favorite movie #111 - holiday edition: love actually

Favorite movies that have had an impact on me - #111 - Love Actually (2003) - This movie is more than a bit of a mess. A strung-together bunch of inter-connected stories, it features a bunch of Londoners as they muddle through the holiday season. What makes it watchable is a wonderful cast and a fantastic performance by Emma Thompson as a wife who discovers that the romantic gift she thought her husband (Alan Rickman) was getting for her was actually intended for the floozy he works with. Also charming are Liam Neeson and Thomas Sangster as a step-father and son mourning the loss of their wife and mother, respectively. Hugh Grant can't help but be charming in the absurd casting of a British PM who has fallen for his adorable staff member, played by Martine McCutcheon. Topping it all off like the naughty angel on top of the tree is Bill Nighy as aging rock star Billy Mack, who is reluctantly coerced by his longtime manager and best friend (Gregor Fisher) into recording a Christmas single to revive his sagging career. Surrender to the movie, don't think too hard about the side plots that don't work, and enjoy yourself.

Billy Mack - Christmas is All Around (Love Actually) from Christmas is All around on Vimeo.

favorite movie #67 - halloween edition: eye of the devil

Favorite movies that have had an impact on me - #67 - Eye of the Devil (1966) - I just saw this recently, and it's a perfect film for the Halloween season. A precursor to The Wicker Man, The Omen, and maybe even Eyes Wide Shut, Eye of the Devil is an occult film that deals with witchcraft and the ancient rites of human sacrifice that have appeared through all mythologies and religions. Fans of Joseph Campbell, Robert Graves, and The Golden Bough will recognize the familiar theme of sacrifice when the Marquis, Philippe de Montfaucon (David Niven) is called back to his ancestral home to save the vineyards that all of the inhabitants of Bellenac depend on for their survival. Much to his dismay, his wife Catherine (Deborah Kerr) decides to join him in the country with their two young children, Jacques and Antoinette. Catherine notices immediately that something is up with Philippe. She is also disturbed by two young locals, siblings Odile and Christian de Caray (Sharon Tate and David Hemmings), who are always hanging around the chateau and being generally creepy.

The black and white cinematography by Erwin Hillier is gorgeous. The Château de Hautefort in Dordogne, France is well utilized as the film's location — both interiors and exteriors are filmed beautifully and add to the overall sinister atmosphere of the film. Kim Novak was originally supposed to play Catherine, but she was injured while on horseback and had to withdraw from the film. She was replaced with Deborah Kerr, who does a great job unraveling as she watches her husband embark on (to her) an inexplicable quest to save the vineyard. Kerr is closer in age to Niven, but Novak might have been interesting, as she would have been closer in age to Tate (in her first film appearance), which might have put their rivalry on a more equal footing. David Hemmings is menacing (and gorgeous) as Tate's blonde archer brother.

It was interesting to see Kerr's character spend most of the movie concerned for her husband and his fate, but mostly oblivious to the threat a dynastic tradition of sacrifice equalling successful harvest might hold for her son. Ten years later in The Omen the child would become the focus of evil in a film.

Odile is always hanging around the chateau

The locals are happy to see the Marquis back in town

Those de Caray kids sure wear a lot of black

David Hemmings never looked dreamier

Odile with Damien, errr ... Jacques

Be careful who you meet in the woods

Philippe is just tired and wants to get on with it

Donald Pleasance as the local priest

Sharon Tate looking very Mrs. Peel-esque

Niven in a scene with Kim Novak before she had to leave the film

favorite movie #51: a fish called wanda

Favorite movies that have had an impact on me - #51 - A Fish Called Wanda (1988) - John Cleese and Charles Crichton (who directed) teamed up to write this delightful caper comedy. Cleese plays barrister Archie Leach (Cary Grant's real name) who is set to defend one of the members of a gang of jewel thieves. While awaiting trial, the rest of the gang (Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, and animal-lover Michael Palin) make Archie's life increasingly complicated as they search for the stolen diamonds. Kevin Kline won a best supporting actor Oscar for his hilarious portrayal of the moronic Otto, who thinks he is actually quite brilliant.

Otto (Kevin Kline): Don't call me stupid. 

Wanda (Jamie Lee Curtis): Oh, right! To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people! I've known sheep that could outwit you. I've worn dresses with higher IQs. But you think you're an intellectual, don't you, ape? 

Otto: Apes don't read philosophy. 

Wanda: Yes they do, Otto. They just don't understand it.

Archie (John Cleese): Your brother didn't bring you here this time, did he? 

Wanda: No. 

Archie: He's no idea? 

Wanda: He doesn't have a clue. 

Archie: What? 

Wanda: He's so dumb ... 

Archie: Really? 

Wanda: ... he thought that the Gettysburg Address was where Lincoln lived.

favorite movie #34: a clockwork orange

Favorite movies that have had an impact on me - #34 - A Clockwork Orange (1971) - This is a terrible and wonderful film. Wonderfully creative and impactful, but terrible to witness at times. Director Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Anthony Burgess's novel is powerful and disturbing. Alex (Malcolm McDowell) and his Droogs run rampant through a dystopian Britain, with Ludwig Van and "Singin' in the Rain' as their soundtrack. The costumes, dialogue (Nadsat, the slang of the Droogs, a form of Russian-influenced English), all contribute to the atmosphere of the film. And the unrelenting ultra-violence.

Alex (Malcolm McDowell): It's funny how the colors of the real world only seem really real when you viddy them on the screen.

Related:

cinema village

favorite movie #13: curse of the demon/night of the demon

Favorite movies that have had an impact on me - #13 - Curse of the Demon/Night of the Demon (UK) (1957) - Dana Andrews goes to London to debunk a satanic cult and finds himself its latest victim when some mystical runes are passed his way. Creepy, atmospheric, wonderful. The UK version runs 12 minutes longer, and it’s worth tracking down.

take a tour with joanna lumley

Isn't that Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous? Yes, it is. Joannna Lumley has calmed down her signature beehive and put aside the endless glasses of bubbly and taken on the role of travel guide for two very watchable documentaries from Athena, Joanna Lumley's Nile and Joanna Lumley's Greek Odyssey. Both two-disc DVD sets feature four episodes and Lumley's delightful observations on the local sights and history. In Joanna Lumley's Nile the host lays out her plan of attack, to travel the entire length of the north-flowing Nile, considered the longest river in the world, with a length of 4,132 miles (6,650 km). Like most travelers, she intends to take the trip "backwards," starting in Egypt, where the river's mouth spills into the Mediterranean, and ending at its source, at the Rwanda-Tanzania border.
...

When Lumley finally reaches the source of the Nile she is visibly moved, and viewers may regret that their journey and hers has come to an end. But not to worry, Lumley is on the move again, in Joanna Lumley's Greek Odyssey. This trip seems a bit more personal, as Lumley has traveled to Greece many times before, since her first visit at the age of 20, and has a real love and rapport with the country. Once again she tours some of the most-visited and familiar sites, like the Acropolis in Athens, the Oracle at Delphi, the almost inaccessible monasteries of Meteora, and even climbs a bit of Mount Olympus, but there are always surprises in store. Some of the more offbeat destinations include the fabled the Gates of Hades, the site of a former leper colony, and a remote village where the remaining inhabitant speak in their own strange language of whistles.

Joanna Lumley, with friend

At the Parthenon

You can read my complete review on Cinema Sentries.

pirate radio

In yesterday's post I paid tribute to the career of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who tragically died last Sunday. He made so many great movies, playing heartbreaking and intriguing characters. Today I'd like to highlight one of his more comic turns, in a movie that many may have missed, Pirate Radio, a British film from 2009, also known as The Boat That Rocked.

The Count broadcasts

The crew rocks out on Radio Rock

Written and directed by Richard Curtis (The Vicar of Dibley, Mr. Bean, Love Actually) the film, set in the 1960s, chronicles a British pirate radio station that dares to play (gasp!) rock and roll. The radio station, dubbed Radio Rock's creative solution to broadcast restrictions is that it is a ship at sea, with a constantly changing location. The British government can't impose its rule of classical music only on the radio or shut it down, if they can't even find it. Hoffman plays an American DJ known as The Count, who bristles when another radio god, the popular British DJ Gavin (Rhys Ifans), joins the crew to boost ratings and challenge The Count's supremacy.

The Count, "You know, a few months ago, I made a terrible mistake. I realized something, and instead of crushing the thought the moment it came I ... I let it hang on, and now I know it to be true. And I'm afraid it's stuck in my head forever. These are the best days of our lives. It's a terrible thing to know, but I know it."

A virtual who's who of British comedians and actors make up the rest of the eclectic crew. Bill Nighy plays Quentin, who runs Radio Rock; DJs "Doctor" Dave (Nick Frost), "Simple" Simon Swafford (Chris O'Dowd); young Carl (Tom Sturridge), who's mother (Emma Thompson) has sent to spend time on the seas with his godfather Quentin. The only bum note in the film is Kenneth Branagh as Sir Alistair Dormandy, an unpleasant and uptight government minister who is bound and determined to shut down the rock and roll station. There isn't an ounce of humor in his performance, which is a shame, for both the audience and Jack Davenport who plays his assistant, Twatt. If only Curtis had called on Rowan Atkinson to play the role ...



Branagh aside, Pirate Radio is laid back and amusing, and also manages to capture the excitement and even dangerous quality of early rock and roll, and a time when it really seemed like music could and would change the world. Hoffman's character embodies that spirit of freedom completely and he emerges as the heart and soul of the film. It's really worth a look. And it has a great soundtrack, too of over 50 songs, including artists like The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, The Supremes, and The Hollies.

staircase

Twentieth Century Fox has recently started releasing some vintage classic films from its Fox Cinema Archives. Staircase, a little-seen film from 1969 starring Rex Harrison and Richard Burton as a pair of aging hairdressers, comes to DVD for the first time.

Based on Charles Dyer's Broadway play about a middle-aged gay couple living in London, Staircase was directed by Stanley Donen (On the Town, Singin' in the Rain, Funny Face, Charade, Bedazzled) and featured a musical score by Dudley Moore (10, Arthur). Staircase is a glimpse into the lives of long-term companions Charlie (Harrison) and Harry (Burton). The two work together as hairdressers in Harry's East End barbershop. The movie was actually filmed in Paris, so stars Harrison and Burton (and Burton's wife Elizabeth Taylor, who was nearby filming The Only Game in Town) could avoid British tax laws.

Charlie and Harry live upstairs above the barbershop, in a rather grim and grimy-looking flat which also houses Harry's aging and ailing mother (Cathleen Nesbitt). As the film progresses, the audience learns about the flamboyant Charlie's former forays into acting, his daughter from a brief, prveious marriage, and his fears about his upcoming trial, where he must answer charges of trying to proposition a police officer. Harry is the more staid and steady of the two. He feels both love and duty towards his mother, but also trapped, and tries to mother-hen both her and Charlie, sometimes with unhappy results. The set design provides little clues to each man's character, with paired bathrobes hanging on pegs side-by-side — one a flashy silk with an Asian design, the other with drab dull stripes. It's not too difficult to guess whose is whose.

The film wasn't well-received when it was released, as critics and audiences alike seemed to react poorly to Harrison's and Burton's performances. They may have been expecting a more sprightly, campy farce, along the lines of La Cage Aux Folles (or its American version, The Birdcage). Donen does open the film with a short drag number, performed by Michael Rogers and Royston Starr. Advertising for the film contained the taglines "Whoops!" and "Can this marriage last?" Staircase, although it has some funny moments, is a more heart-felt attempt to portray a long-term relationship - and explore loneliness and why some people may (or may not) stay together.

Harrison gives the more broad performance of the two, with campy mannerisms. His chararcter also has the habit of peppering his speech with British slang and funny phrases:

"Oh, blood, bowels, and bestiality."

"God save us all and Oscar Wilde."

"I beg yours, I beg yours, rub-a-dub." (Rub-a-dub is rhyming slang for a pub, public house).

Staircase is letterboxed, with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and a running time of 98 minutes. Subtitles are available, but unfortunately no other extras are included on the disc.

Burton, who could seem hammy in many of his best-known films roles, is quite restrained here. Harry is full of emotion which is constantly simmering just below the surface. He is quite touching while he is caring for his mother, and both strong and ridiculous as the barber who wears a turban made of bandages over his head for most of the film to conceal his shame at his baldness. The two stars bicker and insult each other constantly during the course of the film, sometimes quite cruelly. The audience may not end up liking Charlie and Harry very much, but they also won't want to look away.

Originally published on Blogcritics: DVD Review: ‘Staircase’