martian
• Oblivion
• Edge of Tomorrow
• Alien: Covenant
• Arrival
• Ex Machina
• A Quiet Place
• Blade Runner 2049
• Jurassic World
• Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
• Raised By Wolves (HBO series)

My Saturday night movie watching--Two Weeks Notice and Basic Instinct

Saturday evenings are often good opportunities to catch up on movies I've missed or ones that I want to see again (infrequent occurrences but they do happen). Last night was one of those evenings. I watched Two Weeks Notice (2002) with Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant for the first time (I don't know how I missed it when it first came out), and after that I watched Basic Instinct (1992) with Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas for the second time. While both movies belong to different genres--romantic comedy and noir erotic thriller, respectively, and both are very good, the portrayal of women in each film is quite different. Sandra Bullock's character is far more realistic and nuanced than Sharon Stone's character, oddly enough for a romantic comedy, and far less cool. In Basic Instinct, Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone's character) is a writer of murder/crime books, with firsthand knowledge of murder. She is a psychopath and pathological liar, brilliant yes, but completely without morals. I can understand an actress wanting to play that role, but the character remains unexplored--a superficial view of a murderess who surrounds herself with other female murderesses. In 1992 when the movie was made, this was probably heavy stuff--a female murderess, extreme behavior, graphic sex scenes, bisexuality, cocaine use, reckless driving--all thrown in the mix. God knows we have had a plethora of murder/slasher films (too many of them) where the psychopath is always a man with a penchant for raping and torturing/murdering women. So now we had a female psychopath. But Basic Instinct makes the female psychopath cool. When I first saw the film in 1993, that thought didn't dominate my impression of the movie. It did last night, and now that I'm older, I waver more about the implications of making a psychopath (male or female) cool. Because psychopaths are not cool--that's an unrealistic presentation of them. They're frustrating and annoying to be around and to deal with. They make you feel uncomfortable in their presence, like you are pinned to a dissecting board, waiting for the worst. There is a certain 'creep' factor associated with them, as in--they are creeps and they make your skin crawl. They are often intelligent, charming, attractive, unattainable to most, narcissistic, amoral, pathological liars interested in playing games with people. They are ultimately destructive individuals and that is their aim. But they are not cool, rather anything but. I have met men (and perhaps one woman) with psychopathic tendencies (intelligent and amoral pathological liars) but they were neither interesting nor attractive people, and after a short time, their superficiality was a turnoff. After a few encounters, you avoid them at all costs. For most men, I would guess that a female psychopath would be the same after a while, after the initial attraction wore off. Few people talk about their experiences with a psychopath, unsurprisingly, since most of those interactions don't go well for the non-psychopath. Most psychopaths are probably not killers, but a number of them can be violent if it serves their purposes. So why does Michael Douglas' 'prone-to-violence' character Nick Curran risk his life by getting involved with Catherine Tramell? Because he has an addictive personality--he's obsessed with her. The film's atmosphere has been compared to that found in some Hitchcock films. I was rather reminded of both Brian De Palma's Dressed to Kill (1980), with Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, and Nancy Allen, (a lurid film if ever there was one), and of Harold Becker's Sea of Love (1989) with Al Pacino and Ellen Barkin. Sea of Love is a much better (but underrated) film than either Dressed to Kill or Basic Instinct, mostly because it had a logical plot, gritty NYC atmosphere, and characters you actually cared about. If you're looking for an erotic murder/crime film that makes sense, where policemen behave rationally (or at least try to), this is the film for you. Basic Instinct is not (in my opinion); it is rather a superficial illogical thriller with a lot of sex and violence thrown in. Guaranteed to earn tons of money at the box office, which it did, thanks to the presence of actors like Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone and some soft-core sex scenes. At this point in my life, I'd simply say--sex sells--the sex scenes are what made this film so popular. None of the characters even remotely interested me, in terms of the types of people I'd like to get to know in real life. But it's a wild ride toward what for me was the obvious conclusion, so in that sense it was enjoyable.

So that is why Two Weeks Notice won out over Basic Instinct for me last night. Because despite the fact that I had few expectations of a romantic comedy being well-written (intelligently-written), non-superficial, and with interesting and witty characters, I was pleasantly surprised. Sandra Bullock's character Lucy Kelson in Two Weeks Notice was intelligent, witty, engaged and attractive. I would want to get to know her. She wanted to make something of her life; she stood for something. Working as a pro bono lawyer when we first meet her, we understand that she has inherited her parents' commitment to working for justice and good (often underdog) causes. So when she meets charming, handsome, and superficial millionaire George Wade (played by Hugh Grant) who mostly cares about what suits/ties to wear and the next woman he will bed, sparks fly and we know how it is going to end since it's a romantic comedy. They're diametrical opposites who are attracted to each other, who like each other and who are willing to change a bit for the other, albeit not immediately and not without major resistance. It surprised me, considering the awful romantic comedies I've seen lately (you can ask me for a list--many of them with Jason Bateman and/or Jennifer Aniston), that this one was so good and so well-written, with characters I could root for. It was actually a lot of fun joining them on their journey toward maturity, watching them admit that they were human and could change. Of course I know that the basic plot was inherently unrealistic; how often are pro bono lawyers offered a 250,000 dollar a year job at a major corporation, how often does said lawyer end up in almost daily communication with her boss, etc. But I can suspend my requirement for logic and my skepticism and just accept the (often far-fetched) premise when we're dealing with romantic comedies. That is not the case with crime thrillers and series; I expect a certain amount of logical thought and reasonable responses to certain events. When I don't get that, I get disappointed, and that happens with a lot of crime movies/series these days.

Falling in love with the old films

I remember my mother talking about the film Laura (from 1944) with Gene Tierney when I was a child. It was one of her favorite films as I recall. I believe I saw the film when I was a teenager, but I don’t remember the impression it made on me. My mother also talked about the films From Here to Eternity (1953) and The Children’s Hour (1961), both of which were off limits to us as children due to their adult themes. I have not seen either of them, but recently ordered them both films from Amazon UK. They will join the ever-growing DVD collection I have of old films; by old, I mean from the 1940s, 50s and 60s, when I was a child. Once the 1970s came, I was often at the movies because by then I was a teenager. Going to the movies was something we did a lot of then.

Many of the old films starred actors and actresses such as Rex Harrison, Gene Tierney, James Stewart, Kim Novak, John Wayne, Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant, Clark Gable, William Holden, Gregory Peck, Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, Lauren Bacall, and Humphrey Bogart. There are of course many others that I have not listed here.

I recently purchased the film Bell, Book & Candle (from 1958) with Kim Novak and James Stewart, and enjoyed it a lot. Kim Novak is Gil, a witch who places a spell on her neighbor Shep (James Stewart) to make him fall in love with her as a way of getting revenge on a disagreeable woman she went to college with who is now engaged to Shep. I recommend it as a very enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours. And last night I watched The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (from 1947) with Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison. It was a wonderful film that could only have one ending, but even though I knew what was coming, I was unprepared for the effect it had on me. It is a sad but lovely ending to a love story between the deceased sea captain Daniel Gregg who haunts the house he lived in and the woman Lucy Muir who ends up living there with her young daughter Anna and their housemaid Martha. The last scene made me cry, and it is rare these days that a film has that effect on me. It is a testament to the wonderful acting but also to the emotional impact of the story of the love between the captain and Lucy throughout most of her adult life—a love that could never be realized in life. So that is what makes the ending that much more poignant.

I look forward to seeing The Children’s Hour and From Here to Eternity. Many of the old films used to show up on TCM, but for some reason this channel changed its format and stopped showing the old films, focusing rather on showing films from the 1980s and later, most of them rather obscure Asian gangster films. It then went off the air here in Scandinavia, most likely because it lost its appeal to viewers like me who preferred the old films. I wish it had kept the original format, because it is the old films that I want to see now, the films that are a part of the golden age of Hollywood, an age that is long over and not likely to return.

Riding with the raptors

There’s a lot to love about the new dinosaur film Jurassic World. Mostly, it doesn’t pretend to be anything more than what it is—a fun and fast-paced action film about a dinosaur theme park that bites off more than it can chew when it creates a new and better dinosaur, Indominus rex, to attract larger audiences. The new dinosaur has four different kinds of DNA in its genome, all of which have produced a cunning killer that appears to be unstoppable. Part of the fun is finding out what kind of DNA the scientists have used to create this monster. And as always in these kinds of films, scientists come off as the bad guys who can be bought, either by the paranoid military or by greedy companies or both. When you go to see these kinds of films, you know that within about thirty minutes after the start, it’s all going to go to hell, the dinosaurs are going to start eating people, and panic will ensue. And it does. Jurassic World is a dinosaur disaster film with a hero who gets to do the coolest thing I’ve seen on film so far—ride his motorcycle in the midst of the velociraptors that he’s been trying to train (with very limited success since they are cunning killers themselves). Their help is enlisted when it becomes clear that the velociraptors are perhaps the only creatures that can bring down Indominus Rex. But there is a neat twist here once the raptors meet Indominus, and I won’t give it away. The film is worth seeing, the special effects are very good, the plot is fairly predictable, the acting a bit stiff, but overall it’s a fun 3D ride. We all know that what is said is not nearly as important as what is done in these kinds of films. Action is what counts; in that regard, Chris Pratt will be a good addition to the genre for the future films. When I saw the first Jurassic Park film, and Sam Neill and the children stood watching the dinosaurs from a distance, I remember commenting to my husband that it would be so cool if humans could actually travel in the midst of the different kinds of dinosaurs, at their level if you will. In Jurassic World, they can and they do, with the help of the Gyrosphere, a computer-controlled sphere-shaped ride that has room for two people to sit in it, and that moves along the ground so that the park visitors can get a real feel for the dinosaurs. I’m looking forward to the subsequent films, although I cannot for the life of me figure out what ground the filmmakers are going to cover next. But I’m sure it will be one heck of a ride.  

Cleansing and rebirth--Darren Aronofsky's Noah

It’s hard to have a clear opinion about Noah, Darren Aronofsky’s new film about the ark-builder, family man and reluctant servant of God given the task of saving the animals in order that the old corrupt world can be destroyed and a new purified one can take its place. That's because it raises so many unanswerable questions, using the biblical story of Noah. The Earth must suffer fire to cleanse what little remains in the way of civilization and flood waters that will wipe out mankind and allow for the birth of a new world. Noah is aided in his task of building the ark by the Watchers, creatures that are essentially beings of light (angels) that disobeyed the will of God by helping mankind, and who ended up punished by God--trapped by the elements of Earth—mud and rock. They are also called the 'giants in the earth'. When Noah (played by Russell Crowe), his wife Naameh (played by Jennifer Connelly) and his family meet them, they are giant stone creatures resembling small mountains when stationary, who destroy any person who dares to cross into their territory; they no longer trust humans. But they come to understand that Noah, who visits his grandfather Methuselah (played by Anthony Hopkins) in order to discuss with him the dreams he’s been having, is a good man, descended from the line of Seth, and not of Cain (who murdered his brother). The latter line has succeeded in the space of five generations in ravaging and plundering the Earth and destroying the creatures—animals and birds—who live on it. The Earth is a devastated place, lacking food and water. Noah and his family are nomads and vegetarians, who at times run into large groups of marauders who think nothing of murdering innocent people and taking what they want from them. As you watch the film, you know that the end of the world is coming; it cannot continue this way forever; the film is pervaded by this apocalyptic vision. It’s hard not to make the jump to the present day, where mankind’s brutality, violence, and continual devastation of the environment have marked our own world for extinction—in our case perhaps via global warming and/or natural catastrophes caused by our destruction of the planet we live on. The symbolism is not subtle.

The group of marauders descended from the line of Cain is led by a man named Tubal-Cain (played by Ray Winstone), who is ruthless, dangerous and proud. He believes man was made in the image and likeness of God, using that as an excuse to behave badly; he is not God-fearing, preferring to believe that man can behave like God and decide who lives and who dies. Noah is presumably the hero and Tubal-Cain is the anti-hero. Except that it never is that black-and-white, because as the film nears its end, it’s clear to all that Noah is not without sin. In fact, he is a guilt-ridden, deluded, plagued man, angry with the world and with God for assigning him this mission, merciless and ruthless in his own way. The tasks of building the ark, saving the animals, and saving his family prove to be too much for one man’s sanity, especially when he is challenged by his son Ham (played by Logan Lerman), whose pleas to save the young woman he has met and wishes to take with him onboard the ark are ignored, resulting in her death. Ham and Noah become estranged, and Ham is tempted to betray his father by Tubal-Cain, who has managed to come aboard the ark, threatening the survival of all those on board.

The film’s imagery is impressive. It’s hard not to be moved by the scenes of earthly devastation, the eventual flood (rising waters and death by drowning), the battle scenes between the marauders and the Watchers (and their eventual deaths and release from this world), the scenes of birds and animals making their way to the ark, as well as the segment on the creation of the world in seven days. The latter is especially impressive. But it’s also a provocative film as well as at times an over-the-top and illogical one. The numbers of innocent women and children who perished in the flood is hardly justifiable, if God is a righteous God. But we know that the God of the Old Testament was hardly a merciful God, in contrast to Jesus in the New Testament. In fact, the lives of women and children in this patriarchal age were worth very little. Why did God allow that? Why did God spare Noah and his family alone? Surely there were other good families that could also have been saved? Why did Noah first listen to Ham’s wish to find a woman to take aboard so that he would not be alone in the new world, only to vehemently repudiate that idea (he concludes that his only task was to save the animals, not that humans should repopulate the Earth. The scene where he tells his infertile adopted daughter Ila (played by Emma Watson) who is together with his son Shem (played by Douglas Booth) that she is a gift no matter that she cannot reproduce perhaps portends this)? Was that the correct conclusion? Who can know? Why did he consider murdering Ila’s twin daughters, only then to change his mind (he presumably goes against the will of God as he had divined it)? Did God really want him to kill his own grandchildren (one is reminded of the story of Abraham being asked to kill his son Isaac)? These questions are not answered in the Old Testament, and Aronofsky does not answer them either. I left the theater knowing that I had seen a film that would make me think about the things that Aronofsky is clearly preoccupied with—what are we doing to our planet, are we incurring the wrath of its Creator, is the Apocalypse coming, why are we so preoccupied with the end of the world and can we stop it, can we cleanse our world of sin, how can we be reborn and what will it take, is there a merciful Creator, is love the answer to all things (do women intuit and understand that message better than men), and are both men and women necessary to keep the balance between the cerebral and the emotional worlds we inhabit? We cannot have too much of the one or the other as mortal human beings. Or can we? What is Paradise, and why were its original inhabitants so willing to risk their happiness for something they (perceived that they) did not have? Why were they so gullible to temptation? And if they did not have happiness, then how could where they lived be called Paradise? Is it man’s curse to be forever dissatisfied with what he has? Or is this perhaps the greatest temptation of all—to trust others (sometimes in the guise of well-meaning, wise, 'religious' seekers and worldly leaders) to define happiness for us, when we know deep within ourselves what it really is? We must constantly be on the lookout for, and be able to identify, those who would deceive and mislead us, and we must not deceive ourselves. Not easy tasks, much like building an ark and rebuilding a broken world. 

Favorite movies from the 1980s until now (so far)

1. 2010 (1984) with Roy Scheider, John Lithgow, Helen Mirren, Bob Balaban
2. 28 Days Later (2002) with Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Christopher Eccleston, Alex Palmer
3. A Fish Called Wanda (1988) with John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, Michael Palin 
4. Aliens (1986) with Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Carrie Henn, Paul Reiser
5. Another Earth (2011) with Brit Marling, William Mapother, Matthew-Lee Erlbach, DJ Flava
6. Body Heat (1981) with William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, Richard Crenna, Ted Danson
7. Brokeback Mountain (2005) with Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger, Michelle Williams, Randy Quaid
8. Bugsy (1991) with Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Harvey Keitel, Ben Kingsley
9. Casino (1995) with Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci
10. Children of a Lesser God (1986) with William Hurt, Marlee Matlin, Piper Laurie
11. Coraline (2009) with Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, John Hodgman, Jennifer Saunders
12. Dances with Wolves (1990) with Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene
13. Despicable Me (2010) with Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Russell Brand
14. Dracula (1992) with Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins
15. Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010 documentary) with Banksy, Space Invader, Mr. Brainwash
16. Far from Heaven (2002) with Julianne Moore, Dennis Quaid, Dennis Haysbert 
17. Ghost Busters (1984) with Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Sigourney Weaver 
18. Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003) with Scarlett Johansson, Colin Firth, Tom Wilkinson, Judy Parfitt
19. Grey Gardens (2009 TV Movie) with Drew Barrymore, Jessica Lange, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Ken Howard
20. Hamam (The Turkish Bath) (1997) with Alessandro Gassman, Francesca d'Aloja, Carlo Cecchi 
21. Home Alone (1990) with Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern 
22. I Am Legend (2007) with Will Smith, Alice Braga, Charlie Tahan
23. Ice Age (2002) with Denis Leary, John Leguizamo, Ray Romano  
24. In the Mouth of Madness (1994) with Sam Neill, Jürgen Prochnow, Julie Carmen, David Warner
25. In the Valley of Elah (2007) with Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, Jonathan Tucker, Jason Patric
26. In Time (2011) with Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Cillian Murphy, Olivia Wilde
27. Jacob's Ladder (1990) with Tim Robbins, Elizabeth Pena, Danny Aiello  
28. Jane Eyre (2011) with Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender, Jamie Bell, Su Elliot
29. Jodaeiye Nader az Simin (2011) with Peyman Moaadi, Leila Hatami, Sareh Bayat, Shahab Hosseini
30. Jurassic Park (1993) with Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum
31. Lady Chatterley (2006) with Marina Hands, Jean-Louis Coulloc'h, Hippolyte Girardot  
32. Le renard et l'enfant (2007) with Bertille Noël-Bruneau, Isabelle Carré, Thomas Laliberté, Camille Lambert
33. Light Sleeper (1992) with Willem Dafoe, Susan Sarandon, Dana Delany, David Clennon
34. Lincoln (2012) with Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt
35. Marley (2012 documentary) with Bob Marley, Ziggy Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Lee 'Scratch' Perry
36. Max Manus (2008) with Aksel Hennie, Agnes Kittelsen, Nicolai Cleve Broch, Ken Duken
37. Men in Black (1997) with Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith, Linda Fiorentino 
38. Michael Clayton (2007) with George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson, Michael O'Keefe
39. Minority Report (2002) with Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton, Max von Sydow
40. Miss Potter (2006) with Renée Zellweger, Ewan McGregor, Emily Watson, Barbara Flynn
41. Moon (2009) with Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey, Dominique McElligott, Rosie Shaw
42. Oblivion (2013) with Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Andrea Riseborough, Olga Kurylenko
43. Out of Africa (1985) with Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, Klaus Maria Brandauer
44. Pandorum (2009) with Dennis Quaid, Ben Foster, Cam Gigandet, Antje Traue
45. Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) with Ivana Baquero, Ariadna Gil, Sergi López, Maribel Verdú
46. Phoenix (1998) with Ray Liotta, Anthony LaPaglia, Daniel Baldwin 
47. Pitch Black (2000) with Radha Mitchell, Cole Hauser, Vin Diesel, Keith David
48. Prometheus (2012) with Noomi Rapace, Logan Marshall-Green, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron
49. Ratatouille (2007) with Brad Garrett, Lou Romano, Patton Oswalt, Ian Holm
50. Romancing the Stone (1984) with Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, Danny DeVito
51. Romeo is Bleeding (1993) with Gary Oldman, Lena Olin, Wallace Wood, Juliette Lewis
52. Scarface (1983) with Al Pacino, Michelle Pfeiffer, Steven Bauer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
53. Shoot the Moon (1982) with Albert Finney, Diane Keaton, Karen Allen, Peter Weller
54. Skyfall (2012) with Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Naomie Harris, Judi Dench
55. Sleeping with the Enemy (1991) with Julia Roberts, Patrick Bergin, Kevin Anderson 
56. Snow White: A Tale of Terror (1997) with Sigourney Weaver, Sam Neill, Gil Bellows
57. Solaris (2002) with George Clooney, Natascha McElhone, Ulrich Tukur, Viola Davis
58. Something Wild (1986) with Jeff Daniels, Melanie Griffith, Ray Liotta  
59. The Accidental Tourist (1988) with William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, Geena Davis, Amy Wright
60. The Age of Innocence (1993) with Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, Winona Ryder  
61. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) with Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Sam Shepard 
62. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011) with Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson
63. The ‘Burbs (1989) with Tom Hanks, Bruce Dern, Carrie Fisher, Corey Feldman
64. The End of the Affair (1999) with Ralph Fiennes, Julianne Moore, Stephen Rea 
65. The Grifters (1990) with Anjelica Huston, John Cusack, Annette Bening, Jan Munroe
66. The King's Speech (2010) with Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter, Derek Jacobi
67. The Last Seduction (1994) with Linda Fiorentino, Peter Berg, Bill Pullman  
68. The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996) with Geena Davis, Samuel L. Jackson, Yvonne Zima, Craig Bierko
69. The Money Pit (1986) with Tom Hanks, Shelley Long, Alexander Godunov, Maureen Stapleton
70. The New Daughter (2009) with Kevin Costner, Ivana Baquero, Samantha Mathis, Gattlin Griffith
71. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) with Danny Elfman, Chris Sarandon, Catherine O'Hara, William Hickey
72. The Proposal (2009) with Sandra Bullock, Ryan Reynolds, Mary Steenburgen, Craig T. Nelson
73. The Shawshank Redemption (1994) with Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, Bob Gunton, William Sadler
74. The Shining (1980) with Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers
75. The Silence of the Lambs (1991) with Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Lawrence A. Bonney, Kasi Lemmons
76. The Sixth Sense (1999) with Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Toni Collette, Olivia Williams
77. The Skeleton Key (2005) with Kate Hudson, Peter Sarsgaard, Joy Bryant, Gena Rowlands
78. The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) with Daniel Day-Lewis, Juliette Binoche, Lena Olin, Derek de Lint
79. The Witches of Eastwick (1987) with Jack Nicholson, Cher, Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeiffer
80. Traitor (2008) with Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Archie Panjabi, Saïd Taghmaoui
81. Twelve Monkeys (1995) with Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, Brad Pitt  
82. Volver (2006) with Penélope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Dueñas, Blanca Portillo
83. What Dreams May Come (1998) with Robin Williams, Cuba Gooding Jr., Annabella Sciorra, Max von Sydow
84. What Lies Beneath (2000) with Harrison Ford, Michelle Pfeiffer, Katharine Towne, Miranda Otto
85. What Women Want (2000) with Mel Gibson, Helen Hunt, Marisa Tomei, Alan Alda