Movies

Magadheera (2010) Enjoyed a movie geek night with my friend Jim, brainless spectacle and laconic abortive attempts at conversation. You ought to know by now that every Indian movie is a musical comedy romance - this is also an epic historical action spectacle, allegedly the most expensive film in Indian movie history. Three lives - boy, girl, and angry rival - are bound together until they complete the actions of their previous life 400 years earlier. Bounces back and forth between present and past, and includes something excessive and startling every few minutes. Like being beaten with a pillow full of entertainment for 2 hours and 45 minutes. You don't want any more afterward. I didn't like this as much as Endhiran the Robot, but it had lots of moments. Includes a quicksand pit. 6/10

Look - a jeep about to crash into a helicopter!

Movies

Wild River (1960) High-class big-budget Elia Kazan drama set in 1930s Tennessee. Montgomery Clift is the guy who has to get a stubborn old woman off her island before the dam is finished and she's flooded out, Lee Remick the widowed granddaughter/love interest. A well-presented story that carries you along with it at a steady pace, but it's not really compelling or stirring. My choice for Family Movie Night, and it was satisfactory. 6/10

I Was a Shoplifter (1950) A peppy little Universal Studios B-movie crime drama depicting the pursuit of a criminal gang which blackmails amateur department-store shoplifters into working for them under threat of public exposure. Scott Brady is the young handsome hero, Tony Curtis a minor ethnic hoodlum, with few familiar faces in the rest of the cast. Cracks right along and shows some interesting shoplifting techniques along the way. It's edutainment! 7/10

Movies

It's a good thing I make notes on my desk blotter or I would forget all this holiday indulgence:

Son of Ali Baba (1952) Tony Curtis is browned up for a glamor-boy turn in this cheesy costume potboiler. They couldn't drive an extra half hour to shoot the horse chase scenes in the desert, so this Bagdad is nestled amid rolling hills clad in sagebrush and scrub pine. Colorful filler, more fun than a bible movie. 3/10

Les Belles (1961) "Qian jiao bai mei" is the vernacular title of this Hong Kong romantic musical comedy from Shaw studios, focusing on the lives and loves of members of a modern dance troupe. It is notable mainly for the fact that it is presented in a very western style, with little distinctively Chinese culture intruding beyond a couple of historically themed dance numbers. I have become accustomed to the Hollywood treatment of the latin theme but it is jarring to see a latin dance number done with Chinese tonalities. It's clear they had little experience in staging western style dance numbers, which strive for exoticism but are rather flat and dull. Very brightly illuminated and colorful, with some peppy songs and bizarre dance settings, but rather long at two hours. Of interest mostly as an oddity and for cultural comparison. 5/10

Spiderweb number - in ShawScope. It's wide.

Sunset Murder Case (1938) Burlesque dancer Sally Rand stars in this poverty row B pic, and her bubble dance was the reason I watched it. It's pretty mild until the last moment, when she briefly, and heavily backlit, drops her filmy wrap to show her form. A fan dance number was apparently too revealing, so it's concealed behind palm frond silhouettes inserted over the frame, making me wonder if there might have been a "special" version of the film which lacked them. Otherwise it's another brief gunshots and gangsters story. 4/10

The famous Bubble Dance

Yes Sir, Mister Bones (1951) Hour-long cheapie about a retirement home where old Minstrels lurk, waiting for someone to come along and ask them what a "minstrel show" was. Does a fair job of conveying the spirit of the artform, if not the letter - the music is pretty swingified - with a couple of remarkable turns from Scatman Cruthers, some nostalgic Negro Spirituals, and some grating blackface "comedy." The black performers are uniformly superior, the blackfaces pretty hard to take. It does show the omnibus nature of the minstrel show, providing all varieties of entertainment in one grand spectacle, but a more realistic flavor can be gotten from 1952's Stephen Foster faux biopic I Dream of Jeanie, or Shirley Temple's 1936 film Dimples. Directed by Ron Ormond, and it's not the weirdest thing he did, not by a long shot. 5/10

Side note - Ron Ormond is perhaps least known for this contribution to popular culture - the line "christianity is stupid," from his christian commie-scare film If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do, which was put to use by Negativland.

The Hayseeds (1933) An Australian romantic musical comedy, as it proudly proclaims on the title card, and it makes quite a thing out of being Australian too, with monologizing on the Australian national character, and random insertion of wildlife footage. The romantic duet spends as much time showing the Sydney harbor bridge as the young lovers. This is the first film appearance of South African born Cecil Kellaway, who later found quite a bit of work in Hollywood. The quaint, countrified Hayseeds spend some time chasing trollleys in the bustling streets of Sydney, which looks as vast and towering as Chicago. The plot and songs are adequate, and this is an interesting novelty that doesn't tire you overmuch. 5/10

Forbidden (1953) An adequate exotic noir, placing Tony Curtis in a backlot Macau intrigue. Joanne Dru is the adequately angular and immaculate woman with a history. The story is convoluted without being indecipherable, the dialog is full of mild congenial phrases forced through gritted teeth, and it comes to an adequately active climax. The primary song in this universe is You Belong to Me (See the pyramids along the Nile etc.) and I suppose this is the film that made it popular - it's still rotating through my head today. It all looks good and stays interesting, but there is a wee bit too much standing around talking, and jumping into cars and dashing off somewhere for me to say it was great. Pretty good though. 7/10

I also watched quite a bit of Toomorrow (1970) - it seems the masterminds behind The Monkees wanted to do it again, this time with a movie in England. Extraterrestrial observers find that a pop band featuring Olivia Newton John is the only source for the healing vibrations they crave. Aimed at an older audience, with art-school protests and sit-ins a major plot element, it is peculiar without being interesting.

Japanese release. Also very wide.

Movies

The Driver's Seat (1974) One of the most unusual films of Elizabeth Taylor's career. Sort of an art film, kind of a mystery thriller, it's hard to know what to say about this. It's more like an unpleasant dream, with surreal and atmospheric scenes and broken-up time sequence. Taylor is a great actress because, though a natural beauty, she never hesitated to take roles which required her to be ugly and terrible in some way. Here she is a sort of madwoman in search of her death in an alienating and malicious world. Unsettling in concept and execution, it's no wonder this is one of the most misunderstood and underestimated movies of her career. A sort of masterpiece in a way. This was purchased at Target during the short golden age of the dollar DVD, and I had been wanting to show it to Donna for a couple of years but was afraid she would hate it - to my surprise she liked it quite a bit. So do I. I would be very happy to see a nice widescreen print of this some day. 9/10

Movies

Pepe (1960) An American-made Cantinflas movie. Even though they tried to make it a bloated monstrosity by jamming in cameos and performances by everyone they could get their hands on, it still comes out pretty well with his usual blend of comedy and pathos. All the powers of Hollywood could not conquer his natural magnetism and charm. If you can't find a real Cantinflas movie, this one is good enough. 6/10

Movies

El verdugo (The Executioner) 1963 - Spanish comedy in which a newlywed must take over his father-in-law's job as executioner to save their apartment. The means of execution in Spain at the time was the garrote. Might have been more entertaining if it had not been so verbose, and if the amateur subtitler had not been determined to capture every bit of crosschat and radio background, sometimes filling the screen with indecipherable text. Interesting to see the locales and culture, but wearisome. 2/10

Then I made it through half of Who Was That Lady? (1960) starring Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh and Dean Martin. Leigh and Curtis' chemistry is unmistakable, but Dean is the only one truly in his element in this feeble sitcom. Curtis, supposedly a chemistry professor, is caught kissing a student in his lab and turns to his chum Dean, a TV writer, to save his marriage. Which means pretending he is an FBI agent, with ensuing "hilarity." I'd hate to be stuck on a desert island with this thing. 1/10

Movies

Tarkan vs. the Vikings (1971) Turkish movies seem to be popular among badfilm nuts these days so I thought I should see a few. Based on a popular Turkish comic book character, this presents a very imaginative (i.e. absurd) view of Viking life and culture. Primitive in concept and technique, meant to provide cheap thrills only. Good giant octopus though. I saw a short documentary on the Turkish pop film industry of the '60s and '70s and it seems to me that its failure was in catering to the lowest common denominator consistently and exclusively, without attempting to improve the product or the audience. It was doomed to eventual failure because it was content to crank out nothing but cheap crap like this, and lacked a visionary producer or director who strove for something higher. 2/10

10 Rillington Place (1971) could not be more different. A calm, methodical, meticulously accurate depiction of the criminal life of British serial murderer John Christie. Richard Attenborough, Judy Geeson and John Hurt star, and locations were filmed on the actual site shortly before it was obliterated from the face of the earth. Extremely well-produced, perhaps its only weakness being the emotional distance it maintains, which left me entirely unmoved even by the terrible situation of Hurt's pathetic character Timothy Evans, hanged for Christie's murder of Evans' wife and child. Maybe director Richard Fleischer was too versatile to make this as strong a film as it might have been. It left me thinking, "Now I know about that," and nothing more. 6/10 for historical accuracy and general viewability.

Movies

Lifeforce (1985) Expedition to Halley's Comet finds huge spacecraft full of dead monsters and takes home the three perfectly preserved humans also aboard, not thinking they might be soul-sucking alien parasites. High concept psycho-erotic horror from the Colin Wilson novel on which it is based is genuinely disturbing, but the effect is diluted by over-reliance on shouting, flashing lights, explosions and snarling zombies - all of which merely tire me. Much of it is done extremely well, but all the noise and schlock were unfortunate and irritating. 5/10

Movies

Susan Slade (1961) Judging by the trailer I saw a while back, I expected this three-hankie technicolor weeper to be laughably atrocious - instead it pounded me into a teary-eyed jelly with its sweeping violins, grand crane shots and soft-focus close-ups. Connie Stevens' shipboard romance ends in a fate worse than death - for 1961 - and her family must conspire to pretend her child is only her brother to avoid total disaster. It's hard to believe I lived in a time when this was normal, and an unwed pregnancy meant such fear and tragedy. Rather a daring handling of the subject for that time. This is a spectacular big-budget production, with foreign and domestic locations, and the vast indoor/outdoor soundstage setting of the family home is a beautiful piece of design. Even the mailbox is great. The cinematography is breathtaking, the acting is earnest and touching, as expected from Lloyd Nolan as the most wonderful father ever, and surprisingly from Connie Stevens whom I had never seen in anything so demanding. No heartstring is left unplucked. Written and directed by Delmer Daves, who is on my radar now. An outstanding melodrama for the discriminating viewer. 8/10

Ten from 2010

I recommend these ten movies as some of the best I saw this year.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006) When I read the novel Perfume by Patrick Suskind some years ago I felt it was a purely literary experience which could never be adequately filmed. I am happy to find myself mistaken. Critical response at the time of its release gave me the impression that it weirded them out, that the concept was too bizarre for them to like it. Not me because I like stuff weird - not just "look how zany or gross I can be" but "how did they even think of this" type of weird . I was as pleased with the unique conception of the book as I was the beautiful execution of the film. It's about a lot of things - a man who is in a sense an innocent in that he doesn't know the crimes he commits are wrong, the folly of trying to recapture First Love, and the underesteemed power of scent to affect our thoughts and emotions.

Sleep Dealer (2008) Mexican cyberpunk? Yes, and one of the few genuinely intelligent and well-made Science Fiction movies I have seen in recent years. Takes the migrant worker phenomenon into the near future where people with bootleg neural nodes go to labor factories and plug in to operate work robots somewhere else in the world, or upload their memories to a youtube-like website which offers them up for sale. Actually has enough ideas in it for a full movie, rather than becoming an extended chase scene half-way through. The situations are complex and compelling, the characters are appealing, and the details are handled with brains and wit. Highly recommended.

Mafioso (1962) Italian black comedy. Meticulous factory supervisor revisits his folksy home town in Sicily and learns the true meaning of family. Sicilian family. Even though you know from the beginning that he is sure to end up in a terrible situation before the end of the story, it is relentlessly amusing throughout. Convincingly detailed with sunscorched cobbled streets and huge platters of amazing food. Extremely entertaining, surprising in its developments and highly rewarding overall.

Mister 880 (1950) Just about the most heartwarming story of crime and counterfeiting you will ever see. Based on a true story, about an old man in New York City who supplemented his income by passing one or two crudely designed counterfeit one dollar bills every day. His systematic and offbeat approach kept him from being captured for some ten years. Young, wavy-haired Burt Lancaster won't give in until he captures lovable kindly Edmund Gwenn. Dorothy McGuire plays The Girl but for some reason she has always passed instantly from my memory. You can have Miracle on 34th Street, this is better and you don't have to wait until December to watch it. All-around good fun for everyone.

Horrors of Malformed Men (1969) Japanese film based on the writings of Edogawa Rampo. (I continue to believe that the unavailability of his work in English translation is a global conspiracy against me personally.) This is completely indescribable and one of the strangest things I have ever seen - and you know I am no dilettante when it comes to strange.

Match Factory Girl (1990) Finnish film, directed by Kaurismaaki, in which a young woman's every attempt to find a little happiness in life is mercilessly crushed. Not as much of a downer as it sounds though, as Kaurismaaki's films, however bleak and sparse, always leave a strange feeling of calm satisfaction. His aesthetics and ideals seem to match mine precisely - I never say "I didn't like that part," or "I wouldn't have done it that way," and he obviously loves machines and industrial spaces as I do. There is no filler, and every shot is a beautiful composition, no matter what is happening. His influence on the modern Quirky Independent Film is obvious, just as obvious as the fact that they are trying to do what he does and not succeeding. The characters sit silent and immobile in a state of perpetual discomfort with life, but they are thinking and feeling beings with human souls, not goofy cartoon characters being weird for weirdness' sake. Probably only about a hundred words are spoken in this too-short, hour-long film and it makes me long for that imaginary Finland, where people aren't always yapping at you or each other or themselves.

Puzzlehead (2005) Small, quiet, intelligent SF story exploring what it means to be human. Man builds his android replica and programs it by scanning his own brain - the creation must learn to overcome the weaknesses and failings of its creator. No huge surprises, just a thoughtful, well-made character study.

Petulia (1968) Richard Lester at his peak as a creative director. One of those nutty stories about a poor schmuck whose life is knocked akilter by a crazy person. Perfectly reflects the spirit of the times in its style, technique and subject matter. Excellent casting in every role, especially the supporting work of Shirley Knight and Joseph Cotten. Howard Hesseman also appears as a dope smoking hippie. Certainly the best Lester film I have ever seen, probably the best he ever made. There is something bizarre and unexpected in every single scene.

Ghost Story of the Snow Woman [Kaidan Yuki Jorou] (1968) Chilling Japanese costume folk-tale beautifully presented. A beautiful Snow Woman kills everyone who sees her, until she falls in love with one of her prospective victims whom she spares if he vows never to speak of his experience. She takes human form and he marries her, not knowing her true nature. Very slow and formal without a lot of cheap shock, which makes her icy silent threat all the more wonderful. A lovely, sad and beautiful romantic ghost story.

Crimen ferpecto (Ferpect Crime) 2004 - Extremely witty and original Spanish murder farce. Rafael is a department-store super-salesman and ladies' man who accidentally kills his boss and is blackmailed into marriage by the only witness - the only girl on the floor who wasn't attractive enough for him to notice. Very lively and imaginative cinematography, excellent characterizations and acting, with lots of laughs. Good distraction for when you feel like you want to murder someone yourself. Outrageous colorful fun that goes places you won't expect.

Movies

Mad Love (1935) This was my choice for family movie night. Another classic I have read about all my life but never seen until now. We were astonished at how much was packed into this short film, a masterpiece of expressionist qrotesquerie. It just snaps right along with one thing after another. Lorre as the deranged hand-transplanting surgeon is amazing, and I especially enjoyed the visual contrast between the Caligariesque setting of his private clinic and the gleaming and elaborate modern medical devices. A superior effort in every way 10/10

Then back to work:

The Satan Bug (1965) Expensive biological warfare thriller, with the deadliest virus ever created stolen from a secret desert lab. Nicely filmed in Panavision, which made good use of the horizontal desert setting. Proceeds at an orderly pace without getting too exciting. 5/10

Maidens of Fetish Street (1966) Dreadful exploitation flick that I sat through to see the kind of crap a guy had to endure just to see some footage of gals with no shirts on. These crappy nudies seem to fall back on having a narrator of some sort, faking up a near-plot to provide the "redeeming social value" required to keep it from being classified as obscene. One really long hour. 1/10

Movies

I have a big backlog to plow through so I am trying to get as much done as possible.

Night World (1932) I watched this mainly because the dance numbers are by Busby Berkeley - small nightclub chorus numbers, nothing really spectacular, but it opens with a really nice 3 minute Night Life montage, and it features Boris Karloff as the heavy. Depicts the events of one night in a night club. Doorman Clarence Muse was the most sensitive and thoughtful character. It's really hard to grasp Karloff in a role that doesn't have some sort of horror angle attached, but he's pretty scary anyway. 5/10

Over-Exposed (1956) Shapely Cleo Moore plays a b-girl who learns there is no gender barrier to advancement in the world of professional photography. Gangly young Richard Crenna is the peevish and embittered would-be love interest. This is an "anything for money" story, and her blackmailing ways eventually turn around and bite her. Might have been a good vehicle for a better actress like Ida Lupino or Susan Hayward, but Moore does okay - it's a good story with some sharp and witty writing. 6/10

Viy (1967) Based on a story by Gogol, a young priest must read prayers for three nights over the body of a witch. The demonic manifestations become more intense and bizarre each night, with the beautiful young witch corpse coffin-surfing around the chapel and startling gruesome ogres pouring out of the walls. The atmosphere is wonderful, with a fascinating depiction of life on a medieval Russian farmstead. A very nice thing to see. 8/10

Night of the Big Heat (1967) Also known as Night of the Burning Damned, this is based on one of John Lymington's novels. I own, and have repeatedly read, more of his novels than anyone you know. In most of them there is a small group of people trapped somewhere - on an island, inside an inexplicable barrier, in a pocket in time or space. A vague, world-destroying threat is on its way - from space, or the earth's core, or another vibrational level, or a possible future; which manifests itself as a sound, a vibration, fog, heat - that causes them to become agitated and lose their inhibitions and judgement, and causes the appearance of ghostly or other-dimensional entities. The source or cause of it all is a manor-house or scientific installation where high-frequency radio broadcasts or scientific experiments are taking place. I have read most of them two or three times, and I think this is the third time I have seen this, and I couldn't tell you why. I guess I am trying to figure out why he would write the same novel so many times. This is a pretty good film of one of his stories; insular, paranoid, discomforting and a bit tedious. Not really exciting or interesting, just strange. Everybody gets real hot and sweaty and some of them go crazy. Phones stop working and televisions explode, and there is something crawling around that burns people up. 3/10

The Girl Hunters (1963) Mickey Spillane plays his famous character Mike Hammer in this slightly odd thriller. Locations shot in New York, but the studio work was done in England. Kind of bad in the same way as his novels - in a sort of good way. This is a One Song Universe, where the same background melody they play when he walks down the street comes on when someone turns on the radio. Fun to see but there's a lot of better stuff out there. 4/10

Movies

Mahabali Hanuman (1981) I have always loved fantasy, religious and fairy tale movies and this combines the best of them all. This bright colorful and elaborate fantasy movie is every bit as remarkable as the European and Russian fairy tale films I love, while being a tale of devotion and the moral development of the protagonist. Hanuman is born as a boon granted to his barren mother through her unceasing prayers, he is granted great powers by all the gods, and he becomes the most dedicated of devotees. This is the Hindu movie I have always wanted to see - I grew up wishing that the dreary religious movies about people wandering through the desert in robes had something more fantastical and inspiring to them. If I had seen something like this as a child I would have become a sincere Hindu at that moment, and it certainly restored my love for Hinduism's wonderful pantheon. Bright colors and moving shapes, song and dance numbers, magical transformations, elaborate yet slightly cheesy spectacle, and edifying moral lessons all in one. 10/10

Shiva grants Anjana the boon of a son.

The gods bestow upon Hanuman many powers.

Hanuman manifests the Vishnu Avatars.

Rama and Sita are always in his heart.

Movies

The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1929) Norma Shearer and Basil Rathbone in a stiff and stodgy drawing-room comedy of the sort Wodehouse lovingly satirized; country house, stolen pearls and all. This is a very archaic form of entertainment, but once the mind is slowed to its glacial pace, and it is accepted that one is really viewing a stage play, it eventually becomes rather entertaining. Rathbone is a dashing young scoundrel, and Shearer in deco pyjamas by Adrian is good for the eyes, though after half a dozen movies I am beginning to see that her acting is more in the silent film style; exaggerated rapidly changing facial expression with less natural line readings than a stage actress would have delivered. Supporting characters round out the story with some charm and laughs. Good for a trip back in time to a simpler age. Remade in 1937 with William Powell and Joan Crawford, which the latter must have seen as a feather in her cap, taking away some glory from one of her earliest rivals. 6/10

Movies

Endhiran the Robot (2010) Indian scifi action musical romantic comedy in which I Robot becomes a Matrix of Terminators. He can cook, dance, beat up a whole gang of thugs, help you cheat on your exams, talk to mosquitos, and fall in love with his creator's girlfriend, and is transformed by the Bad Guy into the insane dictator of an army of his replicas. Fantastically colorful and elaborate musical numbers, including one filmed at Machu Picchu. Not some digital greenscreen Machu Picchu - they actually filmed it there. One minute they're laughing on the beach and the next they are dancing and singing in the Andes with dozens of dancers in pseudo-inca garb. Indian movies are intended to be fun and make you feel good. There were some really imaginative sequences throughout, and it was entertaining as it could possibly be. I like fun. I like seeing a giant robot made of robots give a "thumbs up" where the thumb is a robot giving a "thumbs up." For over 2 1/2 hours of pure crazy stupid fun, 10/10

Look! A giant snake made of robots, biting a helicopter!

Movies

I've been plowing through some stuff that isn't really worth examining in depth but just because I know you care so much about what kind of crazy crap I like to view, here is a brief overview. The Women may be the best pure melodrama made in America because it is top quality in every respect. So they took that and made it into a widescreen color spectacle with a few songs jammed in for good measure and called it The Opposite Sex (1956). June Allyson, with her wasplike face and impervious cast bronze hairstyle has always creeped me out, and she is the hero. This was a very bad period for women's hats, and they range from early salad bowl to speedy alkaseltzer, but the gowns by Helen Rose add a dreamlike touch. I got a bunch of offbeat '60s movies including utterly unwatchable exploitation crap with names like The Curse of Her Flesh, and among them was 99 Women (1969), the first movie I have seen by Spanish shock hack Jess Franco. It's a cheap women's prison story made interesting primarily by warden Mercedes McCambridge's seething fury. Le monacle noir (1961) is a lite espionage story starring one of the Frenchest guys who ever lived, Paul Meurisse. It's harmless. The Day They Robbed the Bank of England (1960) is a heist story based on an historic turn of the century attempt by Irish nationalists to do what the title says. It's a HEIST. Will they succeed? I'd like to see a heist flick where they do. Is that all? I guess it is.

NO! I forgot Treno Popolare (1933), a pleasant slice of Italian life, following a disparate group of urbanites on a day trip from Rome to Orvieto on a working-class excursion train. Music by Nino Rota shows a trace of his future style. Pleasant, nice to see and not challenging in any way.

Movies

Synecdoche, New York (2008) Apparently a lot of people really like this and think it's good. Donna wanted to see it. I made it all the way through it, though it took a long time to end. One thing I did like was the tiny paintings. I have been thinking off and on for a couple of years about doing pictures the size of a nickel, because I have a box of individual transparent cases for coin collectors to put their collectible nickels in and I thought they would make a good frame for a picture the size of a nickel. So I may do that sometime. Otherwise this didn't do a hell of a lot for me, and was a real chore to sit through. At least there was nudity. 2/10

Movies

A Very Private Affair (1962) Bardot and Mastroianni in Malle's melodrama about how terrible it is to be famous. At times I wasn't sure whether it was supposed to be a satire or not. I still don't see any depth of character in Bardot at all. Slightly interesting cinematic technique, but kind of a stupid story. 3/10

Movies

Search for Beauty (1934) Robert Armstrong, James Gleason and Gertrude Michael are two bit hustlers trying to make it big in the Health Racket; Buster Crabbe and Ida Lupino are the Olympic athletes they hire as a front, who queer the pitch by forcing them to play it straight. Lupino is here a bleached blonde with pencilled eyebrows and a bit of a British accent and it took me half an hour to figure out which one was her. Strangely, the movie does the same thing the hustlers want to do - sell cheesecake and beefcake under the guise of health and exercise. Lots of healthy young people in bathing suits leaping and stretching. I've never seen anything quite like it. Odd but not great. 5/10

Xica da Silva (1976) Brazilian costume fantasy very loosely inspired by the true story of the title character's rise from slavery to the pinnacle of wealth and power in colonial Brazil, as mistress of the controller of the nation's diamond mines. An extremely colorful story in every way, with fascinating costume, architecture, landscape and characters. Xica is vibrantly portrayed by the charismatic Zeze' Motta, who seems to have had an extensive career in Brazilian film and television. Maybe not strictly educational, as it varies widely from historic fact, but quite entertaining. 8/10

Zeze' Motta as slave...

...and as queen.

Movies

Let Us Be Gay (1930) Norma Shearer is nearly unrecognizable as a dowdy housewife humiliated by her husband's infidelity. Three years after their divorce she is an Independent Modern Woman and they encounter each other again. Hence the gaiety of the title - heavily forced to show she "doesn't care" and it got so every time she giggled I just wanted to slap her. This is my least favorite Norma Shearer movie so far and I just want to see one where she doesn't get divorced at the beginning and then get back with her husband again in the final shot of the film. 4/10

Before divorce.

After.

RRRrrr!!! (2004) French caveman comedy. Has its moments, with more laughs than the Ringo one. It's a comedy, about cavemen. I like how all the animals have tusks, even the ducklings. Donna slept through part of it, and rightly so. 5/10

Movies

Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010) This is the way to make a brainless action spectacle. Get the narration over with in less than a minute. Don't do anything twice. Make your whirling wireframe computer models absurdly vast, and make them move the story forward, not be some little gimmick that two guys stand next to talking. Include an army of Milla Jovovich clones in skintight vinyl. Provide a gigantic zombie-crushing supertruck, BUT DON'T ACTUALLY USE IT. Remember that audiences don't want to see more than one minute of people standing around talking at a time. Use special effects to actually do something, not to interrupt the story with a "look what I can do" moment over and over again. For what it is, 10/10

This is the way to do it.

Movies

El espejo de la bruja (The Witch's Mirror) 1962 - This Mexican horror fantasy starts off as a tale of Supernatural Vengeance, with a devil-worshipping housekeeper punishing the master of the house for his wife's murder, but it veers off into corpse-stealing and grave-robbing, and transplantation of faces and hands from corpses after the new wife is horribly burned. Includes the unique concept of transplantation of ghost hands, which are not under the control of their unknowing new owner. Jaw-droppingly and imaginatively grotesque without being gory, this is the craziest, most satisfying horror fantasy I can recall seeing in years. Most of these things pretty much take one topic and run it through a full cycle, but this throws in everything they could think of, transformations, apparitions, vengeful spectre rising from the grave and stepping through the mirror, right up to the crawling hand stabbing people with a big pair of scissors. Would make a great double feature with the Japanese film Ghosts of Kasane Swamp. 10/10

Roman Scandals (1933) Eddie Cantor dreams of ancient Rome. I haven't seen much of him and am still trying to figure out what the basis of his popularity is. He's got a good voice and an interesting delivery of comic comments and retorts, and the movie is entertaining with a couple of good songs and a few good laughs. My main reason for seeing this, though, is my acquisition of a Busby Berkeley book, so I have a complete illustrated list of his work at hand. The production numbers in this one are not gigantic mind-blowing spectacles so it is perhaps easier to see what they are made of. It's not just film of people dancing - it's the use of the camera in motion and at unique angles, and the intercutting of close-ups of hands, feet and faces accentuating the action which make these so fun. Sometimes people aren't dancing at all - the set and camera do the work. The slave market fantasy, with tragic song by Ruth Etting, is spicy and kinky with scantily clad maidens dancing, chained and whipped. The baths number with the catchy tune Keep Young and Beautiful makes use of black and white contrast, with Cantor blacked up, and interplay between beautiful blonde bathers in white and beautiful black servants mirroring and complementing each other. Moderately entertaining overall, with an extended chariot race if you are a quadriga fan. 7/10

Movies

Spirits of the Dead (1968) Compilation film of Poe stories by three European directors. Vadim's is artsy, vague and tedious with lots of scanty costumes; Malle's is intimate and precise and it makes Bardot look like an actress; Fellini's is more intensely hallucinogenic than usual but is about his common topic of the torments of fame. Malle's is the most grounded, least trippy and mod of the three, and convinces me that I am going to have to break down and see some of his stuff. As a movie, it's not so hot but it is educational. 5/10

Note: it appears I have already seen Malle's Elevator to the Gallows and The Fire Within. I liked the former as an exceptionally well-balanced thriller, didn't care much for the latter since the protagonist is self-centered and unappealing and you just want him to kill himself like he says he is going to.

Movies

Le main du diable (1943) Painter buys demonic talisman which replaces his hand with a possessed occult hand, fulfilling his dreams of greatness. The catch is, he must sell it before he dies for less than he paid or be eternally damned, plus the devil is ruining his life just for fun. No big surprises, but a pretty nice deal with the devil movie in general. 6/10

Riptide (1934) Ponderous depression-era melodrama with Norma Shearer the vivacious victim of stuffy husband Herbert Marshall's suspicions, and Robert Montgomery the boozing nitwit into whose arms she flees. Not a speck of reality intrudes into this tale of the desperate problems of fantastically wealthy and beautiful people scampering gaily around the mediterranean or weeping in lavish chambers. Though it is ferociously romantic for the first fifteen minutes, this is really the same story as 1930's wonderful The Divorcee, with slower pace and less appeal. Gowns by Adrian are fantastical and fabulous, angular and asymmetrical with huge contrasting lapels, or slim glittering sheaths with miles of train, but the characters are all a bit much, the dialog is heavy and repetitious, the action is slow and the abrupt ending seems like a quick fix to what might have been more satisfying as a tragedy. 4/10