“She might have fooled me, but she didn’t fool my mother.”
The ‘Grave Tales’ Horror film series continues at Webster University Thursday February 14th with a screening of Hitchcock’s Horror classic PSYCHO (1957) starring Tony Perkins and Janet Leigh. The screening will be at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood). The movie starts at 7:30. A Facebook invite for the event can be found HERE. Look for more coverage of the ‘Grave Tales’ Horror film series here at We Are Movie Geeks in the coming weeks.
Everyone remembers the most famous scene in PSYCHO: the oft-copied but seldom equaled artistry of the shower murder, with its nerve-wracking staccato string music, its implied nudity and stabbing, and its 78 separate edits. But what everyone does not realize is that this iconic sequence – one of the most famous in film history – was actually a creative response thought up by Saul Bass and Alfred Hitchcock to avoid censorship. In 1959, censorship (the Code) was still alive and well in Hollywood, movie ratings were still years away, and Alfred Hitchcock was at a crossroads in his career. With a string of box office hits and a popular hit TV show, Hitch was one of Hollywood’s most bankable and recognizable directors. But Hitch was also troubled by the critical and box office failure of VERTIGO, one of his most personal films. He felt that his next project should be something different other than the same big studio crowd-pleasers he had built his reputation on, so when he read a review of a new novel by Robert Bloch inspired by the real-life serial killer Ed Gein , Hitch was immediately attracted to the lurid subject matter, with its themes of transvestism, incest, necrophilia, and a dose of taxidermy. Hitch began story conferences with screenwriter Joseph Stefano (later to produce TV’s OUTER LIMITS), getting more and more excited at the prospect of filming cheaply, dealing with taboo subject matter, and – most importantly – killing off his leading lady in the first act. He decided to forgo the usual studio crew for one made up primarily from his TV show, which could shoot quickly and economically.
With a few exceptions, such as visual consultant Bass and composer Bernard Herrmann, Hitch kept the production low-budget and under the radar. At a time when Technicolor had become almost commonplace, PSYCHO was shot in black and white for both artistic and cost-saving reasons. (Hitch once responded to a question of why he didn’t film in color with, – That would have been in bad taste.) In today’s horror climate of “torture porn” and overblown SAW-like deaths, it’s easy to forget how difficult it was to make a film like PSYCHO, breaking new ground in telling an adult story in adult terms. The problem of how to film a brutal murder without actually showing anything was just one of many hurdles Hitch had to solve. Setting the tone with its opening voyeuristic shot of a barely-clad couple in the throes of a passionate affair, PSYCHO portrayed an openness about sex that only foreign films at that time had shown.Hitch tread carefully with the censors, often asking for more than he actually wanted, but Stefano remembers that even such a mundane item as a toilet had never been shown onscreen in a major studio film, let alone a toilet flushing! Made at the peak of his genius, Hitchcock’s PSYCHO has rightly claimed its throne as Father (or Mother) of the modern horror film, influencing thrillers for decades and creating a new sense of realism that continues through the slasher films of today. Stripping the bleak essence of human nature to austere, colorless banality, PSYCHO would have assured Hitchcock’s reputation even if it were his only film.
Don’t miss PSYCHO when it screens at Webster University Thursday February 14th
Admission is:
$7 for the general public
$6 for seniors, Webster alumni and students from other schools
$5 for Webster University staff and faculty
Free for Webster students with proper I.D.
Advance tickets are available from the cashier before each screening or contact the Film Series office (314-246-7525) for more options. The Film Series can only accept cash or check.
What’s gonna win !?!?! (I’m predicting a ROMA sweep!)
Hey there fellow movie geeks! Looking for a fun place to watch the big Academy Awards show with your fellow film fans Sunday night February 24th? Well, There will be a big screen viewing of the Oscars in the main auditorium of the Tivoli Theatre at 6350 Delmar in the heart of University City.
And the concession stand will be open so you can purchase drinks (yes, beer and wine) and snacks (the Tivoli pops the best corn!). Best of all, there’s no charge to get in! So dust off the tux and tiara (but formal attire is optional), bone up on this year’s nominated flicks, and join as at the Tivoli Sunday February 24th. The doors open at 6:30 PM, so get there early! We’ll see you for the big show on the big screen!
From Academy Award Winner Steve McQueen*, the director of 12 Years a Slave, and from Gillian Flynn, the writer of Gone Girl, comes a powerful thriller with a stellar cast, including Oscar® Winner Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki and Cynthia Erivo. Four women — with nothing in common except a debt left by their dead husbands’ criminal acts — conspire to take fate into their own hands.
Also featuring Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall and Liam Neeson, Widows delivers explosive action and gripping suspense! The Blu-ray is packed with nearly 60-minutes of bonus content, with three documentary featurettes filled with in-depth interviews and raw on-set footage detailing the compelling production story of WIDOWS.
Certified Freshon Rotten Tomatoes®, Widows arrived on 4K Ultra HD™, Blu-ray™ and DVD on February 5.
Blu-ray SPECIAL FEATURES
Widows Unmasked: A Chicago Story
Plotting The Heist: The Story
Assembling The Crew: Production
The Scene Of The Crime: Locations
Gallery
WIDOWS TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS Widows 4K Ultra HD™ Specifications
Street Date: February 5, 2019
Screen Format: Widescreen 2.39:1
Audio: English Dolby Atmos, English Descriptive Audio 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 and
French Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
Total Run Time: 129 minutes
U.S. Rating: R
This February, Disney’s hit animated film RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET will makes its way to digital libraries and home theaters. The digital release will be available February 12, and the blu-rays will be in stores two weeks later on February 26.
Now you can win the RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET Blu-ray Combo Pack. We Are Movie Geeks has 1 copy to give away. All you have to do is leave a comment answering this question: What is your favorite movie with John C. Reilly in it? (mine is WALK HARD!). It’s so easy!
Starring John C. Reilly as the titular Ralph and Sarah Silverman as fellow misfit Vanellope von Schweetz, Ralph Breaks the Internet broke box office records when it achieved the second biggest Thanksgiving opening of all time, grossing more than $435 million to date.
Check out the bonus features you can expect from both the digital and physical media versions:
Blu-ray & Digital:
How We Broke the Internet — Go behind the scenes at Walt Disney Animation Studios to get an in-depth look at how the filmmakers brought a world to life that billions of people visit every day but never actually see — the internet. Take a front-row seat as the team reveals the inspirations for the story and what it took to bring it to the screen. Discover all that went into developing the characters of the film including netizens like KnowsMore as well as characters like Double Dan. See the lengths the team took to create the car chase scenes in Slaughter Race and much, much more.
Surfing for Easter Eggs — Surf the web for the near-countless Easter Eggs, inside jokes and references hidden throughout the movie.
The Music of Ralph Breaks the Internet— Take a look at the music of Ralph Breaks the Internet with appearances by Imagine Dragons, Julia Michaels, Alan Menken, Sarah Silverman and more.
Deleted Scenes — Five deleted scenes with intros from directors Rich Moore and Phil Johnston. Scenes include Into the Internet, Opposites, Domestic Hell, Bubble of One & Recruiting “Grandma.”
BuzzzTube Cats — Many videos were created by the animators to fill the screens of the Internet world…and lots of them are of cats! Check out the BuzzzTube to watch this hilarious cat compilation.
Music Videos — “Zero” by Imagine Dragons and “In This Place” by Julia Michaels.
Digital Exclusive:
Baby Drivers – Slaughter Racing School – Take a spin behind the wheel with the artists behind Ralph Breaks the Internet as they go to race car driving school
Women throughout the years have always been a force to be reckoned in business, big and small. Hollywood has portrayed women past, present and future as an integral part of the workforce. Audiences have witnessed up on the big screen the struggles and triumphs of characters such as Sally Field in NORMA RAE, Goldie Hawn in SWING SHIFT and Lt. Ellen in Ripley in the ALIEN series.
Now comes the latest movie from director Adam Shankman (HAIRSPRAY) – WHAT MEN WANT.
Ali Davis (Taraji P. Henson) is a successful sports agent who’s constantly boxed out by her male colleagues. When Ali is passed up for a well-deserved promotion, she questions what else she needs to do to succeed in a man’s world… until she gains the ability to hear men’s thoughts! With her newfound power, Ali looks to outsmart her colleagues as she races to sign the next basketball superstar, but the lengths she has to go to will put her relationship with her best friends and a potential new love interest (Aldis Hodge) to the test. WHAT MEN WANT is the latest comedy from producers Will Packer and James Lopez (GIRLS TRIP), co-starring Tracy Morgan, Richard Roundtree, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Josh Brener, Tamala Jones, Phoebe Robinson, Max Greenfield, Jason Jones, Brian Bosworth, Chris Witaske and Erykah Badu.
In WAMG’s review, Cate Marquis says WHAT MEN WANT, “is a gal pal popcorn comedy with more laughs than you might expect from its silly Hollywood fantasy premise, largely thanks to Taraji P. Hensen and a hard-working supporting cast.”
WHAT MEN WANT opens Friday, Feb. 8 and the women of WAMG (Cate Marquis, Melissa Thompson and Michelle Hannett) present to you our list of our favorite films about Women In The Workforce.
The Devil Wears Prada (2006)Cate
comedy/drama
Anne Hathaway plays a struggling journalist who reluctantly takes a job as an assistant to the powerhouse publisher of a fashion magazine, played by Meryl Streep, who eats assistants for breakfast, in a kind of mentoring trial by fire. Streep’s character is rumored to be based on the fierce Anna Wintour of Vogue Magazine. Hathaway’s character is not a fashionista and she feels like the job is a poor fit, even a step back for her career. Yet despite the mismatch, her experience demonstrates any job may offer lessons for that career you really want. Anyone who has had to work for a demanding, distant boss can identify.
Erin Brockovich (2000)Cate
fact-based drama
Erin Brockovich is the overlooked secretary, a mother with little education, but she proves to be the one with the real brains, in this fact-based story. Julia Roberts plays a legal secretary, who turns sleuth, then crusading attorney, in this true-story based inspirational film, which won an Oscar for Roberts. The real Erin Brockovich refused to accept the hopelessness of families being poisoned by chemical pollutants in their water, just as she refused to accept the career path society thought best suited her. An underdog story of transformation, this one demonstrates the power of persistence, asking questions, and facing down the powerful instead of taking no for an answer.
His Girl Friday (1940)Cate
comedy/romance
In Howard Hawks’ classic screwball comedy, Rosalind Russell plays star newspaper reporter Hildy Johnson, a part re-written from the originally male role in “Front Page.” Don’t be fooled by the set-up – in the 1940s, it was assumed what every woman wanted was to get married – but this subversive little comedy undermines that idea with a dynamic, wise-cracking Rosalind Russell at the top of her game. After years as the paper’s top reporter, Hildy has fallen in love and thinks she wants to get married, which then meant staying home and having kids. Her irritating editor – and ex-husband – Cary Grant is not convinced that’s what she really wants, and gives her one last juicy assignment, hoping the veteran ace reporter will re-discover her love of getting the scoop and that she isn’t yet ready to give up her career. A look at working women in another era, when they were expected to chose family or career.
Working Girl (1988)
Tess McGill is smart, gorgeous and struggling. Her life seems to have become an endless round of Staten Island Ferry commutes, lecherous bosses and low pay. However, she’s determined to use her brains and talent to pull herself out of the secretarial pool and into the upper echelons of New York’s brokerage industry. Before long, Tess realizes that she’s in combat zone, and that she’ll have to use commando tactics if she wants to survive. Mike Nicholos’ WORKING GIRL is a comedy-drama that takes the sweet, but street-smart Tess (Melanie Griffith) on the trip up that treacherous corporate ladder. Harrison Ford plays Jack Trainer, a white collar Prince Charming who becomes Tess’ ally, and Sigourney Weaver is her high-powered boss.
Baby Boom (1987) Michelle
J.C. Wiatt (Diane Keaton), a six-figure workaholic management consultant who is also known to her colleagues as the “Tiger Lady,”learns that she has “inherited” an apple-cheeked, 14-month-old girl! No way, José, is J.C. going to keep this career-inhibiting menace–it’s off to the adoption agency. If you are expecting that she will become fond of the kid and change her mind as well as her attitudes about love, romance and life, you are right on course. Naturally, still being somewhat who she is, J.C. will find a way to turn her new beloved asset into some quite nice $$$…when she moves from New York City to Vermont. Kate Jackson appeared as J.C. in the television spin-off of this very funny “Capraesque” comedy.
Hidden Figures (2016)Michelle
The incredible untold true story of Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) & Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae)—brilliant African-American women working at NASA, who served as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in history: the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit. This stunning achievement galvanized the world and inspired generations to dream big. The film received three Oscar nominations (Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress for Spencer).
9 to 5 (1980) Melissa
“I’m no fool. I’ve killed the boss, you think they’re not gonna fire me for a thing like that?”
Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton star in the 1980 classic that encouraged working women everywhere to stand up for themselves in the workplace. When company executive Franklin Hart is caught stealing from the company, his three secretaries seize the opportunity to exact revenge on their “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot” of a boss. Atta girls!
Legally Blonde (2001) Melissa
Reese Witherspoon stars as Elle Woods, a privileged Beverly Hills sorority girl who follows her popular frat-boy ex-boyfriend to Harvard Law School in order to secure an engagement ring. But her Beverly Hills pedigree is no match for the east coast blue-bloods and Elle must prove that she is much more than her blonde hair and pin-up-girl good looks. With a little help from her friends and a strong female law professor (Holland Taylor), Elle takes the Ivy-League world by storm.
Silkwood (1983) Melissa
The dramatic true story of Karen Silkwood (Oscar-nominated Meryl Streep), a worker at a plutonium processing plant purposefully contaminated, psychologically tortured and possibly murdered to prevent her from exposing worker safety violations at the plant. After threatening to blow the whistle, Silkwood died in a car accident under questionable circumstances. Also turning in an Oscar nominated performance is Cher, as Karen’s co-worker and roommate Dolly.
Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead (1991) Michelle
With no money to pay the family’s bills, Sue Ellen finds work at a fast food restaurant called Clown Dog. Despite a budding relationship with her co-worker named Bryan, she quits because of the obnoxious manager. Sue Ellen then forges a résumé under the guise of a young fashion designer and applies at General Apparel West (GAW), hoping to secure a job as a receptionist. However, Rose Lindsey (Joanna Cassidy), a company executive, finds her résumé so impressive that she offers Sue Ellen a job as an executive assistant, much to the chagrin of Carolyn, a receptionist on Rose’s floor who was initially in line for the job. While having dinner at a restaurant that night, Mrs. Sturak’s car is stolen, forcing Sue Ellen to call in a favor from Bryan to bring them home. Sue Ellen then obtains the keys to her mother’s Volvo, and begins stealing from petty cash at GAW to support the family, intending to return it when she receives her paycheck.
You were rooting for Applegate’s character from the beginning – even when everything falls apart at the end, you hope and see a funny and clever resolution from director Stephen Herek.
Network (1976) Michelle
Best Actress winner Faye Dunaway plays Diana Christensen, who heads Union Broadcasting System’s programming department. It was a bold move back in the day when women we still considered secretaries more than managers.
Did you know for the role of Diana Christensen, writer Paddy Chayefsky thought of Candice Bergen, Ellen Burstyn, and Natalie Wood, while the studio suggested Jane Fonda, with Kay Lenz, Diane Keaton, Marsha Mason and Jill Clayburgh. Dunaway was cast as Diana in September 1975. Director Sidney Lumet told her that he would edit out any attempts on her part to make her character sympathetic and insisted on playing her without any vulnerability.
Taraji P. Hensen plays an ambitious sports agent trying to make partner at an agency dominated by white men in the comedy WHAT MEN WANT, a gender-switch re-make of Mel Gibson hit WHAT WOMEN WANT. Despite the title, and the obvious answer it might spark, the focus of this film is still what women want, and specifically want Hensen’s character wants: to succeed in the workplace.
Hard-working, aggressive sports agent Ali Davis (Taraji P. Hensen) thinks she is a sure-thing to make partner at her firm at long last but when she is passed over – again – it creates a crisis for her. As the only female agent at the firm Summit Worldwide Management (SWM), she is has signed a slew of Olympic stars but has yet to sign one in pro sports. Tired of being repeatedly passed over, she is determined to sign the likely number one NBA draft pick, Jamal Barry (Shane Paul McGhie). While Ali obsesses about breaking that glass ceiling, she gets a distraction in the form of a bachelorette party for one of her trio of best friends. The party’s entertainment includes a fortune teller (Erykah Badu) and the weird woman inadvertently gives Ali a strange power – to read men’s minds.
That bit of information shouldn’t be much of a spoiler as this comedy is a gender-reversed remake, of sorts, of the Mel Gibson film WHAT WOMEN WANT. The Gibson movie was a hit but basically standard Hollywood comedy stuff, in which a clueless man magically gains the power to read women’s thoughts and finds out what they REALLY think of him.
WHAT MEN WANT skews chick flick, but one with more of a workplace focus than all about romance. While the Gibson movie was more about general male cluelessness about women and romance, the gender switch takes this comedy in a different direction. Gaining the ability to read her male co-workers thoughts allows Hensen’s character to out-maneuver them in the work place as well as giving her some personal insights. There is a romance subplot too but it is not the main point.
The sports management agency’s initials are SWM, also meaning “single white male” which describes many of Ali Davis’ co-workers, or at least the white and male part. As the name of the agency indicates, subtle does not describe this comedy by director Adam Shankman (HAIRSPRAY) and producers Will Packer and James Lopez (GIRLS TRIP) but it does offer a little feminist twist to the familiar genre outline. The comedy focuses more on the main character’s workplace, her self-absorption and difficulty reading people, more than on romance (although there is romance). On the other hand, some of the comedy is rude and crude, including a joke about a misplaced condom, and Hensen’s character hilariously acts like a stereotypical selfish man after she picks up a guy at a bar.
Still, the comic efforts of the cast, more than the script, are the major appeal of this popcorn comedy. Taraji P. Hensen, familiar to many as Cookie on “Empire,” gets a surprising amount of humor out of this familiar farce-based comedy premise. Hensen leads a good cast, with Brandon (Josh Brener) as her overworked gay assistant, Richard Roundtree as her supportive single dad, Tracy Morgan as the NBA prospect’s goofy overbearing dad/manager. Other cast members who are good in less comedic roles include Aldis Hodge as the love interest and Shane Paul McGhie as the young NBA prospect.
The big scene-stealer is Erykah Badu as the weird fortuneteller, who gets every drop of humor out of her crazy character. She generates some many laughs that the film feels like the part was expanded to make room for her, much to the audience’s delight.
Make no mistake: this is dumb comedy stuff, just like the Mel Gibson original, but sometimes that is just what audiences want. WHAT WOMEN WANT is a gal pal popcorn comedy with more laughs than you might expect from its silly Hollywood fantasy premise, largely thanks to Taraji P. Hensen and a hard-working supporting cast.
Once again the general public will have to opportunity to view something that was a regular part of the movie experience for many decades, the short subject. Throughout the “Golden Age” of Hollywood, the studios produced these smaller films (generally under an hour) that were usually shown in between two films (the great double feature). There were the cartoons made by the studio animation departments (Bugs Bunny from Warners, Tom and Jerry at MGM, and so forth), and the live-action shorts, often comedy (Laurel and Hardy, the Three Stooges) mixed with some closer to documentaries like the newsreel (pre-TV filmed events) and the travelogue (a film tour of world locales). With the advent of TV, most theatres stopped showing them and the major studios closed their divisions. The shorts then became the primary domain for independent filmmakers and continued to vie for Oscar nominations. Now, with the increasing streaming platforms and cable outlets, shorts are becoming more accessible now than in many years. Still, big screen programs, aside from film festivals, is a real rarity. With the Oscar ceremony just weeks away, film fans can indulge in a “cinema smorgasbord” and indulge in a buffet from three categories.
The most popular may be the films selected as Best Animated Short, though, like their live-action narrative brethren, most of these films share a theme, call it “parents and children”. Well, there one exception, of course, that would be the witty entry from the National Film Board of Canada (producer of many wonderful award-winning animated films for nearly 70 years) called “Animal Behavior”. Rendered in a magazine (New Yorker mainly) style, it looks at a group therapy session (chairs in a circle) for animals (a pig, a leech, a praying mantis, etc.) with a dog in charge trying to deal with a new member, an annoyed gorilla. The rest fit squarely in the “theme”, the best known being “Bao” which did run in theatres last Summer paired off with INCREDIBLES 2 (Pixar nearly always runs a short before each new feature). It’s a fable (the only one in the group told in rounded 3D CGI style) in which a lonely woman is stunned when a dumpling she has prepared for Dinner, suddenly springs to life. Naturally, she raises it as her child (a son), and we see them dealing with the whole maturing cycle from infant to teen. A very different look at parenting is shown in “Weekends” in which a grade-school aged boy lives with his harried single mom during the week and is picked up on Friday by his fun-loving pop and whisked away to his high-rise apartment/funhouse. There’s almost no dialogue and the art has a “scratchy” rendering looking like ballpoint pen scribblings in a school notebook. The program’s two highlights are “Once Small Step” which begins with a young Asian-American girl watching that famous newcast, fueling her dreams of exploring space. The dream is encouraged by her single dad who works below their home as a shoe repairman (hmmm, another fairy tale nod). Again no dialogue, but with slick multicolored outlined characters that seem right out of a polished children’s’ book. The parent/child roles are flipped in the final entry “Late Afternoon” which centers on an elderly woman enjoying her visit from a caregiver (but is she more than that). While the lady sips from her tea, each image around her triggers distant memories (running along the beach, writing in the sand,etc.) until her fog is lifted in the heartwrenching final moments. The art is a lively mix of simple line drawings, bright vibrant colors, and gorgeous watercolor-like backdrops. Each film has something to entertain and recommend (I’d have a tough time choosing if I were in the Academy).
For the Best Live Action Shorts, the previous theme is a twisted variation, you could say (with a nod to the classic Who rock anthem) “The Kids are Not All Right”. Indeed they are in dire, deadly danger in all but one entry. that one is the sweetly nostalgic “Marguerite”, Like “Late Afternoon”, it’s a French-Canadian tale of an elderly woman and her visiting caregiver/nurse. Their conversations sparks her mind to recall a forbidden, unrequited love from long. long ago, reminding us that the “good ole’ days” were not so “good” for so many. Now, on to the “rough stuff”. From the same land comes “Fauve” about a lazy day in the country (climbing an old train car. running around a construction site) turns into a race against doom for two pre-teen boys. Speaking of a “race to doom”, that sums up most of the Spanish entry “Madre”. As the title infers, the main subjects are mothers (yes, the plural). The main setting is an apartment where a woman and her mother pop in to bicker and change for Lunch. Things take a turn when the home owner’s six-year-old son makes a frantic phone call to her, which puts both mother and grandmother nearly into hysterics. Like the recent films LOCKE and THE GUILTY, the story is told via one part of the phone conversation (leaving us to imagine the caller’s dire straights just as the main characters). But where’s the USA, why represented by “Skin”, which centers on a young boy of eight or nine, the only son of a young couple who are, as said in LADY BIRD, from “the other side of the tracks”. Though they dote on the lad, we soon find out that the couple (the dad particularly) are violent racists. After a horrific attack ( a true hate crime), a “Tales From the Crypt”-like revenge plot is put into motion, resulting in an “O Henry” twist at first funny then whiplashing into true tragedy. The real standout of this batch comes from Ireland. “Detainment” is the controversial docudrama whose dialogue is directly taken from Police interview tapes of the two ten-year-old suspects in the infamous 1993 “Baby James” crime in Bootle, England. Though difficult to watch (I can’t imagine a full-length feature). the film hits with the impact of cinematic sledgehammer aided in great part by the two young lead actors: Ely Sloan as the emotional, terrified Jon and Leon Hughes as the cold calculating Robert. Never exploitive of the crime, the film is a testament to the police officers quest to learn the truth while having to deal with the parents , who were required to be on hand for the questioning (it’s quite the tightrope walk as they must navigate carefully). All of these films are compelling, even as the viewer is put through the “emotional ringer”.
Finally, the Best Documentary Shorts also share a theme (well four of the five) as they profile people battling against overwhelming forces, in short, “struggle”. Most unusual may be the entry from India, with a title ripe with many meanings, “Period. End of Sentence”. It begins with an overview of a subject not really discussed in that society: menstruation. Interviews bring home the lack of knowledge (it’s a mystery to most men on camera) and the problems facing young women. The film shifts gears as we meet a man determined to bring hygiene to the villages via sanitary pad vending machines by hiring local women to produce the pads and be traveling suppliers. It’s an engaging look at a culture that’s finally changing. The majority of this program comes from the USA. “Lifeboat” follows a German barge that helps rescue fleeing refugees at sea (many don’t survive on the makeshift rafts, barrels, and tubs). There’s a message of hope despite the near unending stream of desperate, nomadic peoples. Those rescue crews are heroes, as much as the staff of the Zen Hospice Project we meet in “End Game” as they ease terminal patients into their last days. We meet four or five of these residents, but the film’s heart may be with one that decides to stay in the hospital, in hope of new treatments. The intimate scenes of Mitra with her family (her husband and mother often clash) and doctors are quite moving. A brief (seven minutes) history lesson shines a light on a now unthinkable incident from 1939. “A Night at the Garden” documents (using black and white home-movie-like footage and audio recordings) a pro-Nazi rally attended by 20,000 in New York City (the title “Garden” is Madison Square). Though touted as a night celebrating “American patriotism”, there are lots of swastikas on stage (on both sides of Old Glory) to frame the speakers spewing anti-semitic rhetoric. Hatred is a big topic in the most compelling of the program, UK’s “Black Sheep”. In stark close-up, Cornelius Walker tells the story of his Nigerian family who moved from their London high rise apartment (after the high-profile murder there of a schoolboy from their homeland) to one of the”safer” remote villages. Walker relates his shock at the casual bigotry he faced, which led to a brutal beating by a local teen gang. With great emotion, Walker then tells us of his shocking response. Rather than retaliating, he believed that in order to survive he needed to join them, even bleaching his skin, spiking his hair, and wearing bright blue contact lenses. The tale is both compelling and heartbreaking, with Walker’s monologue illustrated with dream-like recreations. All five are engrossing while sharing a similar spirit among different times, locales, and subjects.
Any or all of these programs are well worth any film fan’s time.
The 2019 Oscar Nominated Short Films Programs are screening in the St. Louis area at Landmark’s Tivoli Theatre
” Do you know what loneliness is, real loneliness?”
THE ENCHANTED COTTAGE (1945) screens February 13th at The St. Louis Public Library Buder Branch (4401 Hampton Ave). The film begins at 1:30pm Wednesday, February 13th. This is a FREE event.
Nominated for an Academy Award for its music and nominated to the AFI’s Greatest Love Stories list is this charming World War II era love story. Starring Dorothy McGuire and Robert Young, it is the story of a pilot, disfigured in a crash, who retreats to the seaside cottage where he had previously planned to spend his honeymoon. At the cottage, he meets a homely young woman working there. As the unlikely pair begin to fall in love, they are physically transformed into the beautiful people they begin to see in each other.
This sensitive, touching film, based on the classic romance play by Pinero, is beautifully enacted by McGuire and Young as the uncommon lovers. Oliver (Young) is the embittered, disfigured WWI veteran obsessed with suicide, the only alternative, he feels, to coping with an ugliness that repels everyone. He meets the shy and plain Laura (McGuire), a woman also shunned by society. They marry and move into seclusion inside a small New England cottage, all that’s left of a great estate which burned down years earlier. As a honeymoon cottage scores of happy lovers have carved their initials on its windowpanes; its owner (Natwick) knows well the legend of its wonderful spell. Slowly Oliver regains his handsome countenance and Laura blossoms into a beautiful young woman. It is, of course, their mutual love which has brought about these astounding transformations, images shattered by mindless friends. An unforgettable fable and a rare chance to see this on the big screen February 13th at The St. Louis Public Library.
“Toyland, Toyland…”I know, Christmas was seven weeks ago, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t have some fun at the multiplex with some of our favorite playtime pals. The studios have been raiding the toy chest in search of film franchises for decades, from Raggedy Ann and Andy (originally a cartoon short from the Fleischers) to the cult favorite CLUE in the 1980s (trivia question staple: it had three endings). Now with longtime movie series based on GI JOE and TRANSFORMERS, toys have become as much a source material as comic books and TV shows (which were the initial “springboards” in the 80s for Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, and countless others). But could these product-spawned flicks actually be witty and (gasp) satirical, even entertaining to adults? Pixar certainly tested the waters with their first hit feature back in 1995 TOY STORY (which included kid superstars like Mr. Potato Head and Barbie alongside original characters). Jump ahead 20 years and some great comedy talents garnered big laughs from lil’ plastic building blocks. It was a surprise smash, so after two spin-offs, we’re finally getting a true sequel with THE LEGO MOVIE 2: THE SECOND PART (just be careful where you step…yeooowch).
Yes, it’s five years later and all seems to be going great for Emmet Brickowski (voice of Chris Pratt) and pals in Bricksburg. But then the destructive Duplo invaders from the Systar (?) System arrive. Despite the efforts of Lucy Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks) and her ex, Batman (Will Arnett) the town is transformed into the dusty dirty “heck-scape” of Apocalyseburg. Emmitt’s still his cheery ole’ self until another Systar denizen named Captain Mayhem (Stephanie Beatriz) cruises in to scoop up Lucy, Batman, Unikitty, Benny, and Metalbeard in her spaceship and whisks them away to meet her boss, Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi (Tiffany Haddish). Luckily Emmett is able to turn his dream cottage into his own star cruiser and blasts off to infinity and…no, wrong toy. When his star trek proves too deadly, Brick is rescued by a true galactic good guy, Rex Dangervest, the coolest cat in the cosmos (trained raptors fly his ship). The two team up to stop the destruction of the universe (the “our-mom-ageddon” which would banish them to the limbo region of “Stor-age”) which will be triggered by the swiftly approaching marriage of the Queen and Batman. But are the residents of Systar “un-evil”? And will Lucy finally come to terms with her “sparkly” former life? Most puzzling of all, why is the Dark Knight finally ready to “settle down”? Gosh, what’ll happen to Alfred?
The good news is that the intricate colorful designs and character work are still there, despite the changing of directors, from the team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (who still contributed this script with a story assist from Matthew Fogel) to Mike (TROLLS) Mitchell. Because of the returning writing duo, there are still a lot of funny throwaway bits of dialogue (especially the subtitling of the raptors) along with some very sly pop culture gags (“Marvel’s not returning our calls”). And Emmett is still a wide-eyed (big dots really) cheerfull oblivious goof. So why does the film feel…off? For one thing, the Lego world seems a lot smaller. The first adventure involved a near-endless gathering of pop icons from Star Wars to the classic Universal monsters (guessing the licensing contracts took up several file cabinets if they’re still a “thing”). But now, aside from a roll call of time-traveling devices, we’re limited to the Warner home team (though that still includes the DC heroes, the Wizard of Oz, and a Tolkien spellcaster). Perhaps this is because the real world intrudes into the main story too too much. Yes, last time we got a Will Ferrell finale, while this time his home pops up throughout and stops the story flow in its tracks. Luckily another SNL vet cameos as Will’s wife, and earns a few decent laughs, but do we need to see toys lost and gathering dust in multiple sequences? The stakes are raised by other planet’s threats, but it’s not as interesting a “hero’s journey” as in the original. Emmett and Lucy from that get plenty of screen time in this sequel, while their buddies Unikitty and Benny have little to do, as does Batman (maybe because of his solo spin-off) who is easily manipulated, though as a result of one of the film’s best musical numbers, “Gotham Guys” (much better than the “Awesome” wannabee “Catchy Song”). The rampaging Duplos who speak like toddlers is amusing, but most of the new characters barely register, aside from the Queen. Haddish brings a lot of energy to her which matches her ever-changing red, orange, and magenta form (within seconds she’s a horse, a flower, and crazy chart). Rex is a lot of fun, but his “big reveal” doesn’t really go anywhere. Though just over 100 minutes, this film feels well over 2 hours as the jumbled third act finally grinds the story to a cluttered messy halt. Though this contains many of the first flick’s winking wit, families may find that THE LEGO MOVIE 2: THE SECOND PART just feels “played out”.
At the bottom of the poster to THE MAN WHO KILLED HITLER AND THEN THE BIGFOOT the tagline reads, “An American Myth.” This is an adept description because The Man Who Killed Hitler (because, no, I won’t make you read that title again) is about the status of the North American myth with all the benefits and downsides intact.
Intelligently, that’s never really brought into the text of the movie, with the story proper being about a man named Calvin Barr (Sam Elliott should have been nominated for this performance), a former Army man now comfortably living in Canada with only his thoughts to the past and uncanny ability to go into murderous fits of rage to disturb him. Soon his comfortable life is disturbed when two government agents come to ask him one question: “Can he kill the Bigfoot?”
To figure that one out, you’ll have to consult the movie…or the title. Again, the gore tinged text of The Man Who Killed Hitler is entertaining but is far from the most interesting thing going on here and it’s good that the movie gets this out of the way in the title. As an examination of myth, it gets a lot more fun.
Within the subtext here, it becomes quickly apparent that what writer/producer/director Robert D. Krzyzewski is using the traditional trappings of certain North American myths to comment on what these myths can do. Barr basically acts as a proxy for the effects of the outdated American Rifleman myth, a myth extolling “virtues of masculinity” like strength, respect, cunning…but also violence, insecurity, and of course the unencumbered glorification of guns. It makes you ask the questions like, “What would really happen to a man who held the killing of Hitler on his shoulders?” and in turn, “What has the myth of the American exceptionalist killing Hitler do to American culture?” This effectively lies the path for the idea that outdated American myths can both give us meaning in our lives but also be harmful, at worst leading to our demise or the demise of everyone around us.
That being said, some of the stretches the film goes to include myths does spread it a bit thin. There’s a love interest (played by Caitlin Fitzgerald, who is so good in everything that her mere presence makes this movie better), that feels like another prop to extol a “love story” myth, that comes off as a bit ignorant in its use. Fitzgerald is good enough that it doesn’t matter, but there’s an element of glorification that maybe pushes things a bit too far.
For a movie that is so hammy and confidently weird, THE MAN WHO KILLED HITLER AND THEN THE BIGFOOT actually decides to say something about the American myths that it co-opts. Under the confident direction and even more confident lead performance, The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot, becomes a pleasant divergence, one that might just have something to say.
