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L'Inferno (1911)
Of its time, which is more than you can for the soundtrack
Yes, it's important as an very early feature film that actually survives in something like its original form (the loss of much of a film t like The Kelly Gang is a tragedy) but L'inferno is pretty primitive.The story telling technique consists of an inter-title telling us what we're about to see, followed by a static shot showing it to us. The acting is of the roll your eyes and wave your arms around variety the actor playing Peter of Vigna is so over the top it's an object lesson in overacting) and the actors playing Dante and Virgil are, to put it politely, pretty porky. There are some great images here - the river of filth, filled with the flatterers, a decapitated man, holding his screaming head up high in his hand - but there's quite a bit that's laughable too. Cerberus looks liked a rather friendly three headed alpaca, and the harpies look like something out of a school play. And then there's one of the most inappropriate soundtracks ever imposed on a poor innocent piece of celluloid. Tangerine Dream... really? So as a historical film artifact... worth the watch, but only with the sound down
Onmitsu kenshi (1962)
Nostalgia nostalgia
You know there are still grown men in Adelaide who giggle happily over memories of Tombei the Mist and Shintaro going "Waaaahhhrrrr" and slashing people around with his sword.
No school yard was safe from kids racing around with sticks and star knives made from cereal packets - oh remember star knives! Actually when I came to watch Kurosawa's samurai movies I really couldn't help expecting someone to suddenly jump backwards into a tree, which made Seven Samurai a bit difficult to watch. :) But watching the Lone Wolf and Cub movies was a real pleasure because there's a similar thing going on here.
Of course the stories in Wolf and Cub make considerably more sense than in The Samurai, but it probably didn't matter to use kids. In fact, even though there was, I seem to remember, some sort of continuing plot from episode to episode I don't think that they were actually played in order and it didn't seem to matter - or perhaps they were played in order and we just couldn't tell.
Great nostalgia and a happy memory. I was a grey ninja by the way.
Lolita (1962)
Carry On Lo
Certainly one of Kubrick's oddest films - which is saying a lot when you think about it. Also one of his most underrated.
One of the oddest aspects is the tone of the film. Essentially we're watching a movie about a middle aged man who likes young girls. Yet the thing is continually being presented as a "true romance story" - the tears, girls rushing up stairs to fling themselves into the arms of their secret lover, that lush theme music ("Lolita's theme" it says in the credits and you can't help thinking of "Lara's theme" or "Laura's theme" or any of those other great love story heart wrenchers) James Mason being rejected ("I want to walk 27 those steps to the car with me and spend your life, your everything with me") and staggering from the house in tears before heading off to challenge his rival in a life and death struggle. But James Mason isn't Ryan O'Neil and Sue Lyons is a long way from Ali McGraw. It's lust for a child that we're being shown and this is a very odd way to show it.
Of course, in the novel Humbert tells his own story and this is all his own self justifying view of what's going on, but the movie doesn't make that clear.
Then there are the jokes. "Camp Climax" indeed! Nowadays jokes in a film about what is essentially child abuse are very very poor taste. But here we have all the nudging in the ribs jokes of a Carry On.
"She's going to have her cavity filled on Wednesday"
"I'd like your cherry pie"
"I look at you and go as limp as a noodle. Yes, I know the feeling."
There are funny names galore. It even has slapstick schtick when Humbert and the porter try and put up the bed. Honestly, you could cast Kenneth Williams as Humbert, Barbara Windsor as Lolita, Joan Sims as Charlotte and Sid James as Quilty and just about use the same script.
And it's hardly fashionable any more to suggest that the child in this situation is anything but a victim. But Nabokov and Kubrick make it quite clear that Lolita is as much predator as prey. Humbert is used by her just as much as he uses her. She's a sort of proto-Laura Palmer. Most unsavoury by todays standards.
Then half way through the whole thing mutates. What was a knockabout romp about perversion (!) turns into some sort of thriller road movie, with all the mechanics of secret meetings, strange cars silently following our heroes, paranoia over people chatting unheard to unseen drivers, weird warning phone calls in the night, kidnappings, hospital staff who know more than they'll say.
By the end, when Humbert and Lolita meet for the final time so that Lo can use him dry one last time we're in romance territory - with Humbert like Mr Rochester, faced with a particularly selfish Jane Eyre.
It's hardly Kubrick's most successful film. It doesn't really hang together and you get the feeling that Kibrick isn't quite in control of his story the way he was in (say) The Shining or Barry Lyndon.
And let's be honest - it drags towards the end. The final sequence of Humbert's visit to Lolita and Dick (I was surprised that Lolita didn't get to say the line "I can't live without Dick") really doesn't work. Sue Lyons wear black framed glasses and a smock that are supposed to make her look like a frumpy married woman and instead just make her look silly - or like a little girl dressing up as a frumpy married woman. Her big revelation that it was Quilty all along surprises no-one (except, apparently, Humbert) and she insists in telling it in detail.
I couldn't work this out. I can't imagine that the audience was meant to have been fooled all along and suddenly see the truth along with Humbert. But if not, then why all the detail? Just having Lolita say "It was Quilty all along" would have been enough.
More likely is the idea that the audience is supposes to be in on the secret and she's telling the story for Humbert's sake. In which case, just how dim is Humbert?
So, not Kubrick's best. But as high spirited, comedy, road movie murder thrillers about paedophilia go it's one of the best.
Shall We Dance (1937)
Romance
Is there a more romantic moment in cinema than Fred Astaire singing "They can't take that away from me" to Ginger Rogers on that ferry in the fog?
And if the final ballet is a bit hokey and the plot is slimmer than usual (and that IS slim) then no matter.
Fred and Ginger together have probably the most perfect onscreen chemistry of any cinema pairing (compare, say Julia Roberts and Richard Gere and see what I mean)
The Magic Pudding (2000)
Oh dear.....
You know a film is in trouble when a character in children's classic written early last century utters a line like " It'll destroy the very fabric of the universe!" That line - or something like it, gets a workout towards the end of this crude updating of the Australian Classic.
Of course, you won't have to wait until near the end to realise that this film is in trouble. The first few minutes will be all it takes.
Assemble a fine cast, spend millions and adapt the Australian Children's book that's in the same league as the "Wizard of Oz", "Wind in the Willows" or "Alice in Wonderland". A recipe for success you would think.
Instead this is a disaster.
Why? Because the makers simply didn't trust the strength of their material. Norman Lindsay wrote the book to prove that kids like hearing stories about food. It was a bet. Someone else had offered the opinion that what children wanted to hear about was "fairies and elves "."Nonsense," said Lindsay and wrote the Magic Pudding to prove it.
The Magic Pudding is loud, fast, broad, satirical and the book they invented the word "rambunctious" for.
The film is mild, meandering and with a moral about friendship and not being greedy. It comes with extra characters to give it cuteness, extra plot to give it relevance and extra gags "for the kids".
Sad sad sad. Read the book. Read the book aloud. Read it aloud to kids. Don't bother seeing this movie.
Bicentennial Man (1999)
drivel
If you want to see a movie about someone who wants to become a real person watch Pinocchio. At least you get to see the whale chase.
Manipulative, sentimental and badly thought out. Three things that you can't ever say about an Asimov story. But let Hollywood get their hands on it and it's the formula as usual.
$100 million they spent on this - surely for that they could have made a good movie?