Haven’t watched any shorts in a while. How about we reach back to the dawn of cinema?
- A Trip to the Moon/La voyage dans la lune (1902) – Georges Méliès’ most famous film is 15 minutes of science-fiction vaudeville, with wonderful elaborate sets, shapely supernumeraries (with costumes to match), the acrobatic inhabitants of the Moon, and the bumbling comic ensemble of Professor Barbenfouillis (Méliès) and his cohorts, who give the man in the Moon a literal eyeful. The static camera and lack of actual characterization don’t make it more timeless, but its visual ambition and high spirits, and its status as a milestone of cinema, make it a must. Score: 83 – ***½
- The Great Train Robbery (1903) – Fitting, in a way, that another of the most iconic early films is apparently neither as innovative, nor was as immediately influential, as its later reputation would suggest. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its own considerable interest; the iconic image of the lead bandit (Justus D. Barnes) shooting at the camera, homaged 87 years later in GoodFellas, retains a sociopathic potency, and the killing of the train’s fireman is quite a brutal moment indeed. It has even less characterization than A Trip to the Moon, giving the final chase and shootout a distinctly ambiguous air – but is that a bad thing? Score: 81 – ***½
- Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906) – The problem is less the rarebit the fiend (Jack Brawn) devours so much as all the beer he washes it down with (there’s a funny moment where he takes a swig of water by mistake and spews it out). In any case, he has a discombobulating walk home, followed by an unnerving dream which begins with little demons popping out of a chafing dish, proceeds to a flight over New York in his bed, and ends with him crashing back into his room. This is all realized with elaborate trickery and double exposure, and it still looks pretty good 117 years after the fact – and most importantly, it’s still fun. Score: 84 – ***½
- Mary Jane’s Mishap (1903) – The misadventures of a careless, slovenly maid (Laura Bayley) who blows herself up – and continues to make trouble from beyond the grave. A British film, part of the “Brighton School,” and considerably more cinematically fluid than Robbery; it also has some actual characterization, thanks to Bayley’s gleeful mugging. (She was an experienced stage performer.) It feels a bit like an opened-up vaudeville sketch, but it retains its charm (and Mary Jane’s epitaph is pretty great). The cat is cute, too. Score: 82 – ***½
- The Cameraman’s Revenge/Месть кинематографического оператора (1912) – A bored husband goes to the big city to see his lover, a nightclub singer; he brawls with a rival, who’s a cameraman, and makes a film of them in flagrante delicto. Meanwhile, his wife meets up with her lover, an artist, and hubby comes home just in time to catch them. They make up and go to the movies…and who should be running the picture but the cameraman? Oh, and the characters all insects; the husband and wife are beetles, the singer is a dragonfly, and the cameraman is a grasshopper. It’s a work of stop-motion animation by Ladislas Starevich, using real insects and elaborate miniature sets to bring an archetypal farce to life. The pace is a touch poky, but the imagination and achievement on display make up for it. Score: 85 – ***½
A Haunting in Venice (2023) – ***½
Kenneth Branagh’s first Hercule Poirot film, Murder on the Orient Express, felt like rather a poor shadow of the 1974 version, but his second, Death on the Nile, was more on a par with the 1978 adaptation; while I personally prefer the more leisurely pace of the older films, Death didn’t feel quite as abbreviated as Murder, and its easily-mocked low points notwithstanding, I found it more engaging and entertaining.
This film takes another modest step up, and if its relatively modest grosses oblige it to be the end of Branagh’s franchise, it’s a suitable send-off for his take on the character, and the most satisfying entry in this series, not least because it’s based on a lesser-known Christie work (1969’s Hallowe’en Party), and fairly loosely at that.
It also has a tighter focus, taking place mostly during one evening in one Venetian palazzo, and having what seems to be a smaller cast, and one chosen as much for their acting ability as their star power. In addition to Branagh’s Poirot, we have Tina Fey as Ariadne Oliver, the novelist who helped create the Poirot legend and is now luring him out of retirement, Michelle Yeoh as Joyce Reynolds, a medium whom Oliver is trying to debunk, yet finds persuasive, Kelly Reilly as Rowena Drake, an opera singer grieving the loss of her daughter, who turns to Reynolds in the hope of contacting her spirit, Jamie Dornan as Dr. Ferrier, the Drake family physician who, having been emotionally shattered by his experiences in World War II, is in much need of healing himself, and Jude Hill as his creepily precocious son Leopold, who prefers reading Poe to playing Halloween games with other children.
In addition, there’s Camille Cottin as Olga, Drake’s devoted, devoutly religious housekeeper, Riccardo Scamarcio as Vitale, a former policeman, now Poirot’s brutishly devoted bodyguard, Kyle Allen as Maxime, the arrogant ex-fiancé of Drake’s daughter, and Emma Laird and Ali Khan as Desdemona and Nicholas Holland, Reynolds’ assistants who, having endured much suffering during the war, will do anything to stay alive and realize their dream of going to Missouri (there’s an explanation, but the notion still amused me greatly).
All of these characters are assembled on Halloween to attend a seance conducted by Reynolds, and Poirot quickly sniffs out one of Reynolds’ tricks, but she stands by her psychic claims and plans to conduct another seance the following night – and then an attempted murder is followed by a successful one, and after locking down the palazzo (though a brewing storm makes leaving very difficult), Poirot begins his investigation with Oliver’s help.
The famously unflappable Poirot is shaken by sounds and sights he cannot explain, which would seem to suggest that maybe something truly supernatural is afoot, but it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to say that there’s a rational explanation for everything – as rational as human nature can be, that is.
As I said, if need be, this is a suitable send-off for Branagh’s Poirot. There’s a gloomy, elegiac feeling hanging over much of the film, from Poirot’s ostensible retirement to Drake’s crumbling home, supposedly haunted by orphans abandoned in the building during the Black Death, from the wistful strains of Vera Lynn’s “When the Lights Go On Again (All Over the World)” to the shadows cast by the war on Ferrier and his son, whose precocity goes to keeping the broken-spirited doctor from total self-destruction. It’s an effectively sad film much of the time.
It’s also a well-made one, with amazing sets (Drake’s palazzo is a fantastic location) blending neatly with location filming in Venice, brooding cinematography which is never oppressive but couches the action in heavy shadows, smooth editing, and an offbeat score by Hildur Guðnadóttir full of dry, rasping strings – ambient music for a barren field, perhaps. Branagh’s direction keeps things moving briskly enough that we’re not overwhelmed with tragedy, and Michael Green’s script plays fair enough with us; the requisite summation satisfies without pulling too many rugs out from under us.
I will say that I have yet to really embrace Branagh’s Poirots the way I embrace the earlier films, and while Haunting is the most satisfying of the series, it’s still a ways from a truly great film. Much of that, I think, comes down to the characters, who are well acted – the whole cast is solid, with Reilly and Cottin being especially effective – but who never quite blossom to life to the point where you’re really invested in their fates. I found it engaging, but not gripping.
Still, that’s nothing to sneeze at, and Haunting offers an elegant murder mystery which should delight fans and satisfy the casual viewer.
Score: 81
The Creator (2023) – ***
Watching The Creator, you can’t help thinking about all the films it’s drawing from (consciously or not); the basic premise, about the struggle between human beings and sentient AI, brings Blade Runner and 2049 to mind, especially in how much the AIs (colloquially called “sims”) have been integrated into human society, at least before the nuclear event which takes place a decade prior. The war between American humans and an Asian human-sim coalition brings to mind Avatar (for its Vietnam parallels) and Matt Reeves’ Planet of the Apes trilogy (for its approach to an ostensible war for human survival).
Some elements, like the embittered hero (John David Washington), called back into military service by the promise of a reunion with the lost love (Gemma Chan) he’d gone undercover to woo, feel familiar even if you can’t cite a particular antecedent, while the sim child (Madeleine Yuna Voyles), whose powers far exceed any the hero or the world has seen before, brings to mind Dafne Keen’s Laura in Logan. Washington’s conflicting loyalties again evoke Avatar, which was already evoking Dances with Wolves.
And so on and so forth. It’s easy, seeing the films which did what The Creator attempts to do – most of which did it better – to write off The Creator itself. And while it’s hard to strongly recommend it in light of its forbears, it’s a decent film in its own right, well made and agreeably ambitious in its scope, with hints of a more idiosyncratic vision that never quite asserts itself. And of course, it’s notable for achieving on an $80 million budget (inflation’s a hell of a thing) what would normally cost two or three times as much these days. Indeed, compared to a lot of recent Marvel movies, the effects here are pretty seamless.
Curiously, the sims diverge from Blade Runner‘s replicants in having human faces which stop around the ears; the backs of their heads are distinctly mechanical. Whether this is more or less realistic – whether would prefer our artificial humanoids to be more clearly artificial or to look as much like us as possible – is a point of discussion director Gareth Edwards may not even have intended, but it’s worth contemplating.
It’s more compelling food for thought, frankly, than most of what the film does attempt; the question of how the sims stack up against humanity isn’t explored to any special depth, and while the film’s depiction of the American military – and American ideological imperialism in general – is pretty damning, it lacks much nuance, even if the presence of Allison Janney as a ruthlessly manipulative officer (who’s fully involved in on-the-ground operations) adds a touch of character to the proceedings.
What stands out a little more is the use of Southeast Asian culture and scenery; the film was mostly shot in Thailand and while the “New Asian” characters and culture are not remarkably well developed, and while the presence of sim Buddhist monks feints at themes the film doesn’t further explore, they reflect the thought Edwards (who came up with the story) and co-writer Chris Weitz put into developing their ostensibly original world – enough to reach a high ***, but not enough to make a truly fresh or memorable film.
Also intriguing are the aforementioned idiosyncrasies, bits of humor like a dog playing fetch with a grenade or a monkey toying with a time-bomb, or the opening homage to 50s promotional films, which suggest a quirkier sensibility that might have given this, at the very least, a chance at cult status. More’s the pity, but it does give the film a little flavor (in vain, since the box-office returns are pretty dismal).
There’s plenty about The Creator that works well enough. The acting is solid, with Voyles refreshingly down-to-Earth as the incredibly powerful little sim and Ralph Ineson providing a ghoulish, gravel-voiced presence as a cold-blooded general. Washington is adequate, while Ken Watanabe is somewhat wasted as a sim leader; Sturgill Simpson is even more wasted as an old ally of Washington’s. It’s handsomely shot, and the effects are well blended with the striking locations; the futurist settings are well executed, if not innovative. Hans Zimmer’s score is fine but, like the film, never quite memorable.
It’s a frustrating film, because it’s almost good enough to defend against the generally indifferent response – but not quite. It’s as good as films which have made more money and received stronger praise, but better films have been more damned and more neglected. So it goes.
Score: 74
Night of the Lepus (1972) – Dreck
If you thought Night of the Lepus had to be a bad movie because it deals with killer rabbits, then let me assure you, it’s a dreadful film quite apart from its notorious premise. Well before the giant rabbits have claimed their first victim, the chintzy production, lazy writing, bad acting, and terrible editing have put the film past redemption; the sight of very normal rabbits hopping about miniature sets in slow motion, intercut with their very unconvincing attacks, is not the final nail in the coffin, but piss on the grave.
An infestation of wild rabbits is plaguing the Arizona countryside, and rancher Cole Hillman (Rory Calhoun) is desperate to control the situation without resorting to poison. His friend Elgin Clark (DeForest Kelley in the lean years between TOS and The Motion Picture) approaches scientists Rory (Stuart Whitman) and Gerry Bennett (Janet Leight), who decide to try and use hormones to curb the rabbits’ breeding. Their experiments prove disappointing, but their young daughter Amanda (Melanie Fullerton) throws another wrench into the situation by switching her favorite rabbit (who’s been injected with hormones) with a rabbit from the control group; her rabbit escapes while she’s visiting Hillman’s ranch.
Some time later, the Bennetts are visiting Hillman and discover a mysterious pawprint, while Amanda, exploring a nearby area with Hillman’s son Jackie (Chris Morell), sees a giant rabbit in a mineshaft, next to the mutilated body of a prospector. While trying to figure out what so horrified Amanda (no one else saw the rabbit) a produce trucker is attacked by a herd of giant rabbits who kill him and devour his cargo. While it’ll be a while before anyone sees the bunnies and lives to tell about it, the authorities are soon involved and the Night of the Lepus (well, more like 48 hours) has begun.
Where do I begin? How about by pointing out that the credited source novel, The Year of the Angry Rabbit by Russell Braddon, is a Cold War satire and the film is about as straight-faced as any film with the line “there is a herd of killer rabbits headed this way” can be? The film actually has very little to do with the novel; it owes more to creature features like Them!, though that film was made with all the care and intelligence this film lacks. Kudos to writers Don Holliday (whose only film credit this appears to be; there was a “Don Holliday” writing gay pulp fiction around this time, but I assume there’s no connection) and Gene R. Kearney for losing the plot so spectacularly.
So we’ve got a dubious premise approached from the wrong angle. Now let’s bring in a producer (A.C. Lyles) and director (William F. Claxton) whose forte is Westerns (though Claxton directed a few episodes of The Twilight Zone) and put this unwieldy task on their square shoulders. And let’s throw in a cinematographer (Ted Voigtlander) who mainly worked in television and a composer (Jimmie Haskell) who mainly worked, again, in Western films and pop music, and have them all make a horror movie. For good measure, we’ll get a leading man who was reputedly told to take the role if he wanted to get paid for a cancelled film, and a leading lady who took the role mainly because it was being shot near her home.
Unlikely talents and circumstances have made fine films. Not so here, where nothing goes right; at best, things don’t go actively wrong. Calhoun gives about the closest thing the film has to a good performance; Whitman and Leigh seem more embarrassed than anything, but they deliver their lines. (Kelley seems more embarrassed, but he’s in less of the film.) That’s about the best of it.
On every other level, it’s a trainwreck. The story is full of logical lapses and plain stupidity – Amanda should’ve known better than to switch the rabbits, but it doesn’t really matter because it’s never mentioned again – and the pacing is terrible, with lots of short, pointless scenes and transitions where the passage of time is desperately unclear. There’s also the fact that rabbits aren’t carnivorous, yet these rabbits have a decided bloodthirst. Chalk it up to the hormones.
Some of that’s on the script, but John McSweeney Jr.’s editing is absolutely terrible, the rabbit attacks being a mixture of real rabbits filmed as threateningly as possible (as possible) and people in rabbit suits attacking the actors, and none of it cutting together at all. Late in the film, stock footage from war films is used to depict the National Guard’s role in the battle, and it’s pathetically obvious. Claxton’s direction is devoid of atmosphere or tension (and Haskell’s score is more goofy than creepy) but McSweeney’s editing really seals the deal.
To make the rabbits look scary, normal rabbits were filmed in slow motion on miniature sets, their faces sometimes smeared with ketchup to match the bright red 70s fake blood, and roars were dubbed onto the soundtrack – a sound real rabbits don’t make. (Must be the hormones!) The results are just as absurd as you’d expect. (Watership Down would prove that rabbits could be scary, but only to other rabbits.)
Add in a dreadful performance from Fullerton (Amanda is a terrible character, but Fullerton makes her miles more grating), an off-putting amount of animal cruelty (the climactic image of a mountain of dead bunnies is inescapably dispiriting), chintzy special effects, and the fact that this tacky mess of a film was actually produced by MGM in its early 70s dark age, and you’ve got a film that earns every bit of its notoriety – and a fleeting appearance in The Matrix for reasons beyond my understanding.
Score: 10
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