corvinello Reviews

Them (2006)

Scary scary scary

[10/10 · 24 September 2007]

Oh how I love to hate these films that make you dread the ordinary things of life...

If you liked The Haunting, or The Blair Witch Project, or The Ring, or all of those, this is for you.

I saw that at my in-the-woods country place and could not sleep there alone since.

I remember a scene in "Night of the Living Dead", where the brother and the sister are at the cemetery - where they just buried their mom or their dad, I don't remember - and in the distant background, really mostly unnoticeable, there is an out-of-focus silhouette of a person coming towards us. They talk and our attention is on their conversation (grief over the death of a parent) and the way the camera is positioned, it's as if we were with them, listening to their exchange. But there's this man... (now we see it's a man) coming, and he's sort of stumbling, no, lurching, like he's drunk or wounded... slowly but steadily, he's coming, and we and the characters don't bother, until he's too near and ...it's too late. This is one of the movie scenes that scared me the most.

What you can't, or don't, or won't see is always the scariest, because not knowing what you're up against, you cannot defend yourself.

This movie is all about it. You have glimpses. You have hints. You have shadows. You have out-of-focus silhouettes and you have noises. Above all, you are left to deal with your own idea of what it is that you dread the most. The Supernatural? The Human? The Imaginary? Hallucinations? Evil? Devils? The Criminal?

The hand-held camera works wonders here, the lighting is fantastic, in fact all the visuals are extraordinary - since filming in some of those spaces is really tough! Unknown actors make for a very realistic feeling.

Throughout the film, I felt like I do when I get very nasty nightmares, you know, the ones where "something" is out to get you and you run, run run... thinking: I must outrun it, or him, or Them.

What's New Pussycat (1965)

Feather-light entertainment

[10/10 · 28 August 2007]

Some have "analyzed" this (movie) with the heavy, combat-boot tone of the cerebral and moral second-millennium spirit. They say it belongs to the past, the bad bad bad 60s, full of irresponsibility and partying, sexual license and depravity.

Well I say HA! --- HA! HA!

Forget all those (mostly young!) preachers and dive into a silly, inconsequential, wacky movie, full of unrealistic characters doing unrealistic things. It is colorful, full of joy and beautiful people, unpretentious and charming. And in the end, the guy gets the girl and they get married.

As a young boomer, watching this is like slipping into Hush Puppies. You may say what you want about or against the "guilty" innocence of that era, but it sure was comfortable! I miss those times. And a note for the moderns: we were not that innocent, we knew that some of this was dangerous ground... but what do you know, living is the thing that makes you die.

Hollywoodland (2006)

Enjoyable film, lousy message

[6/10 · 2 April 2007]

I loved viewing this film. It is well made, well cast, well filmed and very well assembled. It's very artful, beautiful and fully enjoyable.

But I don't like what it's telling me.

What it shows me is how a man who is imagining the worse finally finds the banal. How a man we suppose is a victim is nothing, in fact, but a run-of-the-mill loser. It says: "Don't look for mysterious explanations, because there aren't any". It says: "Why don't you just go back to your (ex)-wife and kid and be a nice straight suit-and-tie wearing little hubby-daddy and stop looking for trouble".

In view of the current international events, I'm not sure I like that message, however beautifully wrapped it may be.

Another thing: in the fifties, kids were not allowed to act the way Simo's boy acts in this film. This is utterly unrealistic! Parents, especially mothers, did not act as psychologists, unless that was their job. Fathers did not kneel down at the side of their kid's bed when he/she was pouting and sulking. Dads did not beg for your love and forgiveness. This is modern madness projected in the past so that modern parents will not feel too lost.

So: loved to watch it, but resented the aftermath...

Life and Nothing But (1989)

Celebration of life and love

[18 February 2006]

It is the end of the first World War, in France. Major Delaplane (Noiret) is ferociously determined to insure no dead soldier remains anonymous, despite the pressure from military and political authorities to keep them buried as a "lot".

He keeps scrupulous count of each and every "casualty" he finds, treating each dead man with the absolute and final equality attained in death: he refuses to put any extra effort in tracing a rich one faster than a poor one.

When he meets a grieved, upper-class widow looking for her dead husband, this man and this woman's worlds are shaken. From their distant positions, they start a slow and respectful journey towards each other, and the power of life over destruction will prevail.

As always with Bertrand Tavernier, the personal story of the characters is tightly woven into the political issues of the times, as it is for all of us, whether we realize and like it or not.

This is a film that celebrates the power of the individual within society, not outside of it. It is good for the soul in these times of fatalism, cynicism and loss of hope in man's good will.

If you like this film, do not miss Tavernier's other films, they are all excellent.

Kate & Leopold (2001)

Eye candy in movieland Prozac

[4 December 2005]

For all of you who ever had an overdose of reality, Kate and Leopold says: hop in and escape for a sec'!!

This film is not serious. This film is full of historical inaccuracies. This film is utterly aggravating in its conclusion, in regard to evolution of the life conditions of women. Yes, yes and yes, but who cares?

Just look at Leopold: there would never have been any feminist movement if men were like this! What would there be to get liberated about??

Jackman IS the film, forget the "Kate and" in the title. He is handsome, hunky, elegant, and withheld in this portrayal (should I rather say "creation") of a progressive-thinking man of the past (a highly improbable creature if there ever was...we're into pure fiction here, don't forget!).

On the other hand, Ryan is surprisingly outdated here with her lumberjack stance; is that supposed to express the modernity in contemporary women? She looks like a giant mop-headed Laurie Anderson... Her character's robot-gray "success outfits" are ridiculous. I like Ryan but here she's definitely miscast - or misdirected, or misdressed - or all of the above.

Anyway, Ryan schmyan: this film is an ode to Hugh. Enjoy (as many times as you wish, it's the kind of candy that won't make you fat!!).

Hide and Seek (2005)

Nothing short of highway robbery

[2/10 · 4 December 2005]

I love suspense movies, and I'm a good sport even when I'm not presented with a top-notch scenario. I don't know about you, but for me the believability of the plot's twists and turns is the main thing in a thriller. Once suspension of disbelief is broken, you can't mend it.

In this regard, this movie is "nothing short of highway robbery", as Stephen King might say. The revelation of the culprit makes you think back, as usual, about the clues presented throughout the film, and none of them seem in sync with the identity of the villain in the end. Food for thought: these three points.

One: WHO in the world might the "person in the cavern" be, that the little girl discovers with such a look of happiness and enthusiasm at the beginning of the film, to the point that she abandons her beloved doll? You have the feeling that the Mother has come back...The answer provided in the film "just isn't fittin'".

Two: When the little girl shows her dad her drawings of "Charlie", the whole scene (always in light of the ending) should have been way way different. This makes no sense at all.

Three - last but not least: There is a scene where the little girl who comes with Elisabeth is scared witless by "Charlie" barging out of the closet ; we see her running to the car for safety, followed by Elisabeth with an apologetic expression in her face (something like "I don't know what got into her"). Later in the film, Elisabeth is back to the house for a visit, relaxed and all, as if the little girl had never spoken to her and never told her who was hidden in the closet!!

As always in Hollywood, even the worst of plots is well-wrapped and technically impeccable. But this is still a very bad movie. You can't even say if the casting is right or not: here are some "names", but they have no real parts to play.

Topaze (1951)

The loss of innocence

[10/10 · 1 December 2005]

The setting: a small private school run by a Scrooge-y director. Topaze, a thirty-something teacher, scrupulously honest, who is fond of his job and full of indulgence and devotion for his pupils, is brutally expelled for refusing to cheat by upgrading the bad scores of a rich-family pupil, as demanded by both his mother and the director.

Clueless and still honest through it all, circumstances lead him next to be recruited to "work" - unknowingly - as a front for a corrupted city counselor who uses his position to get all sorts of paybacks. But as Topaze "wisens" up, his view of life, of the values of virtue and the utility of money will evolve in a new direction.

The plot is simple enough, but listen to those dialogs! Topaze seems dumb but is in fact generous and refuses to admit, not being corrupt himself, the mere existence of corruption in the people that surround him. He truly believes in the goodness of man. Events will challenge this belief, as it does for most of us.

This tale rings astonishingly true in the present times. It has not aged a bit. Though at times cynical, it is a deep and touching reflexion on the importance of money, wealth and power, the supremacy of appearances over substance, and the ordeal of those that are deprived of any of those things.

In my opinion, being a Pagnol fan (of both his books and films), this is Marcel Pagnol's most personal opus. It features an extraordinary cast; as in all of Pagnol's movies, event the smallest parts are well-cast. Fernandel is outstanding as he goes from naive to cynical. Perdrière is adorable and smart, and Marcel Vallée plays the part of the school director with verve: watch him closely in the scene where he is with the outraged mother who demands that the "error" in his son's scores is "discovered" and corrected.

If you have a chance to see this, don't miss it.

The King of Comedy (1982)

Uncomfortably fresh and true

[10/10 · 27 November 2005]

Talk about nobodies becoming famous for gravitating around somebodies...This King of comedy isn't funny, but it's great anyway.

I saw this movie upon its release (and many many times since then). It was a wonder, a few years after the murder of John Lennon by a deranged admirer (that became reasonably famous), to discover how Scorsese grasped "à la perfection" what was going on inside some obsessed wannabe's mind, how celebrities can trigger, ever so unwantingly, fantasies of celebrity into feeble minds, and how he was able to make us witness the extent to which such an obsession can lead.

Here, not to murder, oh no! But... a complete disconnection with reality leading to extreme obnoxiousness, self degradation, and an adoration expressing itself, paradoxically, with a total disrespect for the personal life of the adored one - here the celebrity literally becomes the fan's "thing".

And what, might you ask, happens to the crackpot fan? Why, he writes a book about his crackpotness and becomes famous.

Sounds familiar? Walk into any bookstore, open your TV: the Rupert Pupkins are everywhere. People who become famous just for their sheer wanting (desperation?) to be. The number one virtue our new Kings must have: being the one that wants to be it the most.

This movie was definitely way ahead of its time.