http://www.mountainx.com/movies/ en webmaster@mountainx.com Copyright 2013 2013-05-21T18:00:00+00:00 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/house_of_good_and_evil http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/house_of_good_and_evil#When:18:00:00Z In Brief: This year’s feature film winner of the Twin Rivers Media Festival marks the first time a horror movie has taken the prize. But David Mun’s House of Good and Evil isn’t your typical horror film. Rather, this is psychological horror about a couple trying to get their lives — and marriage — back on track in the wake of a tragedy by moving into an isolated old house in the country. What happens there isn’t at all what they expect. Not everything in the films works — it goes on too long and it cheats a bit — but it’s a well-acted, good-looking film that plays up atmosphere more than shocks. Review: David Mun’s House of Good and Evil isn’t going to set the world on fire, redefine the horror film or change the way you think about the horror genre. I doubt that was ever in anyone’s mind when they were making the film. What it is, however, is a pretty solid attempt at a handmade psychological horror film on an obviously limited budget. It’s one of those little movies that shows just how much can be accomplished with very little. This is every inch a handsome-looking movie and a well acted one — that last is very important because there are only four main characters and their performances have to carry the story. It’s not possible to say much about the story without giving away too much. The basic premise — young couple trying to make a new sta… 2013-05-21T18:00:00+00:00 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/walk_dont_run http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/walk_dont_run#When:18:00:00Z In Brief: Pack Memorial Library concludes its Cary Grant series with — appropriately enough — Grant’s last film, Walk Don’t Run. It’s an agreeable enough remake of George Stevens’ 1943 comedy The More the Merrier — moved from crowded wartime Washington to crowded Tokyo during the 1964 summer Olympics. The problem with it — from a box office standpoint — was that audiences wanted Cary Grant as a leading man, and what they got was Grant as a middle-aged businessman playing matchmaker for Jim Hutton and Samantha Eggar. It just wasn’t a popular idea, though it plays better now as a lesser tier Grant picture. Review: At the age of 61, Cary Grant decided to call it quits after Walk Don’t Run (1966). The film was an amiable remake of George Stevens’ hilariously funny The More the Merrier (1943). The original was set in Washington, DC at the height of the housing shortage caused by the war. In it, crusty old Charles Coburn talked his way into renting one half of Jean Arthur’s apartment, and then he rents half of his half to Joel McCrea. This simply moves the action to Tokyo and the housing shortage caused by the Olympics. Samantha Eggar and Jim Hutton inherited the romantic leads and top billed Grant was left with the Coburn role. The thing was nobody really wanted to see Grant play Cupid for a pair of fresh-faced leads. Bear in mind it had only been two years since he played leading man … 2013-05-21T18:00:00+00:00 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/thats_entertainment http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/thats_entertainment#When:18:00:00Z In Brief: Riding in on the last of the late 1960s/early 1970s nostalgia wave, That’s Entertainment positioned itself as a documentary about the Hollywood musical. In truth, it was a two-hour commercial for MGM that presented one seriously skewed version of film history. That’s not to say the film doesn’t include some pretty impressive (and more than a few clunker) musical numbers — all culled from the MGM library — but it presents a very small fragment of the movie musical genre as if it was the whole story. Review: I will not deny that the film That’s Entertainment (1974) works as a reasonable souvenir package of the MGM musical, but it also presents such a narrow view of the movie musical overall — all the while selling the idea that it’s the ultimate packaging of movie musicals — that I’ve never warmed to it. In fact, I’ve always rather resented its notion that MGM made the best musicals of all. Of course, since it was MGM putting the film together — and strictly from the confines of its own library — that was to be expected. But as a die-hard admirer of the musical film, I feel the need to cry foul. Where are the great Astaire-Rogers dances? Well, they’re not here because those all came from RKO. Instead, we get footage from their one MGM film &… 2013-05-21T18:00:00+00:00 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/godzilla_raids_again1 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/godzilla_raids_again1#When:18:00:00Z In Brief: It’s the first Godzilla sequel and, despite the fact that it was rushed to cash in on the original film so that it was in theaters within four months of Godzilla, it’s still a reasonably good entry. It’s also the last of the series that can be taken seriously — at least sort of seriously. As far as Japanese giant monster pictures are concerned, Godzilla Raids Again is something of an essential. Review: If you grew up watching the 1950s Japanese giant monster movies on TV, the 1955 Godzilla Raids Again was a film you knew as Gigantis the Fire Monster that, according to TV Guide, was given a date of 1959 — which was how and when the film had played in U.S. theaters. It was a confusing situation because it was quite clearly a Godzilla movie — albeit one that I’m afraid we — as children — gave rather a harder time than it deserved. For starters, we didn’t realize that it deserved some credit simply for being the last of the films that could be reasonably called “serious.” It may be that I’m more ready to forgive the…well, quaint special effects these days, but they don’t look as cheesy as I remember them. (OK, the toy tank… 2013-05-21T18:00:00+00:00 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/ladykillers http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/ladykillers#When:18:00:00Z b>In Brief: The Coen Brothers’ much misunderstood reimagining of the 1955 Ealing Studios Comedy of the same name finds Tom Hanks taking on the role originated by Alec Guinness — and making it his own. That’s much the same thing the Coens did with the film — adhering to the basics of the story about a group of not-very-adept criminals using the home of an unsuspecting little old lady as their base of operations, while creating something completely fresh and original. It deserves another chance. Review: For the traditional Coen Brothers Asheville Film Society anniversary selection, we find one of the Coens’ most underrated — and even controversial — films: their 2004 remake of the 1955 Ealing Studios comedy The Ladykillers. For reasons I never fully understand, people get their knickers in a twist whenever someone remakes a highly regarded classic. Why? It does nothing to the original — except to draw attention to it, potentially making the original known to people who otherwise would never have heard of it. (Someone remind me I said this should there ever be an attempt at remaking Ken Russell’s Tommy.) In truth, the Coen film is somewhere in between an homage to the original and an Americanized-modernized reimagining of it. I have no trouble at all lovi… 2013-05-21T18:00:00+00:00 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/java_heat1 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/java_heat1#When:18:00:00Z The Story: A young American of dubious truth joins forces with a Muslim police detective to take down a crime lord and the terrorists he’s helping. The Lowdown: An impossibly convoluted story, a pair of likable leads, a nasty villain and some solid action scenes make this OK, but ultimately not terrific. On its own aims, it’s not bad. Review: I couldn’t give a full review of Java Heat last week because the studio didn’t want one till the film’s opening week. I don’t really understand why, since the film had been reviewed elsewhere, and since my basic take on Java Heat hasn’t changed. It’s still a confused, if stylish, action film that comes under the heading of not bad, but nothing all that special. More words aren’t really going to alter that—even though I can give more details. What we have is a pretty basic action picture with a more than usually convoluted script, an agreeably exotic locale, a kind of interesting odd-couple-buddy-team and a sweaty Mickey Rourke as a particularly depraved villain — all thrown together by filmmaker Conor Allyn, who really took Brian De Palma&#821… 2013-05-21T18:00:00+00:00 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/star_trek_into_darkness http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/star_trek_into_darkness#When:18:00:00Z The Story: Kirk and the rest of the Enterprise crew of the are sent on a mission to deal with a terrorist out to destroy Starfleet. The Lowdown: The plotting gets clunky and the action could be handled more effectively, but the characters — improved from the first film — keep this Star Trek entry mostly worth watching. Review: I saw Star Trek Into Darkness (what does that title even mean?) on Friday morning. I expect I’ll have forgotten most of it by mid-summer. It’s that kind of movie. Oh, I’ll remember that I mostly enjoyed it well enough — with reservations. I’ll remember the plot twist (which wasn’t hard to guess). I’ll remember the bits pilfered from an earlier Star Trek movie. I’ll also remember that it’s too long for its own good, and that J.J. Abrams isn’t at his best directing action, especially when he tries to tap into his inner Michael Bay. But the specifics of the film will largely have evaporated — much like they did from Abrams’ first entry, Star Trek (2009). I’m not sure that’s really a criticism so much as it&#82… 2013-05-21T18:00:00+00:00 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/frozen_ghost_mysterious_mr._wong http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/frozen_ghost_mysterious_mr._wong#When:18:00:00Z In Brief: It’s finally the makeup showing of the canceled The Frozen Ghost (1945) starring Lon Chaney, Jr. in one of his better Inner Sanctum mysteries. This time it’s paired with the full-tilt nonsense of the delightfully silly Mysterious Mr. Wong starring Bela Lugosi in the title role, Mr. Wong — a criminal mastermind matching wits against wisecracking reporter Wallace Ford (professional wisecracking reporter portrayer). It rarely makes good sense and even feels like a serial stuffed into a 60-minute movie, but it provides no end of bizarre entertainment with the most anticlimactic ending ever. Review: The Thursday Horror Picture Show is having a double bill of Harold Young’s The Frozen Ghost (1945) and William Nigh’s Mysterious Mr. Wong (1934). (The combination barely crosses the two-hour mark.) The Frozen Ghost was scheduled a while back, but was cancelled for snow that never materialized. It’s one of the better of Lon Chaney, Jr.‘s “Inner Sanctum” series with Chaney playing stage and radio hypnotist who goes into a tailspin when he thinks he’s killed an abusive drunk through the power of hypnosis — prompting him to find solace by hanging out in a supremely gloomy wax museum (no, it doesn’t seem like a great idea). I’ll warn you upfront: There’s no actual ghost, frozen or otherwise. You can find a more detailed r… 2013-05-14T18:00:00+00:00 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/to_catch_a_thief http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/to_catch_a_thief#When:18:00:00Z In Brief: Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief (1955) stars Cary Grant and Grace Kelly (yes, this is where the famous fireworks kissing scene comes from) in one of the master’s lighter and most pleasant 1950s films. The film is nothing more than a romantic suspenser soufflé of the kind that Hitchcock was rightly famous for. OK, despite some location work, the film does suffer from some of the most obvious rear screen and process work of Hitch’s career, but with Cary Grant as a retired jewel thief trying to prove he really is retired to the police — with time out for romancing Grace Kelly, it doesn’t matter much. Review: Owing to the lightness of its tone, To Catch a Thief has tended to be viewed as one of Alfred Hitchcock’s lesser movies. Oh, some of his more ardent European admirers have tried to turn the fairly stock comedy character of Jessie Royce Landis as Grace Kelly’s mother into some kind of condemnation of rich Americans, but it really doesn’t stick since American comedies bubble over with essentially the same kind of mother. The real question is whether there’s anything wrong with a Hitchcock picture being mere entertainment. I’m saying no — especially, since that’s obviously the intent of a movie advertised with, “WANTED by the police in all the luxury-spots of Europe!... A catch for any woman!.” This is strictly a romantic suspense mystery relying … 2013-05-14T18:00:00+00:00 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/java_heat http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/java_heat#When:18:00:00Z In Brief: The second ActionFest monthly screening is the same setup as last time with all proceeds going to Homeward Bound of Asheville, and the $10 admission includes free Ninja Porter (from Asheville Pizza) and soft drinks and popcorn from Carolina Cinemas. This time, viewers get the chance to see the film Java Heat starring Kellan Lutz (the Twilight films) and Mickey Rourke before its official opening. The film is a wild yarn — that doesn’t always make sense — offering more style (the director obviously has seen a lot of Brian DePalma movies) than you probably expect, and a lot of often very explosive action that you probably do expect. Lutz makes a stolid, enigmatic hero and villains don’t come any more perverse than Mickey Rourke. Review: Unlike the first ActionFest presentation, I was actually able to see Java Heat — and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Oh, we’re not talking about a great movie here, but who thought we were? It’s an action picture first and last, and the plot mostly exists to string together — not always coherently — a string of action set-pieces with the requisite explosions. But at that, the film boasts an unusual buddy dynamic between star Kellan Lutz (primarily known for playing Emmett Cullen in the Twilight series) and Ario Bayu as a Muslim policeman he ends up teaming with. It’s a refreshingly different pairing that works nicely against the sleazy villainy of Mickey Rourke at his Mickey Rourke-est. (I swear at one point he’s wearing that seersucker su… 2013-05-14T18:00:00+00:00 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/defiant_requiem http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/defiant_requiem#When:18:00:00Z In Brief: Since the closing film of the Asheville Film Festival was not available for review, these comments are merely drawn from the film’s press notes: “Defiant Requiem tells the little-known story of the Nazi concentration camp, Terezin. Led by imprisoned conductor Rafael Schächter, the inmates of Terezin fought back…with art and music. Through hunger, disease and slave labor, the Jewish inmates of Terezin hold on to their humanity by staging plays, composing opera and using paper and ink to record the horrors around them. This creative rebellion reaches its peak when Schächter teaches a choir of 150 inmates one of the world’s most difficult and powerful choral works, Verdi’s ‘Requiem,’ re-imagined as a condemnation of the Nazis. The choir would ultimately confront the Nazis face to face.” Review: Since the closing film of the Asheville Film Festival was not available for review, this is merely drawn from the film’s press notes: “Defiant Requiem tells the little-known story of the Nazi concentration camp, Terezin. Led by imprisoned conductor Rafael Schächter, the inmates of Terezin fought back…with art and music. Through hunger, disease and slave labor, the Jewish inmates of Terezin hold on to their humanity by staging plays, composing opera and using paper and ink to record the horrors around them. This creative rebellion reaches its peak when Schächter teaches a choir of 150 inmates one of the world’s most difficult and powerful choral works, Verdi’s “Requiem,” re-imagined as a condemnation of the Nazis. The choir would ultimately confront … 2013-05-14T18:00:00+00:00 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/im_not_rappaport http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/im_not_rappaport#When:18:00:00Z In Brief: Playwright and sometimes filmmaker Herb Gardner brings his play I’m Not Rappaport to the screen with Walter Matthau and Ossie Davis in the leads. The first hour of its rather too expansive running time is very good indeed, if not especially great filmmaking. Matthau and Davis make an appealing pair of old men — not exactly friends, but who else is around? — whiling away their time in Central Park, each with his own problems. The dialogue — while sounding like dialogue — is good and penetrating. Then we get to what amounts to the second act and the film’s desire to evolve into a more elaborate drama bogs things down pretty fast. It remains easily watchable, but it turns into less by trying to be more. Review: I’m only familiar with two of playwright/filmmaker Herb Gardner’s works: this and A Thousand Clowns (a 1962 play which was filmed by Fred Coe in 1965). The tone of the two films is very similar. They’re both entertaining, but ultimately a good bit slighter than intended. Both reflect a view of New York City that seems to belong to a different world — especially I’m Not Rappaport (the title taken from an old vaudeville joke). That Rappaport took 12 years to make it from stage (1984) to screen (1996) makes it seem more like a bit of a relic — an often pleasantly entertaining relic, but a relic all the same. That, however, is only a minor problem. Though the film suffers from simply being too long for its own good, nearly everything that only involves it… 2013-05-14T18:00:00+00:00 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/la_jetee_mousse http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/la_jetee_mousse#When:18:00:00Z In Brief: Chris Marker’s La Jetée (1962) has been shown by World Cinema before, so the real story here is the screening of this year’s winner for Best Short Film at Twin Rivers Media Festival, John Hellberg’s Mousse. This is a charming and quirky, fairly long (40 minutes) short that details a robbery gone wrong in ways that can scarcely be imagined. It’s all about what happens when a Frenchman named Mousse holds up a Swedish betting parlor on the biggest racing day of the year. He also happens upon the most conspicuously odd hostages he could hope for, an incredibly geriatric police force and a compatriot so drunk that he might be dead. Clever, amusing, well-made and more than a little surprising. Review: John Hellberg’s Mousse — this year’s Best Short Film winner at the Twin Rivers Media Festival — is really more of a short feature (40 minutes) than a short, but it has a decidedly short film vibe. It takes a very simple situation and runs with it. An enigmatic and decidedly quirky Frenchman (Stephane Bertola) stages a hold-up at a Swedish betting parlor, taking its hookah-smoking owner (Roberto Gonzalez) and an argumentative customer (Marienette Dahlin) hostage. He then proceeds to make a list of pretty peculiar demands and insists that the largely retirement age police tell jokes while waiting for those demands to be met. Where this all leads is frequently surprising and always engaging. The climactic sequence is unexpectedly elaborate and ultimately rather moving. Performances… 2013-05-14T18:00:00+00:00 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/whoopee1 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/whoopee1#When:18:00:00Z In Brief: Like a wonderful time capsule, Whoopee! offers us a glimpse into a world that hasn’t existed for a very long time: the 1920s Broadway theater. Almost no one who was a part of that world is still with us, and even those who might have seen such a show are seriously diminished in number. Yet at the flick of a switch, Whoopee! — starring the legendary Eddie Cantor and the should-be-legendary Ethel Shutta — has the power to take us back to that world in all its antique charm. Whatever it lacks in cinematic style, it more than makes up for in its energetic, appealing cast, bright tunes and sheer good-natured nonsense. Review: Thornton Freeland’s Whoopee! is as close as you’ll ever get to experiencing a 1920s Broadway show — and in early two-strip Technicolor! It’s essentially a filmed version of the Florenz Ziegfeld (who co-produced the movie) stage show that retains most of the original cast and songs — and makes little pretense of taking place anywhere other than on a stage. (There are a handful of actual exteriors in the movie, but they don’t fool anyone.) It offers Eddie Cantor in his most famous stage role as the hypochondriac tenderfoot Henry Williams, who has gone to the great wild West for his health. A great deal of how you’ll respond to the film depends on how you respond to Cantor in a performance that never pretends to be anything other than a performance. Consider tha… 2013-05-14T18:00:00+00:00 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/gimme_the_loot http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/gimme_the_loot#When:18:00:00Z The Story: Two small-time graffiti artists concoct a plan to tag the large, mechanized apple at the Mets’ Citi Field, but must scrounge up $500 to make it happen. The Lowdown: A small, natural-feeling indie flick with a ton of heart. Review: Director Adam Leon’s debut feature Gimme the Loot is what I so often want small, low budget indie films to be — and they so rarely are. He fills his movie with a genuine, gentle humanity and not an ounce of pretension.This is a very small film in every respect, from its reported $65,000 budget to its sparse and almost naturalistic cinematic style. Even its plotting fits inside this mold since things happen, but not within any traditional three-act sense. There’s no real climax, and Leon is completely focused on his characters — mainly our two leads, Sofia (Tashiana Washington) and Malcolm (Ty Washington), two young graffiti artists living in New York who are struggling to gain respect from rival taggers in other neighborhoods. To win their battle, they come up with a plan to tag … 2013-05-14T18:00:00+00:00 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/great_gatsby http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/great_gatsby#When:18:00:00Z The Story: Film version of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. The Lowdown: A big, daring, audacious interpretation of the novel that brings it to life in ways you probably never dreamed possible. It’s every inch a Baz Luhrmann film, so that will probably tell you a lot. You may not like it, but I’m calling it a must-see. Truly visionary filmmaking is so rare. Review: OK, here’s the thing: If you’re looking for a proper, respectful, stiff-backed novels-for-illiterate approach, just save yourself getting worked up and don’t go see this. It’s that simple. If you’re expecting and wanting Moulin Gatsby!, get to a theater with all possible haste. Now, I don’t really give a damn about Fitzgerald’s book. I’m not even all that wild about it, and I’m really too old to care about the all the sputtering and stuttering of the “B…b..b..but it’s a literary m..m..masterp…piece” brigade. And yet, I think Luhrmann’s film captures the essence of the book in ways no other version has while giving us Luhrmann’s brilliant imagining of what it must have been like and how he sees and responds … 2013-05-14T18:00:00+00:00 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/no http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/no#When:18:00:00Z The Story: Fact-based drama about the campaign to overthrow Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet at the ballot box — and the marketing campaign that made it happen. The Lowdown: Funny, suspenseful, compelling entertainment that may only tell part of its historical story, but does so brilliantly. Review: Pablo Larrain’s Oscar-nominated No is pretty high on the list of films you should see — but which many of you will avoid simply because it has subtitles. A few more of you may drop out when you learn that the movie was shot on Betacam (the prevalent TV news format of the film’s time period, 1988) and is hard-matted into the pillar-boxed format to retain its TV shape on the big screen. Actually, that choice was brilliant in that it allows the film to both capture the look of the era and to seamlessly cut back and forth between new footage and period news footage — giving the movie a sense of urgency. The surprise in all this is that the story was sufficiently compelling and entertaining after the first 20 minutes to make me completely forget both the quality of the image and that I … 2013-05-14T18:00:00+00:00 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/peeples http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/peeples#When:18:00:00Z The Story: A working-class guy meets his girlfriend’s upper-class family. Predicability ensues. The Lowdown: An energetic cast can do little to elevate this by-the-numbers, flat comedy that plays like a sitcom. Review: I suppose that I could say that Peeples is harmless — well, apart from a peculiarly adolescent view of lesbians — but I’m not sure I personally feel that charitable toward it. It did pretty much shoot the first half of my Saturday. It was a pretty tedious experience. And — I admit this is unfair to Peeples — I couldn’t keep from realizing that I could nip across the hall and make better use of my time watching The Great Gatsby again. But then again, let’s be honest — harmless it may be, but bad it most certainly is. It looks and plays like a sitcom — no matter how energetic the cast is in attempting to sell it — and it feels like it exists only as Lionsgate’s concession to keep producer Tyler Perry happy. Th… 2013-05-14T18:00:00+00:00 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/let_my_people_go http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/let_my_people_go#When:18:00:00Z In Brief: Wild — but warm and winning — comedy invades the Asheville Jewish Film Festival with Let My People Go!. It’s all about Ruben, an awkward young gay Jewish Frenchman living with his boyfriend in Finland. When the two have a falling out, Ruben has no choice but to run back to his eccentric family in Paris. Very unpredictable — and funny — events await him there, along with more than a few revelations about his family in the bargain. As a bonus, Pedro Almodóvar’s former muse Carmen Maura co-stars as Ruben’s mother. Review: One of the best Jewish Film Festival films I saw was Mikael Buch’s Let My People Go!, a French film that benefits from terrific production design (if towns in Finland really look like the one in the movie, sign me up!), solid direction and the presence of the great Carmen Maura as the mother of the main character. The plot is incredibly complicated and delightfully so. In essence, Ruben (Nicholas Maury) is a young Jewish Frenchman working as a postman and living with his boyfriend Teemu (Jarkko Nieimi) in a small town in Finland. Things change quickly when a man refuses a registered parcel containing nearly 200,000 Euros and insists on giving them to Ruben. Teemu doesn’t believe the story of how he came into the money and promptly kicks Ruben out, sending the broken-hearted young man back to his rather peculiar family in Paris. What happens after that is…well, I think the film should be allowed to reveal that. I’ll just say that the events are charmin… 2013-05-07T18:00:00+00:00 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/mr._blandings_builds_his_dream_house http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/mr._blandings_builds_his_dream_house#When:18:00:00Z In Brief: While it may be faulted for being the film that domesticated Cary Grant — and that it owes a lot to George Washington Slept Here — there’s no denying that Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House is an entertaining picture with a cast that most movies would kill to have. It’s the basic story of folks from the city meeting their match — and then some — when they try to escape the bustle of city life for country living. The script is witty and the performances spot on. Plus, Grant and Loy are almost as good a fit as Loy and William Powell were. Review: At the age of 44, Cary Grant first allowed himself to be fully domesticated in Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948). Oh, he’d played married men before and once — in George Stevens’ Penny Serenade (1941) he even had a child — but he’d never before presented himself a solid family man with two daughters — and one of them in her teens, no less. Only the year before in The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer he’d played the last word in cool, worldly bachelors. Whatever caused him to suddenly embrace middle age (he forgot it the next year in I Was a Male War Bride), he at least chose a pretty good film to do it in. The story and many aspects of it are pretty shameless “borrowings” from Geor… 2013-05-07T18:00:00+00:00 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/trafic http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/trafic#When:18:00:00Z In Brief: Jacques Tati’s final theatrical film — and the swan song for his Monsieur Hulot character — is a strange affair in that Tati the performer takes a definite backseat to Tati the director. The results are a mixed bag, but a likable one. The plot is nothing more than having M. Hulot transport his fantasticated “camping car” from Paris to a car show in Amsterdam— and though Hulot is rarely the cause of the trouble this time, things do not go smoothly. Rarely hysterically funny, the film is instead mostly pleasantly goofy. Review: Not that Jacques Tati’s films were ever exactly mainstream successes in the U.S., his final theatrical feature, Trafic (1971), fared worse than most. I’m not sure why, but a couple of things do come into play. The first is that while Tati is still playing his traditional Monsieur Hulot character — the tan raincoat, the battered soft hat, the pipe in his mouth — here, M. Hulot isn’t quite the engine of innocent destruction we expect. Despite the fact that the film is built on a parade of disasters — all involving the transport of the absurd “camper car” Hulot has invented from Paris to a car show in Amsterdam — the disasters are rarely his fault. They just occur for a variety of reasons. But there was something else working against Trafic: th… 2013-05-07T18:00:00+00:00 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/lore http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/lore#When:18:00:00Z The Story: At the end of World War II, the children of a Nazi officer must make their way, by themselves, across occupied Germany. The Lowdown: An occasionally ugly, emotionally detached film that scores points for its complexity and ability to never cop out. Review: Despite a few moments of visual beauty, Cate Shortland’s Lore is not a beautiful film. Instead, it’s often ugly and uncomfortable in its portrayal of humanity’s less admirable traits. Taking place in occupied Germany as the Nazi regime has finally crumbled, this point-of-view is to be expected. Lore isn’t so much a film about the horrors of war as it is about how the horrors of war — and our reactions to them — affect everyone. This is war on a personal level, which likely is what makes the film so disturbing. While this is a noble subject to undertake, it makes for a tough one to watch. Shortland’s refusal to back down from the nastier aspects of human nature is commendable and occasionally powerful — and it’s also, ultimately, discomforting. 2013-05-07T18:00:00+00:00 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/svengali1 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/svengali1#When:18:00:00Z In Brief: One of the most stylish and effective of all early horror talkies, Svengali is a perfect blend of atmosphere, writing and a towering performance by star John Barrymore in one of his two or three best performances. The story, taken from George du Maurier’s 1894 novel Trilby, had already been filmed a half-dozen times as a silent, but this was to become the definitive version of the tale of the lovestruck musical genius Svengali (Barrymore) who transforms the unresponsive object of his affections, Trilby (Marian Marsh), into a great opera singer by hypnosis. By turns horrific, darkly funny and even moving. Review: It’s actually something of a shame to categorize Svengali (1931) as a horror film (though it certainly qualifies as one), but too many people see the term and run the other way. It’s a horror film, indeed, but Svengali is more than a horror film. It’s a romantic fantasy, a dark comedy and a film with an ending that still surprises — and is both touching and satisfying. But beyond this — and the fact that it has some of the most marvelous production design and photography of its era — it has one of the great John Barrymore’s finest and most entertaining performances. Barrymore himself loved the role and took a hand in shaping the screenplay’s comedic content. Hating his matinee idol good looks, Barrymore took particular delight in roles that all… 2013-05-07T18:00:00+00:00 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/libeled_lady http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/libeled_lady#When:18:00:00Z In Brief: Sophisticated comedy with Myrna Loy as the rich society girl who sues a newspaper for libel, Spencer Tracy as the beleagured managing editor, William Powell as a sharp former reporter who knows all the angles and Jean Harlow as Tracy’s long-suffering fiancée. The plan is that Powell will marry Harlow, then seduce Loy and destroy her case. It’s all the sort of thing that could only happen in the make-believe world of the movies, but that’s exactly why it works so well and remains fresh and funny almost 80 years later. Review: Libeled Lady (1936) is what used to be called a madcap comedy (I don’t know why we no longer use the term “madcap”), but it’s a particularly good one thanks to the chemistry of its four stars and a clever script. The idea is that socialite Myrna Loy has sued Spencer Tracy’s newspaper for libel, seeking $500,000 in return. Looking for a way out of this, Tracy contacts crafty former reporter William Powell to handle matters. Since this is a movie, Powell’s solution involves marrying (in name only) Tracy’s perennially left-at-the-altar fiancée (Jean Harlow), getting Loy into a compromising position and thereby proving that she really is the homewrecker the paper had claimed. Yes, I know — it’s a scheme that only crazy people or Hollywood scr… 2013-05-07T18:00:00+00:00 http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/disconnect http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/disconnect#When:18:00:00Z The Story: Three interconnected and intercut stories about the perils of our modern Internet and cellphone-addicted world. The Lowdown: No topic may be more timely than the dehumanizing effects of our supposedly connected society, but making it into drama is a risky proposition — one that this effective film largely overcomes through strong characters and performances that always ring true. Review: Here’s a movie that more or less came out of nowhere. It wasn’t on my radar at all. In fact, I’d never heard of it. For that matter, I’d barely heard of director Henry Alex Rubin — and that was for a documentary of his I’ve never seen. The idea behind Disconnect that social media, cellphones etc. actually drive us all further apart rather than bring us closer together — with all our texting and Facebooking and whatever — appealed to me a good deal since I think it’s painfully true. The technologies don’t really offer human interaction so much as a pale imitation of it — without the messiness of actual contact. The question in my mind was how the premise could be turned into effective drama. TV scribe Andrew Stern (and it shows in so… 2013-05-07T18:00:00+00:00