Rating: 3/5
Back in 2001 when Peter Jackson started making the Lord of the Rings into a film series, it was a sensation, and gained enormous new recognition for Tolkien's original work. Now, in a fashion many have compared to the Star Wars series, Jackson has gone back to the beginning, with The Hobbit, which tells the story of Frodo's loving uncle Bilbo Baggins, and his adventures with Gandalf (Ian McKellan) in their younger days. It was frequently questioned as to why the subtitle 'An Unexpected Journey' had been used where The Hobbit had only been a single book. Well, the annoying answer is, this also comes as a trilogy. And rather unnecessarily, I believe. Years ago, I saw The Hobbit on stage, and it nicely captured the story and its characters in a fairly standard theatre running time.
I, as I'm sure most did, read J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Hobbit' back in high school, and have particularly fond memories of the way my teacher's Australian accent sounded when he mentioned Fili and Kili. It's a lovely book, as are its successors, and unfortunately, there are several ways in which Jackson just doesn't seem to have captured it this time.
There are the small, superficial things: why Gandalf looks older when he's supposedly 60 years younger; why the scene of Bilbo finding the Ring doesn't match its depiction, which Ian Holm played, in LOTR; and why, for that matter, if he could've played the younger character in LOTR, Holm couldn't have reprised his character throughout. And yet again, those pesky Eagles come to the rescue when there's no other way, begging the question: why not just fly the Eagles the entire way?
Then there are the big things, like the questionable 3D feature, and it's serialisation. Having paid several quid extra, you expect to get your money's worth of 3D, but in this case, the 3D trailer featuring mostly Avatar footage was the most impressive thing we get on the dimensions front. Some movies are made specifically for 3D by including many jump-out-of-the-screen sequences, such as My Bloody Valentine (2009). But with the exception of the odd butterfly floating past, it was really a very obsolete addition.
But, of the several things not flowing in The Hobbit's favour, there are many commodities. The acting is superb- with veterans Ian McKellan, Cate Blanchett, Elijah Wood and Ian Holm, among others- as are the visuals. The same stunning scenery and set design we remember from LOTR is ever present, so are the tremendous special effects. The Stone Giants sequence is particularly exceptional. It is also amazing to see what just 10 years in technological advances have done to the Gollum character, he looks more lifelike than ever.
So, should you see The Hobbit? I guess so, and if you watched Lord of the Rings, then I guess you're obligated. But don't expect as much as Lord of the Rings, or as much as The Hobbit really is. It's easily the weak link in Jackson's Tolkien series.
Rating: 4.5/5
Here we go into something much more worth studying, cos there's a lot to think about. And by the looks of the endless circles IMDb discussion-boardists are going round in, I think it's safe to say that Roman Polanski's Repulsion is one that will ever be open to interpretation. Being a psychological thriller, there is a merge between dream/psychosis/hallucination and real life, but the real puzzle is the behaviour of our tragic heroine, Carole (Catherine Deneuve.)
The young, beautiful Belgian lives in London with her sister, whose noisy-at-night relationship with a married man infuriates and disgusts her. From the off, she is withdrawn, frigid and quiet. "I don't think Cinderella likes me," the lover quips, "I think she should be in a hospital." Friends and colleagues try to comfort Carole, and find out why she's so reclusive: they worry about her. Then the sister suddenly ups and leaves with her lover for Italy, leaving Carole terrified, alone and with an angry landlord, and an eager admirer, on her back.
With her only source of company gone, Carole goes into full-force breakdown, haunted by vivid nightmares of a rapist, and frightening hallucinations within the walls of the once comforting apartment. These sequences demonstrate some fabulous effects, and were almost certainly the first examples of what are now overused clichés in the genre. The element of surprise is used nicely. Polanski paces his thrills perfectly, to avoid any remaining tension left over from the last. And like any nicely made horror picture, it dedicates a good portion of screen time to establishing plot, setting and characters, before launching the frightfest.
Anyone familiar with Polanski's work will certainly recognise this as his: some shots seem a mere black and white copy of Rosemary's Baby, as does the beautiful old apartment, with its tall ceilings, warped walls and long corridors. This was one of the first English-speaking films for both Polanski and the wonderful Deneuve, whose performance is reminiscent of the beautifully delicate, and identically disinterested Severine, in Belle de Jour (1967). Although the role of Carole doesn't require too much dialogue, Deneuve speaks beautiful English, and is absorbing in her mysterious grace.
Throughout his incredible life, Roman Polanski has blessed filmgoers and culture with a wide range of beautifully made pictures. Rosemary's Baby (1968) was a fantastic and captivating adaptation of Ira Levin's novel. Dedicated to his tragic wife Sharon Tate came Tess (1979), his beautiful depiction of Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles. In 2003 he finally received the long-awaited Best Director Oscar for The Pianist. He has led an incredible, and often traumatic, life, and still manages to produce the purest and most dedicated art. Polanski is a true master, not of any genre, but of film itself. He never fails to capture his audience, and involve them entirely in whatever story he has taken on. What an absolute genius this man is.
Repulsion is a wonderful thriller. Even the opening credits are absorbed in their genre: the director's credit echoes the harrowing opening scene of Luis Buñuel & Salvador Dali's Un Chien Andalou (1929). This lovely technique is paralleled in the final shot, opening the film up to questions and theories about Carole's condition, and what goes on in her fragile mind. It is masterfully made, which is all we can ever expect from the spectacular Polanski.
Rating: 4/5
The Skin I Live In is possibly one of the most shocking movies I've ever seen. But not only shocking in the sense of its material, but the fact that I really didn't see it coming. The real kind of shock. I knew a vague synopsis of a surgeon, experimenting on some young woman to create perfect skin. So what I got when I actually watched was so unexpected, and, to fully boast its genre, thrilling.
It should be made clear now that this film incorporates non-linear narrative, which makes initial grasp of the plot a little tricky, but uses the effect to drop plot-bombshells where needed, and very successfully indeed. Until the final minutes, I was still piecing the segments together in my mind, to come to the final realisation. It shouldn't take two viewings to understand this film and the unimaginable horror it entails.
Prolific surgeon Robert Ledgard uses his home as his clinic, along with several colleagues, after the traumatic accident and eventual death of his horribly burned wife, he obsessively pores over creating a new, tougher human skin, resistant to burns, cuts, any damage at all. With the help of his live-in subject/prisoner Vera, he realises miraculous scientific breakthrough, but breaks every professional rule in the process. The initial torment is Robert's relationship with Vera. He locks her in her beautiful room, watches her on a TV monitor, and treats her to opium when she's a good girl. He even sleeps with her the very night she is raped by a mysterious, tiger-costumed intruder.
Robert seems selfish and driven, and without sympathy. Another trauma in his past leads him to kidnap a young man, Vicente, and exact revenge on him. This revenge takes one shocking form after another, leading to a dramatic finale in which all ends are tied, and some serious questions need answering when Vicente finally gets back to his mother, and his dress shop.This scene is so nicely done. I was dreading right until the last second that the vile nature of Vicente's ordeal would not be revealed, but he would instead never speak of it, as so many victims seem to do in movies. I feel it is alright to describe this, as the 'vile nature of his ordeal' has been left a mystery. It has to be this way. Every viewer should know the ignorant bliss I did, and feel the full pelt of the thrills as they hit them.
A nice touch to this movie is the lack of unnecessarily graphic surgical procedure. Movies of this nature tend to take full advantage of 'obligatory' gore, but this remains rather as it would to a patient: clean, sterile and doped up. The real horror is in the situation. It is truly what the most twisted nightmares are made of.
Antonio Banderas is as wonderful as ever, finding a darkness even the most loving admirer couldn't ignore. It's nice to hear him speaking his native Spanish too. However, I read on his Wikipedia page that his wife Melanie Griffith's string of cosmetic procedures is the only real problem in their marriage, and that he has banned her from ever seeing a surgeon again. I might respectfully suggest then that the lovely Antonio avoid story-lines like these, and sex scenes with young, lovely actresses. It would be a shame to lack his splendor, but I could understand his wife's frustration!
Rating: 4/5
With a name like "Return of the Killer Tomatoes," you might expect this to be another Bad Movies Marathon review. I assumed so too when I selected it out of Cult Film section and saw its poster. But within minutes, I was not only convinced that this wasn't a bad movie, but actually a brilliantly made and enthusiastic comedy. Let me elaborate: what's so clever about this movie, is how aware the makers are that it's entirely parodic, resulting not in a cheap, tacky, cheese-fest, but in a genuinely enjoyable, and very well acted spoof.
The comparison that came to my mind while watching was the Scary Movie series. In the same way that the Wayans brothers had a cameraman walk straight into Cindy, here De Bello has a moving shot of a shiny truck on the highway, with reflection of camera crew fully intact. Neither this, nor any other little similar touches in this movie, are careless mistakes, but very deliberately placed in the name of parody. It even pulls you along in its little game. In an early scene, I scoffed that the pizza that Chad (Anthony Starke) just flipped didn't come back down. Little did I know the film makers were way ahead of me!
So, this is the sequel to Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, which incidentally is Elvira's favourite film, earning it a showing in her movie Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988). After the last attack, the city has banned tomatoes: they are smuggled like bootlegged liquor. But crazy old Dr Gangreen is still up in his house on the hill- which is usually a real house, but every now and then a painted canvas with a hose to simulate rain- and is planning another diabolical take-down, in which he has transformed tomatoes into people. Local hero Chad Finletter is mesmerised by the crazy professor's 'woman,' and when she runs away with a discarded experiment, he is more than happy to take her in, and unwittingly causes a hell of a lot of trouble for the traumatised town.
As Roger Ebert pointed out with his reviews of the likes of Scary Movie and The Naked Gun, the actual 'story line' doesn't matter too much with parodies like these, it is incidental. I enjoyed this movie hugely, but barely remember the plot. I was just too blown away with the fantastic comedy, and the fantastic actors, including George Clooney in one of his earlier roles. The performers are so absorbed in the essence of the movie, that is, the comedy, fully understanding of the stereotypes they are mocking, that they make a really fine cast. Anthony Starke and George Clooney have such onscreen chemistry as best friends, it feels as if they've hung out together every day of their lives.
One of the film's funniest scenes takes place after the professor's mistress has accidentally transformed into a tomato in the middle of a restaurant. Everyone runs for their lives, and the local news anchor questions a woman, who was eating dinner alone, "You were eating alone?! Where is your husband?"
"He's dead!" the traumatised woman wails.
"Oh was it a suicide, by chance?"
"He died in the Great Tomato War!"
"Ma'am, that's ancient history. You should've found someone by now," and so he continues, in an absolutely legendary slating.
It's funnier than Scary Movie, and full of little touches that make you laugh out loud. I howled when I noticed that on a wall of World Clocks, the Sydney clock was upside down. So full of character and expertise reaching as far as the music (listen out for it), Return of the Killer Tomatoes is a self-professed "turkey," and an absolute rip-roaring comedy, and so I unashamedly give it 4/5.
Rating: 2.5/5
Somewhere early on in her daughter Brooke's career, Teri Shields seemed to have decided to make it as controversial as possible. Soon after Louis Malle's wonderful Pretty Baby, Shields again appeared in many nude scenes whilst still only a teenager, in this, The Blue Lagoon. Scoping the IMDb boards, I find the same plagues of 'How is this not child porn?!' cries that were present on Pretty Baby. But once again, I find myself having to disagree. Pretty Baby was not child porn in that it was historical, accurate, contextual and tasteful. The Blue Lagoon is not child porn because it is one of the most innocent movies I have ever seen.
Set in some unspecified period with Victorian-style clothing, young cousins Richard and Emmeline are shipwrecked on an island in the South Pacific with their sailor friend Paddy. He quickly teaches the children all he knows about survival and self-sufficiency, so when he drowns one night, they are well prepared. The kids grow up on the island, having built an amazing house reminiscent of several Robin Williams movies, and soon the curiosities of nature take hold.
What is interesting when watching this movie, is how much two Victorian kids with only eight or ten years' worth of socialisation really don't know. Ten-year-old minds occupy the bodies of strapping young Christopher Atkins and Brooke Shields, who still fight like kids, and believe in Santa, and when Richard finds Paddy's bones years later, he suddenly comes to realise that that's what he looks like inside. He hadn't known that what he'd picked up years ago was a human skull- a dead person.
They don't know what pearls are. They don't know what's in the barrel "that smells like the Captain's breath." And of course when they fall in love, they don't know how to express it.
It is this childlike naivete that makes the entire story so sweet and innocent. It shows nature in its purest form. Whether they ever get off the island isn't really the point, or shouldn't be, as this really is just a nice story. It's been totally slated by many, but The Blue Lagoon isn't bad, it's romantic and quite touching.
On the subject of the nudity: for one, it's natural, and again, innocent. There have been differing claims as to whether or not a double was used for 14-year-old Shields, and as a lot of the nude scenes do not show her face, it's easy to justify. But I can't help but wonder whether the makers just thought it easier to have Shields' face out of sight, and let her play all the scenes, rather than go to the effort of getting a body double. Just a thought.
Rating: 4/5
Much of An American Werewolf In London is so beautifully crafted that after several viewings, you really forgive how unfinished it seems in its conclusion. In this fantastic cult horror picture, John Landis's art inspired a collaboration with Michael Jackson for the legendary Thriller short film, and took effects of many kinds to whole new levels.
Young Americans David and Jack (David Naughton and Griffin Dunne) are backpacking across the Yorkshire moors, and are attacked by a ferocious beast. Jack is killed, but David is transported to a hospital in London, where he falls for beautiful nurse Alex (Jenny Agutter) and gains the interest of Dr Hirsch (John Woodvine). David's radical tales of werewolves are dismissed, but when Jack regularly visits David, in an increasingly decayed state, and warns him of his terrible condition, David starts to fear he is losing his mind...or worse.
Of course, tomorrow night is the full moon, and right on cue, David takes on a hideous, agonizing transformation, created by the wonderful Rick Baker, apprentice of the legendary Godfather of Horror, Dick Smith. This incredible sequence was so influential that the Academy introduced a new category acknowledging Make-Up achievements, which Baker went on to win in its first year.
When David wakes up naked in a zoo enclosure the next morning, and hears of several murders during the night, he becomes convinced of Jack's warnings, and runs off. On one side, he and Jack are enjoying Landis's trademark See You Next Wednesday in all its glory, and Dr. Hirsch, Alex and the Police are out to track down the lovable lupus. Here we find another remarkable sequence of the movie: an elaborately staged eruption of chaos in Piccadilly Circus, in which bodies splat, heads roll, windows smash, buses skid and dozens of cars crash.
One nice thing I noticed on my latest viewing, was that the first 45 minutes of 79 are purely establishing, before any real werewolf action kicks off. This serves its purpose well, rather than the typical obligatory horror build-up, to get into the right (or wrong) situation, without any good reason or explanation, and certainly without any character development. An American Werewolf In London has nice supporting material, and nicely built characters. David and Jack are established as two ordinary young men, David is thoughtful and somewhat cautious, Jack is cheeky and keeps up a front even when being hunted by an unseen being. "Oh shit, what is that?!" he demands casually. They maintain a pleasant lack of typical male horror cries: "Please, Oh God, don't do this, man!" or "You sick motherfucker!" These young men are surprisingly ordinary.
Even in deteriorating states, Jack's warm, human character lingers. Toying with a little Mickey Mouse figure, he yaps, "Hi, David," his lacerations flapping limply. "David! You're hurting my feelings," he whines sarcastically, realising by his friend's reaction that he "don't look so hot." David's victims are similarly lifelike, enthusiastically suggesting methods of suicide for our tragic young hero. These elements of dark humour bring a somewhat upbeat feeling to a supposed horror film, and reflect the cast and crew's devotion and eagerness that was put into this picture.
Undoubtedly one of Landis's most enjoyable and influential works, An American Werewolf In London is a fantastic little number in the cult classics library, featuring some truly incredible effects and fantastic craftsmanship. It's worth a watch, whoever you are.
In my first Bad Movies Marathon review, I mentioned Exploitation Film, which seems quite often to be the category that such Bad Movies fall into. This one features no random lesbian orgies or barb-wire and sulphuric acid. The only exploitation going on here is of Michael Caine's talent and image.
"How the hell does a shark follow people to the Bahamas?!" I once heard a young blonde demand on an old episode of Hollyoaks. Indeed, Jaws: The Revenge's notoriety is widespread, seeping even into the everyday chit-chat of hot young Chester folk. Teresa McQueen is one of many who can't quite get their heads around the idea of a great white shark, with no less than four American-born predecessors in this franchise, following one woman from the US to the Bahamas, and all in the same time that she makes it by plane!
So, what do we have in terms of a forth Jaws installment? Well, Lorraine Gary returns, rather worse for the wear, from retirement as the now widowed Ellen Brody. While she is hugely paranoid and neurotic, despite having been the only Brody to get no close-up Great White action in the series, her sons Sean and Michael seem undeterred by their past horrors. When Sean is killed (three guesses how), things carry on as normal: Ellen is now even more paranoid, and Michael more keen on the water than ever. Go figure! So, the traumatised Ellen goes to stay with Michael and his family in the Bahamas, where he works in some open-ocean-related role.
Having had her family tangled up with sharks (let's not forget- different, unrelated sharks) several times now, Ellen grows convinced that this specific shark is getting revenge on her. For what, I don't know. Why, I also don't know. "Is this shark the nephew, or the cousin, or the next-door-neighbour or what?" Siskel and Ebert joked in their 1987 review. Why would this particular shark want revenge for the deaths of other sharks? Unless some Pussy Riot-style protest is taking place, it's probably fair to say that this concept is pure paranoia on Ellen's part, and terrible screenwriting by the creator.
So what is so bad about Jaws: The Revenge? Is it the ridiculous plot, below-amateur production and laughable accents? The shark with the $20 budget? How about Lorraine Gary's ghastly haircut and high-waisted trousers? All of the above, and the countless accompanying errors, like Michael Caine climbing out of the ocean with a dry shirt, Ellen remembering events she didn't witness, and the shark actually roaring, before supposedly standing vertically in the water long enough for a boat to impale it.
If 99% of this movie's audience can be annoyed by the plethora of plot-holes and poor production, why oh why could the considerable crew involved in its making not realise that their project was a pile of shit, and either make the necessary changes or scrap the whole thing. I mean, aside us 'art fags,' they do make movies to make money, right?
Oh boy, it's one hell of a disaster. "So bad it's good?" one IMDb user asks? No, so bad you don't know whether to laugh or cry. But it's not a wonder that the once-radiant Lorraine Gary went quickly back into hiding after Jaws: The Revenge. It's truly shocking.
