Posted on by chasinvictoria

The Black Cat (1934, dir. Edgar G. Ulmer

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½

52-week film challenge, film 34

Note: this is a 20-anniversary, “remastered” version of a review I initially did for my film blog back in 2003, but I did indeed watch the film again on October 2nd, 2023 to refresh my memories for this new version.

As I publish this, it is the beginning of October and the season of the witch, so if you are seeking a slow-burn horror film absolutely brimming with style — this may well be the most Neo-Expressionistic/Art Deco horror movie ever made — starring two absolute legends of horror in unconventional roles, have I got a great movie for you.

I think I first saw The Black Cat when I was about 12, and I’m sure it was one of those that played a role in my lifelong interest in highly-styled architechture and design in films.

At that age, parts of the film were indeed scary, but it was all too weird and mesmerising for me to take my eyes off of it. When I reviewed it again from my own film blog in 2003, the exterior model and interior sets of Dr. Hjalmar Poelzig’s house was the second greatest thing about it, the first of course being the first time I’d seen Karloff and Lugosi acting together without monster makeup.

The third thing about this movie is its incredible time compression. Despite some glacial pacing in some scenes between the two leads, there is plenty of action, especially near the end, and the film packs in necrophilia, satanism, murder, double-crosses, torture, the horrors of war, an undead black cat, secret vaults, and so much more into a film that astonishingly runs only one hour and four minutes.

The film makes numerous references to World War I, but the set design and intentional cruelty (not to mention its unusual setting of Hungary) also act as a prescient forerunner to World War II in some ways. The (black) cat-and-mouse game Lugosi’s Vitus Werdegast and Karloff’s Poelzig play might be seen by some as slow, but the tension between them is delicious.

The basic plot is, at its core, Standard Horror Plot #17: two “perfectly ordinary” strangers meet mysterious character on a train, who happens to be going to the same place they are; incident ensues, so mysterious character offers his new friends shelter at nearby house of arch-enemy; sufficient weirdness starts right from that moment and gets darker and weirder until “happy?” ending.

In this case, the couple is Peter (David Manners) and Joan Allison (Julie Bishop under the stage name of “Jacqueline Wells”), the mysterious (and intense) stranger is the kindly but creepy Bela Lugosi (Werdegast), and the mysterious mansion is the home of Karloff (Poelzig). I should mention that Werdegast has a hulking manservent named Thamal (Henry Cording), who pretends to be Poelzig’s servant.

Joan, who has been injured when their bus (from the train) goes off a cliff, is attended to by Werdegast, but from the moment Karloff (and his geometric hair) appears, the tension and complexity of Werdegast and Poelzig’s relationship just builds and builds. They talk a lot, but don’t say much — their eyes, wardrobe, and silences say a lot more.

And the house!! For an architecture fan like me, the exterior model shot, taken straight out of Frank Lloyd Wright’s dreams, was a thrill. Then, to see the perfectly art-deco 30s interior sets, looking as minimalist and futuristic as 1934 can manage, still astounds and impresses. Poelzig looks completely at home, which is not to say that he ever looks relaxed or comfortable but rather to say that his appearance and wardrobe complement the rooms perfectly.

An important element I missed on earlier viewings of the film is that the house is built on the ruins of a World War I battlefield they both participated in. Werdegast was taken prisoner and spent 15 years in jail, while Poelzig spent the time seducing first Werdegast’s wife and then, when she died, his daughter (yeah, the creep-o-meter just went to 11).

Like the chess game the two men play for control of Joan (Werdegast wants to set them both free, Poelzig has other unnamed and probably unspeakable plans), every interaction between the two is the clash of two opposing forces who both like and hate each other. Incredibly, Werdegast is the hero of The Black Cat, but his fatal flaw is revealed early on: he has a nearly psychotic fear of cats.

When one appears in Poelzig’s house, Werdegast grabs a knife and throws it to expertly kill it. Other black cats (or maybe the same one, as Poelzig makes reference to a cat’s many lives) appear in the film, but the amazing thing is that Werdegast kills a cat right in front of everyone, but nobody seems to think anything of it. This is the only real link to Poe’s work in this movie.

What makes this movie stand out from the thick river of horror movies produced around the same time is that so much of the actual horror is understated or imagined rather than actually seen by the viewer. If it weren’t for the gorgous costumes and sets, this film would be as close to a radio play as a horror movie could get!

My god, this house!

Stripped of their usual arsenal of makeup, Karloff and Lugosi rely on their great chemistry to light up the set, in this — the first of eight films where they appear together. The architecture of the house and interior sets are so stunning (have I mentioned this already?) that it should get third billing, behind Karloff and Lugosi but ahead of Manners and Bishop. As another reviewer noted, “architectural nuts probably rent this movie as architecture porn. The house is that cool.” She’s absolutely right.

Once Poelzig is revealed as a Satanist who has designs on Joan for a sacrifice, the film’s action finally kicks into high gear. Unlike the stage-y verbal jousting of earlier, Werdegast — who every so often says he is “biding his time” for his revenge” — now has to make good on that threat, and quickly.

Well hello, pre-Code 1930s creep-a-thon!

The climax, in which Werdegast “wins” in the sense of triumping over Poelzig is really quite stylish and stunning, but even in shadow, Werdegast’s delight at inflicting torture on Poelzig is a little tough to watch, even 90 years later. The newlyweds, which everyone stopped caring about 30 minutes ago, escape with their lives — which any viewer of The Rocky Horror Picture Show will have seen coming a mile off (and that’s is not the only influence The Black Cat had on Richard O’Brien’s little moneyspinner).

While this movie has some issues of its own — I’m still trying to figure out what an all-American couple like Peter and Joan are even doing in postwar Hungary, the delicious slow-burn and the stars’ chemistry make this pre-code horror movie a time capsule of incredibly beautiful horror like nobody has made since. If you’re ready for something off-beat, classic yet wonderfully dated, comic in spots and scary in a psychological way, you are ready to cross paths with The Black Cat.

The “floating women” effect of Poelzig’s victims is just mesmerising.
Posted on by chasinvictoria · 5 Comments

Blitzed! The 80s Blitz Kids Story (2020)

(Dirs. Bruce Ashley and Michael Donald)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

52-week film challenge, film 33

I love documentaries, but not many of them get a theatrical release (this one didn’t either, apart from a debut screening in London) so I haven’t included them thus far in the Film Challenge, but this one touches on a topic near and dear to me. The New Romantic movement was not the first musical statement of my generation — that would of course be Punk — but it was the one that resonated more deeply than any other before or since.

Blitzed! is a reflective look back on the key movers and prominent regulars who came together in 1979 originally in celebration of the glam-rock period and then-current resurrection of David Bowie, creating a much-needed escape from the UK’s Winter of Discontent the same year. The doc spends its first 10 minutes talking about the nadir (now coming around again, ironically) of England under the heartless Tories and austerity programs of Margaret Thatcher.

Strikes and decay against her and her parties’ cruelty, particularly affecting young people who saw “No Future” and “Anarchy in the UK” going from being songs to being ways of life, created a bleak reality of poverty and hopelessness. And then, there was A Moment: on a BBC performance of “Starman,” the now-androgynous Bowie turned to the camera and sang the line “I had to call someone so I picked on you-oo-oo” and pointed directly into the hearts and minds of his pre-teen and teen fans.

It hit like a divine mission sent from above, and inspired everyone who was watching who felt out-of-place and not like the masses to dedicate their lives to becoming Bowie acolytes in thought, word, and deed. Just five years later — now young adults and with no future in sight — the kids made their move, inspired by Bowie’s radical changes in his music in the intervening years to follow his lead, and break out of their desperate lives and redefine who they were … and could be.

A batch of young creatives around London, led by Steve Strange (best known for the resulting band visage) and Rusty Egan (Rich Kids, Visage, Ultravox, Skids, and many others of that era), created a club where the mantra was anything other than the “desperation fashion” of Punk. It was just a little club in Covent Garden, but it became a safe house, a church, and portal to another world, fueled by both Bowie and the emerging bands he influenced.

The Rich Kids, Midge and Rusty’s first band (with former Sex Pistol Glen Matlock, right)

The documentary consists mostly of photographs and the occasional movie clip of the club and its patrons in their “denying reality” finery and makeup, and interviews with some of the more prominent members of the group (minus Strange, who died in 2015). Starting off with simple “Bowie Nights” in ‘79 at a pub called Billy’s, the movement quickly outgrew the space and moved to an existing wine and cocktail bar already called Blitz.

As the influence of the club’s new direction spread, musicians made up of club regulars created new bands, or existing bands redirected to capture the spirit, inventing a branch of synth-heavy New Wave music that has, like the club goers themselves, never really fallen out of fashion.  It was often framed as the antithesis of Punk, but that was a common misconception: it was more an unconscious political reaction to the bleak reality of the times by escaping into a created world where style and creativity could thrive.

Over and over again, we discover in the film that the Blitz Kids (as they came to be called) have since established careers in the arts (like the band Spandau Ballet, whose first gigs were in Blitz) or complementary and aesthetically-pleasing related fields, such as milliner Steven Jones or costume designer Michelle Clapton. Egan, the club’s founder and DJ, and Strange, the club’s notorious doorman and taste-setter, themselves went on to fame in the band Visage, assisted by Ultravox’s Midge Ure and others to create a kind of declarative musical statement of the mindset of the Blitz Kids.

Ure, along with musicians Andy Polaris, Egan, Gary Kemp, Boy George, Marilyn, and other notable “faces of the 80s” are interviewed, and had careers that lasted long after Blitz closed. Though the club itself was short-lived (though followed by a couple of further attempts, including the Club for Heroes), the aesthetic’s “flambouyancy” and queer-eyed DIY attitude spread far and wide, including hitting the United States and elsewhere throughout the early 80s.

George (left) and Strange (right) on the town

The doc also spends time with the notable but less-famous regulars, like Princess Julia (still a DJ to this day), Jones, Steve Dagger (Spandau Ballet’s manager for the last 40+ years), Robert Elms (writer and broadcaster), and others — all colourful characters with remarkably clear memories of their time at Blitz. Because of its style, the club was also, among other things, a haven for both impoverished straight kids who raided thrift shops for stylish gear while barely-existing in fetid squats and dead-end jobs as well as outcast LGBTQ+ youth — everyone of every race or creed was welcome, as long as you looked good and loved the music.

The club itself eventually fell apart because of drugs, especially heroin, but at its peak the club was a drug — and the best party you’ve ever been to, and I know that firsthand — thanks to a very brief London visit at just the right time, some borrowed clothes from a friend, and sheer dumb luck. I can confirm that pre-fame Boy George was working the coat check at the time, and that if you were 18-21 it was like you died and went to heaven — everyone was stunningly beautiful, the cocktails were deliberately cheap, and the music was fantastic.

Midge Ure of Ultravox

From my few hours there, I returned to my home in Miami a very changed lad (in both good and bad ways). As for the documentary, its only serious fault is the paucity of photos and footage of the club the directors had access to.

More have since been discovered, some quite recently, but over its 90 minute runtime the sharp-eyed will spot re-used pictures and other repeated material. This shortfall is more than made up for by the excellent interviews with what I will jokingly call “the survivors,” who made the most of their early peak youth and, very often, carved out a life from the inspiration of Blitz.

Steve Strange, now the ghost in the (drum) machine

Egan, Kemp, and George provide some of the most insightful interviews, both setting up the historical setting as well as the highlights of their time in this alternate reality they helped create. The absence of any contextual interviews from other sources with the late Steve Strange seems like an huge opportunity missed, given how large his shadow looms over everything.

The women interviewed, particularly Clapton, Darla-Jane Gilroy, and Princess Julia provide incredibly valuable “colour commentary,” if you will, because they were among the most dedicated regulars. They come off as being a driving force in helping create and maintain the philosophy of creative refinement that demanded not just looking good, but experimenting with different looks, that Strange made into a challenge for wanna-be entrants.

Princess Julia and acolytes

The highlight of the interviews is the segment I’ll call “OMG the night Bowie came to Blitz.” As the raison d’etre of the club and its mindset, this was akin to actual Jesus stopping by your local church.

Not only did the great man seem to enjoy himself (Strange tried and failed to keep his presence a secret, as if that was possible), but he recruited four of the regulars (including Gilroy, who’s memories had to help make up for the lack of Strange’s recollections) to be in his very memorable “Ashes to Ashes” music video. You know this was the peak of Gilroy’s, Strange’s and all the Blitz Kids’ lives.

The “Ashes to Ashes” shoot. Top: Darla-Jane Gilroy (left), Steve Strange (right)

Overall, the documentary is an important artifact of a magical two-year-plus moment that really had a huge (and to this day severely underestimated) influence on the world, including music, art, fashion, makeup, the queer community, and so much more. As one of my last acts before I left Miami, I volunteered to help some college students set up a regular gathering of wannabe Blitz Kids, goths, and other teen outcasts at clubs for the same sort of fashion-show/dance hall — only this time it was the bands from Blitz we grooved to.

Suffice to say that if you were part of the New Romantic scene or just loved the bands that came from it, you will appreciate this documentary’s insights, no matter where you lived or who you were (or pretended to be) in 1980. If Steve Strange could have been more involved in this, it would have been flawless — but thankfully Rusty Egan, Gary Kemp, Boy George, and the Blitz Irregulars stood in his stead and paid tribute to Egan and Strange’s beautiful moment.

Inside the Blitz Club, Covent Garden 1981, by Dick Scott-Stewart. That’s Michelle Clapton, top left.
Posted on by chasinvictoria

Godzilla ゴジラ (1954, dir. Ishiro Hōnda)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½
52-week film challenge, film 32

I don’t think I’ve ever seen the full Japanese version of Godzilla before, certainly not as an adult, but of course I’ve seen the Americanised “Raymond Burr” version — Godzilla: King of the Monsters! — a time or 10. Like many people, I climbed aboard the kaiju train as a kid, when all these great monster movies started showing up on TV on the weekends, so I caught most of them back then. TV stations at the time of course tended to show the later colour films which were more aimed at kids, so I don’t think I’ve even gotten around to seeing Godzilla Raids Again (1955) either, a grievous mistake that should be corrected soon.

The first Godzilla is most definitely not a kid’s movie: it is a lightly-abstracted but still powerful statement on the horrors of nuclear weapons, and a philosophical exercise pondering where Japan (and the world) goes from here. In this film, Godzilla is the spawn of the atomic bomb — and wreaks similar terror on Tokyo as the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki did, with incredible loss of life and property.

When the film was made, postwar Japan was still wrestling with the consequences of its own actions in WWII, just eight years earlier, as well as the devastating and overwhelming American response, which was to destroy entire cities full of innocent civilians (about a quarter million in total) — the greatest act of deliberate mass-murder had seen at the time, until the full horror of the Holocaust was revealed. The Godzilla creature in this first movie was intended to be seen as an utterly terrifying and unstoppable force, even though even I have to admit the face they gave it is … unintentionally kind of cute.

Hi kids! It’s your old pal, Godzilla! Don’t do drugs, and stay in school! See ya later!

The B&W cinematography of Godzilla is terrific, and the cast are first-rate: from venerated actor Takashi Shimura (best known as the leader of The Seven Samurai, but also featured in Roshomon, Ikiru, Yojimbo, The Hidden Fortress and many more classic films, here playing the pacifist scientist Kyohei Yamane) to relative newcomer Akira Takarada (playing the hero role of Ogata), Akihiko Hirata as the anti-hero scientist Serizawa, and the radiant Momoko Kôchi as Emiko Yamane, Kyohei’s daughter — a role she reprised in her last film, 1995’s Godzilla vs. Destroyah. All the players, from the greatest to the smallest roles, are played with deep conviction and seriousness.

I will take an indulgent moment here to note my deep fondness for the fashion of the 1950s — everyone in the film looks fantastic, with the men in suits or lab coats, police and military in sharp uniforms, and Emiko in fashionable garments of the time, with everyone looking smart and well-groomed. It’s a reminder of one element of the world gone by I wish would make a comeback, even as I myself fail to adhere to it.

(L-R) Emiko, Dr Serazawa, Dr Yamane, Ogata

The compositing in the film should also be noted, as it is considerably above-average for the time. I caught only one moment in the film where the effect wobbled a bit — some power-line fortifications meant to stop Godzilla — but was otherwise nearly flawless. The moment when Godzilla’s head pops up over a mountain being approached by scientists is a perfect example: though it might be seen as amusing now, it was undoubtedly surprising and convincing in showing Godzilla’s scale early on in the film.

The analogy of the war that had recently devastated Japan couldn’t be more clear: while the authorities work feverishly to stop this new threat (also featuring lots of scenes of how Japan has rebuilt its civil defenses), nothing is effective against Godzilla. Dr Yamane is the lone voice calling for a less militaristic approach and for studying the creature, but doesn’t really have an answer on how to balance his wishes against the safety of the population. Emiko discovers that her other admirer, Serizawa, may have a way to stop Godzilla — but is too scared to use it, lest the secret of his super-destructive weapon fall into the wrong (or anyone else’s) hands.

This film has a lot of tension and conflict in it, with no comedic elements at all, and a lovely slow buildup of the conflict. Godzilla first attacks some ships at sea while remaining hidden underwater, eventually emerges to wreak havoc on land, and with no effective defense, the country is helpless as many are killed or injured (the scenes of attack survivors in hospital are pretty heart-rending), unveiling not only huge size and strength, but also “atomic breath” that incinerates everything on contact (oh wait, now I get it — Godzilla is the US!).

Emiko and her true love interest Ogata eventually convince the very conflicted Serizawa to use his “Oxygen Destroyer” technology to attack Godzilla underwater (also killing all sea life in the area), but you can see where the film is going from here — there is no solution without great tragedy and wasted opportunities. In the end (in real life, not the film), the point of view of Dr Yamane won out — Japan today strongly embraces nuclear power for its energy needs, but has shunned becoming a nuclear (weapon) power as you might expect, despite being surrounded by countries that do have nukes.

This film, thought of today as the start of the “giant monster movie” genre, was so powerful and effective in its analogy that it may well have helped convince the west to avoid using atomic weapons thereafter. The original Japanese version of Godzilla is a much darker, more thoughtful, and overall deeper film than the lighter, more entertaining genre it spawned, and was undoubtedly effective on both sides of the Pacific in its day. It was a serious attempt to illustrate the terror of atomic weapons — which thankfully haven’t been used since, though the world is still plagued with senseless wars.

Posted on by chasinvictoria · 1 Comment

The Raven (1963, dir. Roger Corman)

⭐️⭐️½
52-week film challenge, film 31

From the 50s and into the early 60s, Roger Corman was churning out hit-or-miss exploitation films and grind house movies. In 1960, having established a reliable reputation, he opted to do something a little different — making House of Usher based on the book by Edgar Allan Poe. The screenplay was written by Richard Matheson, art direction by Daniel Haller, and the film starred Vincent Price.

It was a critical and commercial hit, and thus the same team made another Poe-based film in 1961, The Pit and the Pendulum, and again it was a hit. In all, Corman made eight movies based on the works of Poe, with only one of them (The Premature Burial, made for a different production company) not starring Vincent Price, but rather Ray Milland.

When making Tales of Terror in 1962, the tale “The Black Cat” inspired Corman and his team to make a movie out of Poe’s famous poem, “The Raven.” In a signature move, he re-used the sets created for The Raven in his next film, The Terror (which was not part of the Poe Cycle, as the Poe-based films became known collectively). Once again, Matheson provided a script, Haller the art direction, and Vincent Price the lead — though this time, Corman brought in Boris Karloff as one of the villains, with Peter Lorre as a rival to both.

Because the segment “The Black Cat” in Tales was comedic in nature, Matheson and Corman opted to make “The Raven” a comedy as well. Although there are amusing moments throughout the film, the comedy largely falls flat because, in my view, Corman was, at least at this point, not competent at comedic timing.

Price plays Dr Erasmus Craven, a wizard and expert at “gesture magic,” who has rejected the Brotherhood of Magicians in preference to leading a quiet, nearly solitary life. His only company is his daughter Estelle (Olive Sturgess), and a coachman he employs. One evening, a raven raps at the window, Craven lets him in, and discovers the raven can talk — and is in fact another wizard, the pugnacious (and, as it turns out, alcoholic) Dr Bedlo (Lorre). With Bedlo’s nagging, Craven crafts a potion to restore him to human form, having been transformed in the first place by Dr Scarabus (Karloff), another wizard of gesture magic and other skills.

The trained raven in this film is *amazing*.

Bedlo recruits a reluctant Craven to return to Scarabus’ castle (the exterior itself reused from House of Usher, and very visibly composited into this film) to help him finish the duel. Craven’s coachman is taken over by Scarabus from afar and attacks the party, but recovers after a protracted axe-attack scene. Instead, Bedlo enlists his son Rexford (Jack Nicholson) to be the coachman, but as the journey begins Rexford is also controlled by Scarabus and nearly drives the coach off the cliffs. He recovers in time to bring the carriage to Scarabus’ castle.

Scarabus greets his guests as a perfect gentlemen, trying to undo his reputation and greeting Craven as a long-lost colleague. Bedlo, who has been rude, aggressive, and belligerent throughout the picture, demands that the duel resume, and sets about demonstrating his style of artifact-based magic, calling up a storm. Scarabus secretly gestures to intensify the storm, eventually directing a lightning bolt to strike Bedlo, destroying him.

Literally the only “magical” thing Dr Bedlow is seen to do in the entire movie.

The shocked party adjourn for the evening, being offered hospitality by Scarabus until the storm passes. Rexford, who saw what Scarabus did to bring about Bedlo’s destruction, hides in Estelle’s room, but they quickly find themselves prisoner when the door is magically locked. Rexford uses a window and the castles ledges to make his way over to Craven’s room, convincing him that Scarabus is not the charming and gentle man he seems to be.

On the way to confront Scarabus, Rexford discovers his father still alive, unharmed, and hiding. Bedlo confesses the entire plot thus far was staged to bring Craven to Scarabus so that the latter could duel against his closest rival, Craven. Meanwhile, Craven discovers that his “dead” wife Lenore (Hazel Court), for whom he has been grieving for two years, is in fact not dead, but feigned death to become Scarabus’ mistress.

Utterly not-dead Lenore (Hazel Court).

Thus, the duel is on, with the two wizards seated in fancy chairs, attacking each other magically in turn. This is by far the best part of the picture, with various practical as well as optical effects (but not really much in the way of imagination) used effectively. Bedlo, who has now decided to become a raven again, redeems his treachery by aiding Craven, leaving his son Rexford to woo the fair Estelle, and despite Scarabus’s castle and magic being destroyed as a result, even he and Lenore survive (for no good reason). All’s well that ends well.

This movie isn’t terrible, but it is … not good. Lorre’s character is just plain obnoxious, and apparently the actor ad-libbed himself a few extra lines throughout the film, leading to he and “son” Jack Nicholson not getting along, and rubbing the ailing Karloff the wrong way as well. Karloff and Price are excellent, with Price in particular showing off his effortless style and charm, which is why he’s the star of nearly all of these Poe films.

Although there are some occasional moments that might bring a smile, mostly from Lorre’s rude outbursts, there is not one single laugh to be found in this “comedy” at all, and I’m putting that on Corman’s very flat and hands-off direction. The plot is convoluted and contrived, and its pretty shocking to think that Richard Matheson had anything to do with it, but as with Corman, movie comedy just didn’t seem to be his strong suit at this point.

I often found myself watching the sets (which make the film look at lot more expensive than it was) as much as the actors, though some of the dead-body effects (for Craven’s father in particular, but also for the fake dead “Lenore”) were quite effective. Sturgess and Nicholson are merely perfunctory in their roles, while Hazel Court chews the scenery whenever she gets the chance.

Once the scene shifts to Scarabus’ castle, the film becomes more watchable, particularly the duel, but it doesn’t overcome the “failed attempt at camp humour” vibe of the overall film. The other Corman Poe films, such as Masque of the Red Death, are much better and still recommended, despite being very much of their filmmaking era.

Posted on by chasinvictoria

Barbie (2023, dir. Greta Gerwig)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

52-week film challenge, film 30

Barbie is a fun (and much funnier than I expected) movie that takes some time to make some serious points that are top-of-mind for many people these days. What’s amazing about this film is that it also finds time to address the men in the audience, given that woman are pretty obviously its main focus.

I can certainly see why some repressed critics have brainlessly labeled the film as “too woke,” but given its box office, their silence about the consequences of being woke, i.e. going broke, is pretty deafening.

The last thing in the world I would have expected from a movie about Barbie was a really rather deep dive into both modern society and mental health. I’m hopeful that this film won’t age well over the coming decades, because that would mean we’ve made some evolutionary progress as humans. Sadly, I suspect it will be standard viewing for many years to come, and not for lack of trying.

Barbie is roughly divided into three acts: setting up the status quo in Barbie-land, disrupting that status quo via a visit to the “real world,” and finally a Busby Berkeley entertainment extravaganza about putting it all back together, only with some important lessons learned.

As a Ken … I mean, man … I’m probably not very qualified to talk about the second and third acts too much, since they are so obviously and squarely aimed at both full-grown women as well as girls. But of course, as a man, I will do so anyway.

From my perspective, a few elements of the “awakening” parts of the film are laid on a little thick, but always with some good humour behind them. But of course I would think that, since the Kens are (correctly) lacking much in the way of depth, and blunder through the stuff that should have provided them with more enlightenment about themselves.

Despite this, I did manage to grok that some of the points made needed to be hammered home hard, and not for my benefit — rather, for the benefit of women of nearly any age. While society has certainly made some progress over recent decades, this movie shows that there is still a long and multi-vehicle sparkly process before us.

So, like the film itself, let’s switch back to the more fun parts for a bit. I really enjoyed the Barbie nostalgia and the self-effacing discontinued Barbies, Kens, and pal dolls that pop up routinely in the film. The set designs and Barbie/Ken variety in Barbieland are note-perfect, and it was especially fun (for me) seeing future “Doctor Who” star Ncuti Gatwa as one of the secondary rank of Kens behind Ryan Gosling — Gatwa didn’t get much in the way of lines, but he got a surprising amount of screen time and made for a great other-Ken.

Repeated references to Midge and Allan (and yes, Skipper and even Growing Up Skipper, among others) really added to the humour, the accessories and their cameos, and the significant role Mattel itself plays in the film (even making fun of its own paucity of female CEOs and board members) surprised and delighted me. I found it very interesting that the Mattel board ends up ultimately doing the right thing in the film, but for all the wrong reasons.

Allan’s movie hair is parted on the “wrong” side compared to the actual doll, but at least his wardrobe is straight out of the box.

After a lengthy introduction to Barbie World and how static it is, Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) begins to have dark thoughts and other little breakdowns because of a mental link to the (former) little girl who played with her in the real world. She starts to perceive Barbieland as an artifice, and after a consultation with Weird Barbie (scene-stealing Kate McKinnon), she journeys into the real world to find her former playmate and fix what’s wrong.

Only things don’t go according to plan: for starters, lovestruck Ken sneaks into the car and accompanies her on her journey, immediately discovering (and falling in love with) the patriarchal society that allows for only token advances by women every now and again. It turns out Ken has a surprising number of issues for a guy with no penis.

Barbie eventually finds a sullen, self-aware tween girl named Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt) who’s mad at basically everything in her world, and her struggling single mother Gloria (America Ferrara), who as it turns out is the former little girl who owned Stereotypical Barbie. After the usual disbelief at the circumstances, they resolve to return to Barbieland to put things right — but Mattel’s board has gotten wind of Barbie’s return, so a Screwball Chase™ is required, giving Ken (armed with books about patriarchy and men’s history) time to get back to Barbieland first.

When Barbie, Sasha, and Gloria finally arrive in Barbieland, it has been renamed “Kendom,” and the Kens are in charge, and strangely fixated on brewskis and horses. The Barbies have all been brainwashed into being Stepford Wives, essentially (and yes, I’m old enough that I consider this movie something of a remake of it).

Our heroes are at first dismayed by this, but again thanks to Yoda (sorry, I mean Weird Barbie), they work out a plan to disrupt the patriarchy from within. But will things just go back to being what they were before, as the Mattel board (who have followed along) want? That’s what sets up the third act.

The Mattel board of directors, horrified to learn that Barbie is present in the real world, give chase on Venice Beach in California — the nexus point between our world and Barbieland.

Without giving the whole thing away, following the ensuing hi-jinks and reset and a lot of feminine self-enlightenment as the Barbies are de-programmed (and the Kens, in a way), everyone gets at least some of what they want. Ken breaks his dependency on Barbie’s approval, Barbie (the main one, that is) becomes a “real” woman, and the Mattel board get some hot new and more-relevant variations to sell.

It’s not a perfect happy ending, and the Kens are left a bit adrift (and still in a matriarchal society, but somewhat more balanced this time), but both the other Barbies and the Kens become more self-aware, and realise the Big Lesson that happiness can only come from within, not from other people, and that means becoming a whole person.

And then the closing credits finally bring out a version of the insipid hit “I’m a Barbie Girl” song, along with a hit parade of actual WTF Mattel alternate dolls and accessories, including a pooping dog and innumerable outfits that were actually sold across the long history of Barbie. I should mention that Rhea Perlman of all people pops up in the film in small but a very important role, and it was super-nice to see her.

Ths scene is from the beginning of the movie, and this was all it took for me to know I’d enjoy myself. No spoilers, but this one’s for the film buffs.

If you’re going to make a “super-woke” film about female empowerment in a patriarchal society, this is how you do it: with a lot of cleverness and laughs and bright colours and goofy characters. You might even learn something … even if you’re a Ken.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to buy a Weird Barbie, and a Ncuti Gatwa Ken.

Inspired by the film, someone built an actual Barbie Dreamhouse on the California coast, and turned it into an AirBnB.
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El Fantasma de Convento/The Phantom of the Convent (1934)

dir. Fernando de Fuentes
⭐️⭐️⭐️½
52-week film challenge, film 29

This film, often retitled in the US as Phantom of the Monestary because sexism, is a good old-fashioned ghost story for adults, made in Mexico in the mid-1930s, that’s nice and creepy. By today’s standards, it moves a bit slowly, but it lays on the atmosphere nice and thick, just like I like it.

It was largely forgotten for decades because of its paucity of “jump scares” or relatively little body horror, or maybe because it’s not dumb, nor does it have El Santo anywhere in it (he was a teenager when this came out, perhaps he saw it and thought to himself “I could do that … wearing a mask!”). Happily, it was rediscovered thanks to a Blu-ray release in 2022, and has taken its place as a well-regarded classic of early Mexican horror.

It’s just a good creepy morality tale, perhaps a touch too heavy-handed, but the surprises are spaced out just right to keep you roped into the story, and the use of lighting, cinematography, and non-music sound are superb (more about the music later). There’s also a lot of silence in this, as befits a movie that mostly takes place in the Convent of Silence.

Our three leads: (L-R) Eduardo, Alphonso, and Cristina.

A married couple, Eduardo (Carlos Villatoro) and Cristina (Marta Roel), and Eduardo’s best friend Alphonso (Enrique del Campo), find themselves lost in the woods and, as the film opens, Eduardo has slipped off a ravine edge and is hanging on for dear life as Christina and Alphonso rescue him in a nice bit of foreshadowing. It’s obvious right from the get-go that Eduardo is kind of a wimp in the eyes of Cristina, who has the hots for Alphonso, and the feeling appears to be mutual — though they try to behave honourably, even though Eduardo is obviously aware of the flirting.

Once he’s back up and on his feet, they hope to find shelter in a nearby convent, only to run into a mysterious monk-like figure and his large dog Shadow (although the stranger is not named, it is Brother Rodrigo, returning to the convent). He leads them to the convent, then (of course) disappears inexplicably.

The lights are on in the convent, but at first there appears to be nobody home. Eventually the Prior (a wonderfully wizened Paco Martinez) appears, explaining that the other monks have taken vows of silence, and welcoming the trio to stay the night and find their way back in the morning. Walking through the convent, our heroes notice various oddities, such as how old-fashioned the monks appear to be, including a self-flagellating monk (in shadow), and a tumbled cabinet near a room that Alphonso attempts to straighten, but which reverts the moment his back is turned.

The “wandering around” part is reprised a few times, including once where our heroes come across a room with a dozen or so open – and empty – coffins. They also come across a door to one of the cells that is blocked, and has a huge crucifix nailed to it – to keep something out, or to lock something in?

Before they can ask any questions, they are invited to share a meal with the monks. The atmosphere is thick with tension, which only ratchets up when the convent is attacked by unseen forces, which moves the monks into action. Our trio follows along discreetly, as the monks reassemble in a “battle station” of sorts to try and fend off the unseen horror through vigorous prayer. The threat passes, and the trio quickly return to the dining room — only to find that all the bowls of soup they were eating before are full of ash now — until the monks return to the room.

The one monk who is allowed to speak but previously didn’t want to talk much returns to the dining hall and speaks mysteriously (of course) about the brothers and the threat they face. He relates a story about Brother Rodrigo that has a direct parallel to the adulterous triangle of our hapless heroes. Rodrigo lusted for his best friend’s wife, eventually murdering his friend and subsequently was consumed with guilt, returning to the convent to unsuccessfully atone for his sins. The blocked cell with the giant crucifix is, you guessed it, Rodrigo’s cell.

The door to Brother Rodrigo’s cell.

All three of our protagonists seem enraptured with the story and feel that they are under a spell of some kind, but in particular Cristina appears to (and even articulates) be most influenced by the events in a strange way – seemingly getting more and more aroused by the events they are witnessing. When the three are escorted to their three separate cells (it is a convent, after all), she goes immediately to Alphonso and makes allusions that she is as ready as she’ll ever be to consummate their relationship (it is the 1930s, after all). Alphonso is also ready, but finds the willpower to resist her under the spooky circumstances, which angers Cristina.

The mystery deepens, weirder things happen, and the film slowly builds to a deliciously scary climax (not involving Cristina, har har) in which Alphonso wrestles with his guilt, and his temptation, and works his way into Rodrigo’s cell, where the mummified body of the monk still resides, and he encounters an undead version of Eduardo and a book that drips blood, and is tortured by visions before collapsing.

Cristina and Alphonso confront their adulterous hearts

He awakes in the morning, gathers his friends (who are all okay), and they hurriedly try to leave. There’s a great denouement where they discover a caretaker (Jose I. Rocha), who doesn’t believe a word of their adventure and shows them the reality of the place, which has been abandoned for centuries. Was it all a shared hallucination, time travel, or what?

If you are in the mood for an old-fashioned ghost story, if you enjoyed the Mexican version of Dracula, or if you just appreciate well-shot, moodily-lit horror films like Frankenstein, you’re likely to enjoy The Phantom of the Convent as well. The biggest flaw in the film, in my view, is the sometimes-histrionic and mostly-stock soundtrack, which tries far too hard and too often to built tension or suggest a climactic moment that, until the film’s actual pinnacle arrives, is ill-suited to this gentler horror movie. Thankfully, it’s not there all the time, and when a genuinely climactic scene does finally appear, the music is finally ready for it.

The mummified body of Rodrigo points to a book dripping with blood, in the wonderfully creepy climax.

I think the film holds up very well, particularly given that it was made in the 1930s, though viewers should be aware that the influence of Catholicism in Mexico was strongly dominant at the time. Even better, it’s left hanging as to the ultimate fates of the three friends, though it would appear the lust factor has been forgive me – exorcised from Alphonso and Cristina.

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The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Dirs: Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic
52-film challenge, film 28

As an adult, I can see a few problems here and there that I will of course comment on momentarily — but basically your kids will probably love this, as will most teens and adults that are old enough to remember Donkey Kongand Super Mario Brothers games they played as a kid. This is the first kid‘s film I’ve seen in a long time that I think children will wear out the Blu-ray of from repeated viewings.

You can safely forget any previous attempts at bringing these characters to life in a film, especially that 1993 thing — this one gets it right for the first time. As far as current-generation Mario fans are concerned, this film is damn near perfect — and its biggest flaw, if you can call it that, is that is so busy packing in references that the story sometimes takes a back seat to other events, and that’s okay.

The movie represents a huge jump in quality from the previously third-rate Illumination animation firm, thanks to a wealth of pre-designed characters and an obviously huge software upgrade. Up till now I have pretty much loathed everything they’ve done, particularly Despicable Film (my title for it) and the introductions of the incredibly lazy (and Pixar-“inspired”) Minions. It was like their mission was to make children stupider via inducing attention-deficit disorder.

I’ve seen some reviews from adults that the movie is still too superficial and fast-paced, but in part thanks to Illumination’s previous work, that’s what kids want. Besides, the “lore” of this movie is very well-established in the video games, so there’s no need to go over all that, you just accept the situation and welcome Mario and Luigi’s extended family. Directors of Batman and/or Superman movies, pay attention.

Since I also am an adult — most of the time — I also have a few minor criticisms, but before I get to that the first thing that should be said is that this is what kids/family cartoon computer animation should look like if your name isn’t Pixar/Disney: Incredibly colourful, true-to-the-characters design, followed through for new/additional characters, gorgeous locations, and of course — very little regard for the laws of physics.

The biggest letdown for me was that Mario and Luigi didn’t retain their “fauxtalian” accents throughout the movie, but I can also see how that might offend real-world Italians if they did it through the entire film. This is explained in the film as being exaggerated for the purposes of a TV commercial the brothers make (so you do indeed get to hear Mario say “it’s-a me!”), but except for occasionally remembering to say “Mama Mia,” and of course “Woohoo” a lot, mostly it sounds like Chris Pratt being a New Yorker.

Charlie Day as Luigi does a better job, but the movie is stolen voice-wise by the far-better-cast Jack Black as Bowser, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, and Seth Rogan and Fred Armisen as the two main Donkey Kong characters.

Considering many of these characters started off as pixelated bits, the character design is excellent, and instantly “feels” like this is the way the characters should look, even though technically they only got to this point through generations of iteration as the console game technology improved. Likewise, this is a level of background and “set” work we have never seen from Illumination previously, and even the jokes work most of the time.

Princess Peach and Toad prepare for the big race

The film starts off in what passes for “the real world” and, after a funny scene of the brothers failing as real-world plumbers on their first big job, they discover a pipe that leads to what we’ll call Mario World with the characters we know and love. The rest of the movie builds out from the premise of Bowser wanting to marry Princess Peach by force, threatening the peace of the various kingdoms and Mario (& Luigi, who has a much smaller role of mostly being the victim that needs rescuing) arrive just in time to help the Princess and her people fight back.

In short, this movie is one I’ve rated highly because it absolutely achieves what it sets out to do, which is to flesh out Mario World, establish the underlying lore, and defeat the enemy, and looks good doing it. The frantic pacing will perhaps annoy some adults, but there are plenty of reference-checks for us Mario veterans to appreciate, especially if you loved Mario Racing. It’s no classic film-wise, but it will absolutely take its place as a go-to kids’ movie the whole family can enjoy.

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The Color of Pomegranates (1969, dir. Sergei Parajanov)

⭐️⭐️⭐️½
52-week film challenge, film 25

With most commercial movies, you can walk into the cinema not needing to know much about the subject and still enjoy (or hate) them, either because they explain the story within the film or some portion of needed background knowledge is communicated to you through the promotion or trailer or title of the film. Most movies touch on universal themes in their tales, or reference moments in time that are reflective of those periods, and what I’m trying to say here is that most of us have some frame of reference heading into a given film.

Not so much with The Color of Pomegranates. I watched this thing completely cold. Big mistake. After viewing it, I then had to go back and watch no less than five short documentaries about it to really get a fix on what the hell it was I’d seen.

So why did I watch it at all? Because it kept showing up on Sight & Sound’s list of some of the greatest movies ever made, that’s why. If you’ve seen another such film, the unconventional sci-fi flick La Jetée, this might remind you of it in its unconventional, idiosyncratic presentation — but that’s where the comparison ends.

With as many films as I’ve watched at this point (hundreds, maybe even a thousand), it’s pretty shocking when one comes along that throws me a complete curveball. Not an unpleasant shock, mind you; more intriguing than annoying. This is a really innovative and thus important use of film as art, but if you don’t have the aforementioned frame of refererance to understand where it’s coming from, it’s pretty bewildering for its hour and 20-minute run time.

So what we have here is an attempt by director Sergei Parajanov to illustrate the life and times of a heroic 18th-century Armenian poet, who went by the name Sayat-Nova (though he was born as Harutyun Sayatyan). To give you the shortest possible backstory, he was mostly an ashugh — a poet and bard who recites or sings their poetry while accompanying themselves on an instrument; similar to a troubadour. He remains a very influential cultural figure in Armenian history, though he is celebrated also in the countries of Georgia and Azerbaijan, since he spoke and composed in all three languages, and wandered freely among them.

What Parajanov did that makes this film so flummoxing to anyone not steeped in both Armenian culture as well as the dominant Catholicism in that region of the world is that he didn’t attempt any sort of conventional narrative film structure at all. Instead, Parajanov attempts to illustrate “the mind of the poet” through a series of active tableaux, some virtually still and others in motion, illustrating ideas and motifs taken from both Sayat-Nova’s life as well as his compositions. Living photographs, dripping with symbolism but also reminding me of artful dreams.

So you kinda have to take at least a crash-course on this tri-national folk hero and his writings before any of this is imbued with meaning. Thankfully, Parajanov does follow the life of Sayat-Nova pretty much linearly, starting with his birth and going to through to the end of his life, utilizing his own visual symbology to accompany Sayat-Nova’s own poetic metaphors and allegories.

The areas covered include Childhood, Youth, the Prince’s Court (where Sayat-Nova falls in love for the first time), The Monastery, The Dream, Old Age, The Angel of Death, and Death. There are title cards that let you know where you are in his life story, but again you still need to have a knowledge and appreciation of Sayat-Nova’s life and work to translate what you are seeing.

So what are you seeing? Artfully-created scenes, usually without dialogue at all, of actors dressed in beautiful Aremenian costumes, posed or interacting with other symbolic objects. Many are shot on a box-like set meant to represent Armenian illuminated miniatures, which are little hand-crafted, three-dimensional picture boxes. It would seem dreadfully pretentious if it wasn’t all so earnest.

There is sound throughout, and some singing later on, and as the subject of the film moves into adulthood, the film relies more heavily on location shooting around various ancient monasteries in the three countries where Sayat-Nova mostly lived, including the one where he spent the last 20 years of his life (and where he is buried).

As an almost unique cinematic language, Parajanov should get five stars, but I originally deducted two of them for a couple of reasons. The fifth star went for having to know so very much backstory before you should even be allowed to watch this film — let’s just say it wasn’t intended for the wider distribution it eventually got. The fourth star was removed for the lack of clues as to how to interpret what you’re seeing — there’s no explanation at the beginning that Sayat-Nova’s story will be told in visual metaphors and allegories, only that the film is about him.

One of the most striking images in the film, and that’s saying a lot because there are many memorable images in this film.

I put a half-star back because, despite the requirements to understand the film, a story about a poet of such influence probably should be told in an unconventional way. Once you finally understand what Parajanov is doing, and what some of the symbolism means, it still doesn’t make full sense, but you appreciate much better the use of a completely different visual “language” within this visual medium.

Thankfully, I discovered after screening the film that the Criterion Channel has what they call a “collection” to go with the movie, including a commentary track on the film which I will avail myself of if I ever re-watch it, and the previously-mentioned documentaries that range from a profile of the director, to a potted history of Sayat-Nova, to a literal “decoding” video to help with the translation of the visual imagery.

It must be said that those documentaries helped me enormously in moving from “what the hell was that?” to an appreciation for the unconventional way I learned a lot about the central subject, his poetry, his background, and some core Armenian-Georgian-Azerbaijanian history and cultural influence, both from Sayat-Nova and his religion of choice. My brain feels bigger now.

It turns out the film was originally titled simply Sayat-Nova, but the title was changed when Russian censors thought the style of filmmaking was a little too difficult, though they only cut a small portion of the film and rearranged a few scenes. Indeed, Parajanov was later jailed by the Russians for his later work.

That said, pomegranates do indeed contribute meaningful metaphors that are less difficult to understand, especially in the clever use of their blood-red juice. I did not know until afterwards that the flow of the juices in some white-linen tabletop scenes are deliberately controlled to “draw” a map of the region, and in other instances to make a commentary on sexual desire, and on war.

As glad as I am to have been challenged in this way, and to have seen a film this unusual, I find it very difficult to recommend it to most others. I can think of a few academic friends (and one particular Russian history buff I know) who might be interested, but this is absolutely not a film the average person not familiar with that region of the world would want to just put on because one enjoys the aforementioned fruit.

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The Thief of Bagdad (1940, multiple directors)

⭐️⭐️⭐️½
52-week film challenge, film 24

I had previously seen clips from this version of the story, but never saw the entire film until now. I have to say I like it a great deal less than the 1924 version with Douglas Fairbanks (Senior), but this first colour production was a huge technological achievement for its time, even though — what with the breakout of World War II, and no less than five directors, along with various other issues — this version is mostly successful at what it sets out to do, but is also a bit of a hot mess.

You have to respect the ground-breaking effects (including the first use of what is now called Chromakey), the brilliant sets, the beautiful location photography (a mix of London and California, the latter being used after the war broke out), the lovely set pieces, and the gorgeous three-strip Technicolour process. It won Academy Awards for cinematography, art direction, and special effects, and was nominated for its music (the latter by the great Miklós Rózsa after a false start by Oscar Straus).

Because of the various problems during production, original director Ludwig Berger and Berger’s choice of composer (Straus) were eventually replaced primarily by Michael Powell. Powell also had to leave the production before its completion due to the war, and American Tim Whelan directed nearly all of the latter half’s outdoor scenes in California with assistance from the Korda brothers. You can already see why the film, as entertaining and gorgeous as it turned out, doesn’t always hang together.

The story, which has also gone by the name Aladdin and variations thereof for many film versions, was first made into a film in 1905 and across the 20th century (and into the 21st, with Disney’s live action remake of its own 1992 animated Aladdin). The core story is often said to be drawn from the medieval collection of Middle Eastern tales known as One Thousand and One Nights, but this is somewhat inaccurate. The Aladdin tale specifically (along with the Ali Baba tales) was added to the collection from other sources by the 17th-century European translator of the tales, Antoine Galland.

Producer Alexander Korda was inspired to do this movie by the 1924 silent version, but changed the story pretty substantially — as just one example, making the thief and the King two separate characters. If you don’t know the 1924 version like I do, this is a mostly-successful telling that tries to combine some variations of the tale into a coherent whole, and mostly does it quite well.

It is certainly a fine family film with enough fantasy to hold its audience even now, though I’m very glad they changed direction from its intended “full blown musical” idea. Three songs are still in the film, but apart from Abu’s solo song, they don’t disrupt the story.

The film opens brilliantly, as a blind beggar in ancient Basra along with his faithful dog companion tells the first part of the film’s tale in flashback. He tells of a young and naive King Ahmad of “Bagdad” (John Justin), who wants to learn more about the people he rules, so he is persuaded to go undercover by his evil Grand Vizier, Jaffar ((the great Conrad Veidt, who completely steals every scene he’s in).

King Ahmad (John Justin) and Jaffar (Conrad Veidt), his Grand Vizier

Once Ahmad is out of the castle and pretending to be a humble beggar, Jaffar has him arrested, and thrown in prison — later telling the people that Ahmad died, so Jaffar can claim the throne. Ahmad meets a young thief while in his cell called Abu (played by then 15-year-old Sabu Dastagir, who just went by “Sabu” in his film career).

Abu, a carefree youth, disbelieves his cell mate is the king at first, but befriends Ahmad — and pickpocketed the key to the cell so they could escape. They flee to Basra, where Ahmad spots the princess (June Duprez) and immediately falls in love with her. However, Jaffar is also in Basra and trying to win the Princess through other means — flattering her father, the Sultan (Miles Malleson, also one of the writers of the film), with life-size toys — the Sultan’s obsession. Malleson is another highlight, a wonderfully child-like old man played to perfection.

Jaffar seals the deal by giving the Sultan a mechanical flying horse, but in the meantime the princess and Ahmad have met, and the attraction is now mutual and she escapes the palace. Enraged, Jaffar uses his magical powers to blind Ahmad, and turn Abu into a dog. The princess is recaptured, but falls into “a deep sleep” and cannot be awakened.

You can see here how the Chromakey stuff is VERY primitive and doesn’t always match well.

Ahmad, still blind, is eventually tricked into returning to the palace, where he awakens the princess, and is then dismissed, along with his dog Abu. We return to the dock where we first met them, as he concludes his story — but the adventure quickly continues as the Princess is tricked into boarding Jaffar’s ship.

Now a prisoner, Jaffar tells her that his curses on Ahmad and Abu can only be lifted by her embracing him, which she very reluctantly does out of love for Ahmad. The spells are lifted, and Ahmad spots her and sets after the ship along with the now-human-again Abu. Jaffar sees them a bit later, and raises a storm that shipwrecks their small dinghy, then returns to Basra and uses a mechanical dancing goddess toy to kill the Sultan before returning to Baghdad.

He does TRY to woo Princess Noname, but ultimately has to resort to threats and hypnosis, of course.

Meanwhile, by sheer lucky coincidence, Abu finds a bottle on the deserted beach and opens it, revealing a very temperamental and gigantic genie (Rex Ingram). Ingram handles the role as best he can, but he’s just not very convincing — and the effects regarding the size differences between him and Abu, though imaginative, aren’t generally carried off well enough to continue the suspension of disbelief.

The scaling effects work reasonable well, but Genie’s performance is uneven (and you should see his toenails! Ayieee!)

Still, the influence of this film on later filmmakers like Ray Harryhausen simply cannot be overstated — this is the blueprint he and others followed for decades to come when it came to imaginative tales of fantasy. In addition to Harryhausen, Terry Gilliam’s best films are also clearly influenced by this movie.

The genie helps Abu steal a magical jewel from a faraway temple (with a Keystone Kops-esque guard squad) that helps him find and reunite with Ahmad, all of which is really well done. Abu and Ahmad use the jewel to see Jaffar hypnotizing the Princess to forget her love for Ahmad, and our hero loses hope and angers Abu — until Abu accidentally uses his third and final wish to send Ahmad back to Baghdad.

Abu then breaks his giant jewel out of anger, which introduces a handy plot device to get him also back to Baghdad via a flying carpet (very well done compared to the flying horse effects), the appearance of which triggers the population into overthrowing Jaffar, who is then killed by Abu, restoring Ahmad to power and allowing him to marry the Princess, who never did get an actual name.

Abu is offered the position of Grand Vizier to King Ahmad, but shuns any form of responsibility, re-steals the flying carpet, and heads out to more adventure. Everyone laughs, and the film concludes happily. You can almost forget how bad Sabu’s song was (he was otherwise generally excellent).

The flying carpet sequences, both in Chromakey and physical effects, work much better.

In its day, the film was a wonder and did very well at the box office. It maintains a good reputation (now as a children’s movie) to this day.

This version of The Thief of Bagdad was the template for most future special-effects-heavy fantasy films for decades to come, largely due to Larry Butler’s invention of ChromaKey, which with some later polish became the successor to the “traveling matte” techniques used in prior films.

Viewed as an adult, the physical effects are mostly great — and while the Chromakey effects are often so obvious it takes you out of the film, the alterations to the tale and a few handy plot machinations do not. Watched bearing in mind its technological and historical importance, it is still enjoyable, and well worth the 108 minute runtime.

Conrad Veidt does more acting with his eyeballs alone than most actors do with their whole body.
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The General (1926, dirs. Buster Keaton, Clyde Bruckman)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
52-week film challenge, film 23

Blah blah blah Tom Cruise blah blah stunts blah blah Mission Impossible blah blah blah. You want stunts? You want life-threatening risks? You want thrills? Buster Keaton had Tom Cruise beat, handily, nearly 100 years ago with The General. Not only that, but you’ll learn at least a dozen new ways to stop a train you probably never thought of before.

Some of what he accomplishes in this 79-minute film seriously could have killed or severely injured him, and in fact he was knocked unconscious on one occasion during the filming. Several of the spike-pulling moments in the film would have put his life in severe danger if he had mistimed his actions, and there’s a lot of cow-catcher stunt work performed with the train and boxcars moving at speeds that added a great deal of risk to the shots.

The plot is pretty typical Keaton: there’s a girl he wants, but there’s an obstacle or set of obstacles in the way, and by a combination of dumb luck and reckless foolhardiness he blunders his way into overcoming the obstacles and gets the girl. The film is based on a true story of a Civil War locomotive chase, though Keaton for reasons unclear switched the sides, believing the public would be more sympathetic to the Confederate side, thus making the Union soldiers the villains.

Perhaps this contributed to the film’s poor performance at the box office at the time, despite having an exceedingly high budget (much to the studio’s consternation). But, to be fair, every dollar of it is on screen).

In The General, Keaton is Johnnie Gray, the engineer of his beloved locomotive, and is wooing a girl from the Lee family of Marietta, Georgia (having spent a fair amount of time in Marietta, this has always been an added bonus in the film for me). When the Civil War breaks out, the father and brother of Annabelle Lee rush to enlist, as does Keaton.

When he tells the clerk he is a railroad engineer, he is deemed too valuable in that role and turned away, though he is not told why. He comes across the Lee men after being rejected, but turns down their offer to join the line, branding him a coward in their minds.

Despondent Johnnie rides the literal rail after being rejected by his girl and her family.

They tell Annabella of his cowardice, and she rejects him “until I see you in uniform.” A year later — a time lapse not made explicitly clear in the film — a gang of disguised Union operatives plan to hijack a Confederate train (guess which one) and use it to destroy bridges behind them as the travel north, cutting off the Confederate supply lines.

The ruse succeeds and strands Keaton, but he quickly finds both another locomotive and a group of Confederate soldiers to give chase — but as he pulls out, he fails to realise that the locomotive was not attached to the rail cars full of soldiers, so now it is just him chasing The General and its carful of Union saboteurs to get his train back.

And now, the plot wrinkle: Annabella was on the train being hijacked to go see her wounded-in-battle father, and unlike her fellow passengers, did not disembark the train during the dinner break, instead heading to the luggage car to retrieve something. She is thus captured by the Union hijackers, and held prisoner aboard The General.

After losing his second locomotive, he continues the chase anyway he can.

Once Johnnie discovers this some time later, he becomes determined not just to get his own locomotive back, but to rescue his girl and stop their dastardly plan. Before and up to that point, the film engages in a series of incredible stunts as the rogues engage in a series of gambits to slow or stop Keaton’s chase, believing Keaton’s train is full — once they discover it’s just the engine and him, the stunts get even more impressive, and occasionally some malarkey goes on in other locations besides the two trains.

Checking to see if the canon he was towing in his earlier attempt to catch The General was working.

Keaton’s physical stunt-work is just mind-blowing to watch, especially considering that films in those days didn’t have the luxuries of safety considerations (though they did have stunt people for some long shots, those are much fewer than you’d expect — it’s mostly all Keaton). He climbs all over that locomotive like a spider, all while the train is in motion. If you’ve seen any of his films, you know he is the undisputed master of the thrilling-comedy-stunt moment, and there’s nothing Tom Cruise or anyone else can do about it.

The rail-thin Johnnie follows the raiders to a dinner where they reveal their plan.

I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by saying it all resolves in the end, Johnnie goes from civilian engineer to decorated leiutenant thanks to a field promotion, changes his occupation to “soldier” and finally enlists properly. Of course, the Lee family witness the finale and are deeply impressed, none more so than Annabelle.

Johnnie and Annabelle after he frees her from captivity by pretending to be a Union soldier.

Although it didn’t do well at its initial box-office debut, the film has risen steadily in the minds of both critics and cinephiles, and is now widely regarded as a true classic — and still routinely places very highly in lists of the all-time greatest movies, and still boasts the single most-expensive stunt shot in silent-movie history, which forms the spectacular climax of the film. While I’m still confused as to why Keaton reversed the sides to make it a peculiarly pro-Confederate film, the stellar filmmaking and Keaton’s performance overcome that one lapse in judgement.

You will hardly believe your eyes as a full-on steam locomotive (in real life, the “Texas”) crosses a burning bridge and crashes into the river below; this is not a model shot, nor were any special effects used or needed — director Clyde Bruckman just left the wreckage there in the river bed until it was finally salvaged for scrap during WWII.

They really did build a bridge, set it on fire, then drive a train across it and plunge it into the river. For realz! No wonder it went over budget!

Apart from crowd scenes where a lot of running or marching is required, the film is mostly speed-corrected to show the actors in natural motion, and this really brings the sophisticated nature of late-silent era filmmaking to the fore. The recreated original score is also a treat, though alternative and more modern scores exist for the 4K Blu-ray release (the first silent movie released on Blu-ray, and a wise choice among many good options).

Apart from being in B&W, I believe you could show this to modern audiences and they would still find the pacing to be attention-holding, the story layered enough for today’s audiences, the humour still funny, and the stunt-work disbelieved to be as real as it actually was. It’s a mystery to me why the film isn’t a regular visitor to revival-house cinemas, or better known to this generation’s cinephiles.

I’m just glad nobody’s been dumb or reckless enough to try and remake it, because The General is truly a unique example of the best the reckless early days of American filmmaking has to offer that really holds up across its nearly 100-year history. Plus it’s a better movie than any of the Mission: Impossible series. There, I said it.

Posted on by chasinvictoria

Great Expectations (1946, dir. David Lean)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
52-week film challenge, film 21

Whether you are a fan of Dickens, or you’ve not read any of his work beyond A Christmas Carol, this is a fantastic film adaptation to offer insight into Dickens’ other work, full of strong visual language to put you in the authors’ mindset and life experiences. Great Expectations covers poverty, the working class, and injustice, but contrasts this with power, privilege and good old British eccentricity; themes Dickens constantly came back to in his other works.


As an adaptation of the book, Lean and his fellow screenwriters condense and cut some plot strands in order to make for a followable two-hour film, and made the deliberate choice to make the film in B&W rather than colour to further establish the film as being part of a bygone age. As a single film, no other version since has surpassed it.

Without trying to rehash the entire plot, an orphan named Philip Pirrup, whom absolutely everyone calls “Pip” as a single first and last name, is living with his older sister and her husband Joe, a kindly blacksmith. A chance encounter with the desperate escaped convict Abel Magwich in the graveyard of Pip’s parents and an act of kindness on Pip’s part sets in motion plot lines that will only show up much later.

In the meantime, Pip falls into the orbit of an eccentric patron, Miss Havisham, who has a macabre backstory and a young adopted daughter Estella, who is seemingly impervious to love and rather cold (and occasionally brusque), though of course young Pip falls in love with her anyway. As an adult, Estella does take on a beau but is, as Pip observes, simply using him. She explains matter-of-factly (again) to Pip that she has no heart and does this to all men — except Pip. It is a beautifully understated moment of foreshadowing where Pip finally “gets” her and what Miss Havisham has done to her.

As Pip turns 20, he discovers he has a mysterious benefactor (whom he assumes is Miss Havisham) who wants Pip trained in London to become a proper gentleman of society. Leaving his family, his patron, Estella and all he has known, he travels and meets up with a boyhood colleague, Herbert Pocket, who becomes his roommate and friend. A year later, matters come to a head as the benefactor reveals himself, setting in motion the means to resolve the various plot lines (and finally some action scenes!).

Pip (right) recognises schoolboy acquaintance Herbert Pocket, played by Alec Guinness.

A David Lean film is always beautifully shot and extremely well-directed, and this one is no exception. The B&W cinematography, apart from the opening sequence, was shot by Guy Green, who also worked with Lean on his other Dickens’ film, the even more memorable 1948 Oliver Twist. Both Alec Guinness and Martita Hunt had played their respective roles (Herbert Pocket and Miss Havisham) in a stage adapterion of the tale Guinness wrote, which prompted Lean to make the film in the first place (though he did not use Guinness’ stage script).

Lean definitely had a talent for picking and working with child actors, as both the young Pip (Anthony Wager) and the boy Herbert (John Forrest) are great in their parts, and a young Jean Simmons beautifully played the young Estella, with Valerie Hobson seamlessly taking on the adult Estella. Also of note is the ageless Frances L. Sullivan, who flawlessly played the lawyer Mr Jaggers in perfect Victorian style, but to be fair he had experience in the part — he had played the same role in a 1934 film version of Great Expectations as well!

There are only two serious errors in this film in my opinion, one of which was unavoidable: you can’t film the entire story, it would have likely doubled the running length of the film. Lean does his best to choose the best plot strands to follow, and resolves them all satisfactorily, but in truth Dickens’ lengthy storyline — it was originally written as a serial for a magazine, and the novel was originally published in three volumes — doesn’t lend itself to anything less than a mini-series.

The other flaw (and this was a big one) was casting a 38-year-old John Mills as the adult (21 year-old) Pip. I have no quibble with Mills’ excellent and emotional performance, but the age jump between the boy Pip and the (mature!) man Pip is just not credible on-screen. In a rare foot wrong, Lean should have cast a younger actor — at times, Mills looks more like 26-year-old Alec Guiness’ father than his contemporary.

A trip back to the mannered and class-centric world of Dickens’ time is probably not for everyone, even as beautifully realised as it is here, but as a picture of a bygone age (and Dickens’ clever way of pointing out the injustices and flaws of it), Great Expectations puts you right into the author’s imagination. The resolution of the film is a bit fast and tidy, but not before a series of memorable scenes in which Pip first (accidentally) destroys Miss Havisham and then forcibly prevents Estella from becoming Havisham’s prisoner — a powerful statement on the importance of finding your own way in the world, regardless of your circumstances or background.

Pip tries to love the cold, quixotic Estrella.
Posted on by chasinvictoria

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994, dir. Stephan Elliott)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
52-week film challenge, film 20

I love this movie to itty-bitty bits, I first saw it in the cinema when it came out, nearly (gulp) 30 years ago, and then again some years later — Heather thinks it must have been 2004, for the 10th anniversary, likely at The Enzian in Maitland, Florida. So it has been a while, but seeing again last night, once again in the cinema was just heavenly.

Rarely has there been a movie this utterly joyful about a subculture, and the fact that it was one of those rare LGBTQ+ films that breaks through to the mainstream makes it even more beautiful. Priscilla, which follows the exploits of three Australian big-city drag queens at different stages of their lives (one of them transgender, no less) who get a lucrative gig in a faraway town, is at its heart a buddy movie about celebrating your style and embracing your past — told with infectious glee and love.

That it features an early and very effective performance by Hugo Weaving, playing Anthony “Tick” Belrose (drag name: Mitzi Del Bra), and the magnificent Terrance Stamp as Bernadette Basenger (whose real first name is a plot point, so I won’t give it away here), well-matched by Guy Pearce as Adam Whitely (drag name: Felicia Jollygoodfellow), and all three are just perfect yet surprising casting. While Tick’s story is arguably the “main” one, both he and Bernadette are confronting (or escaping) their past in this trip, while Adam (being the youngest) opts in on the adventure to fulfill his dreams.

Our trio, out of drag (only as required, mind you).

For those unfamiliar with Australia, it’s the same size roughly as the entire US, except that all the main cities hug the coastlines, so the road trip to Alice Springs is mostly a trip through remote desert, as their destination is smack-dab in the middle of the country. Adam’s mother buys them a very used old bus, and of course they pack an absolutely ungodly amount of costumes, props, makeup, and wigs with them.

Much of the film is comedic, thanks to the outlandish public personas of the trio, and there are lots of laugh-out-loud moments that are not just caused by outrageous costuming. The comedy is beautifully balanced with much more serious moments, including major and minor homophobia, personal growth, Tick’s literal confrontation with his past, and the bus breaking down in the middle of nowhere. Happily, the outback also has some friendly folks and a boatload of quirky characters that look out for our boys (and girl) as they each complete their personal and literal journeys.

If you shriek with delight at these incredible costumes, you might just be in the community …

The humanity and relentless positivity of the main characters wins you over almost immediately, and really carries the film through its various plot points and messages. If you’re not familiar with LGBTQ+ culture, this is a great introduction even though it is ostensibly about drag performers (hint: it isn’t really — it’s about finding and celebrating your true self).

Celebrated British actor Terrance Stamp, who first made his mark in film in the 1962 classic Billy Budd, is the real revelation here. He manages to effortlessly combine dignity, wisdom, experience, patience, and humour into his nuanced and layered performance, which threatens to steal the show but never quite does until the end of the film. This film revived his status as a hell of a good actor, resulting in a wealth of new roles and renewed respect in the industry that continues to this day.

Award-winning serious actor Terrance Stamp, known for superb villain portrayals, on the right.

For a film made 30 years ago, the “wokeness” (lol) of it is pretty stunning. There is representation of good and bad heterosexual characters, open-minded adults and children, the native aboriginal population, the white colonial population, and even the desert wildlife. Years earlier, David Bowie had made a music video (“China Girl” from Let’s Dance), that similarly touches on the spirit of Australia, and I can’t help but think maybe it had a tiny influence on this movie.

You really get a feel for the dynamic of the country, since the film starts in Sydney and is also a road movie about the beauty of the desert as well. When Adam finally gets some depth (after playing “generic young queen” for most of the film) as he fulfills his dream, you feel a family has bonded and your heart would be made of stone if you didn’t celebrate their victories.

The stars do such a terrific job of capturing the theatricality and joy of drag.

On top of everything else, it’s flawlessly made and brilliantly paced. It is funny, witty, joyous and celebratory, and I will never for the life of me figure out how it did so well with the general population, becoming a hit movie in most major countries, despite it quintessential Ozzie-ness.

This film is a gift to us all. If you’ve never seen it, go see it (especially in a cinema or in high-def). If you have seen it, you’re probably overdue for a revisit. It’s a buddy movie, a road movie, a gay movie, and a universal movie all in one, and it’s simply delightful.

Warning: some “fucking Abba” finally finds its way into this film, despite a ban from Bernadette.