Uh oh… It looks like the real Ariane Elder thinks we left out some key information about our consulate party storyline. She thinks we wasted too much time talking about what happened with Gage and Dielle. So it’s probably in our best interests to let her tell her story about what happened after we left her and Fedya off here.
All in all, it sounds like she had a good night. We have to wonder why Ms. Wren has taken an interest in her. At least Arriane appears to have noticed her, so she has some warning.
Let us hope for her sake and all of the eldritch abominations she claims to hang out with that she only gave Brian decaf!
Today’s selection started with an interesting thread. First I was trying to take another crack at magical realism a topic I always enjoy but have trouble finding good examples. This led me to the first film on today’s list Time of the Gypsies by Yugoslavian director Emir Kusturica. From there I thought I’d try movies about gypsies. Regrettably, I couldn’t find anything that didn’t have them as villainous stereotypes (besides Latcho Drum anyway. I didn’t pick that one since it’s more of a documentary.) So I ended up going with all of Kustrica’s work.
As mentioned above, the first film on the list that started all of this, Time of the Gypsy tells the story of a Tehran, a simple Gypsy boy, played by Davor Dujmovi? who live’s with his grandmother, tripled sister and deadbeat uncle in a rundown village. Pehran’s needs are simple, limited to his pet turkey. playing his accordion and mooning over the girl next door. On a side note, he has the power to move small objects with his mind.
When the hovel he lives in is torn down by his uncle, looking for money after he lost everything in a game of dice, Pehran’s life is turned upside down and he is put in the hands of Ahmed, played by Bora Todorovi? , a gangster whose brothers had stolen all of his uncle’s money in the first place.
From here Pehran is taken to Milan where he helps in Ahmed’s criminal endeavors which includes maintaining a small herd of beggars and pitch pockets and human trafficking From here we watch Pehran grow in both maturity and corruption.
This was an amazing film, sometimes whimsical and sometimes almost operatic, made all the more so with its wonderfully haunting soundtrack by Goran Bregovi?. Other times it almost feels like a documentary showing us the life of the life of the modern gypsy, warts and all but never patronizing. The fantasy elements are almost invisible with Pehran mostly using his powers as a party trick that most people ignore. The one time he uses it for real, in his final conflict with Ahmid, it probably would have been easier for him to just hold the fork in his hands.
I’m not sure if Kustrica’s next film on my list Black Cat, White Cat counts as magical realism the only real fantasy element are two people being “dead” for most of the final act. But I’ll go with it because it’s hilarious.
Bajram Severdžan plays Matko Destanov a totally incompetent smuggler who lives on the coast of the Danube with his teenage son Zare (Florijan Ajdini). He has what he thinks is his lucky break to steal a trainload of petrol and needs the support of local mobster Dandan Karambolo (Sr?an Todorovi?). However, Dandan double-crosses him and steals everything and puts Matko in debt. Dandan agrees to clear the debt provided Zare marries his dwarfen sister (who isn’t particularly crazy about the idea either.) What could go wrong?
This movie was a lot of fun with a wicked gallows sense of humor, showing us all of the absurdities that life can throw at us. The humor goes to every extreme, from Matko trying to pull down a corpse that is strapped to a raised train crossing to a recurring shot of a pig eating an old rusty car (and making considerable progress) to Zare’s reluctant bride hiding in a tree stump.
Like Kustrica’s other film it shows a wonderful job showing the underside of society. Vibrant in its own way, but virtually invisible to those who are not part of it.
I really need to start doing this more, but it’s a case of having to spend more time for research. So let’s start where we first began, with George Gershwin.
I found this one completely by accident, but it’s well worth it. Denis Matsuev is brilliant!
The Jazz bit’s are sprinkled around the entire piece. The rest is just a very good version of Rhapsody in Blue.
Since last week’s selection was a little artsier than I expected, I decided to clear my palette with total fluff. I went with a small handful of superhero films from Hong Kong. (Quick note, for the sake of this post I mean taking place in the modern day an wearing a costume. If I included period films just about half the WuXia films out there could count.)
The inspiration for this week’s theme came from last week’s Irma Vep, where we’re shown clips of Maggie Cheung in Johnnie To’sHeroic Trio. So I thought what the heck.
Heroic Trio tells the story of three powerful crime fighters (well actually one of them starts out as one of the villains but changes her mind ) Wonder Woman (no not that one) (Anita Mui), Thief Taker (Maggie Cheung) and The Invisible Girl (not that one either) (Michelle Yeoh).
Babies are being kidnapped for nefarious reasons, and it’s up to our heroines to stop them. (Provided they don’t kill each other first.)
This was fluff. The plot was pretty much a way to link all of the wirework fight scenes together. Still, it was charming in one of those so bad it’s good kind of ways with Cheung stealing the show as the dynamite chucking Thief Taker.
Because Scarecrow only had the sequel to Heroic Trio I ended up picking up that one and watched the original online.
Heroic Trio 2: The Executioners takes a couple of years later after a nuclear war. The team’s been disbanded with Wonder Woman retired raising a daughter. Because of the war, there’s a water shortage which the government is trying to use to stay in power, while a mysterious figure is trying to use the crisis to cause a coup. Once again it’s time for the trio to settle their differences and save the day.
Regrettably, this one was even worse than the first one with none of the original film’s charm
The second film on my list, Jingle Ma’sSilver Hawk, opens with Michelle Yeoh as the titular character in a battle against panda smugglers. This pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the film.
Silver Hawk is a mysterious masked motorcyclist who fights crime. In the process, she finds herself at odds with the police led by police commissioner Rich Man (yes really) played by Richie Jen. Man turns out to be a childhood friend of her secret identity, Lulu Wong, who still regrets them being separated when she left the martial arts school they were attending to get better training elsewhere.
Meanwhile, a mysterious villain named Wolfe (Luke Goss) is kidnapping scientists and CEO’s to carry out his evil scheme to take over the world. It’s up to Silver Hawk to save the day.
While this one had a lot better production values than the first two films it wasn’t really that much better. It’s saving grace is it didn’t take it’self too seriously. The two main fights in the film involved mooks on bungee chords for the first one and ones with futuristic armor with rollerblades and hockey sticks. I think the best way is to look at it as a modern-day version of the sixties Batman TV show… but I’ll take Michelle Yeoh over Adam West anytime.
I started this week’s selection with a sub-genre I love, the show within a show. Or in this case a film within a film. This quickly changed to films about filmmaking and by sheer coincidence, French films about filmmaking.
The first on my list was Day for Night,(or La Nuit Américaine} by the great Francois Truffaut. It tells the story of Ferrand, played by Truffaut, a director who is the middle of making his latest film, Meet Pamela.
Unfortunately, nothing is going right for the production, his celebrity lead is in the middle of a nervous breakdown, while another of his actresses is being consumed by her alcoholism, and, since the backers refuse to change the production schedule, Ferrand is fighting a losing battle with his deadline.
This was a fun film, which is even more fun if you know anything about the film industry. It is full to the brim with in-jokes and fun scenes. My favorites include a rebellious stunt kitten and the aforementioned alcoholic actress repeatedly walking into a closet by mistake.
All and all this kind of made me think of a live-action Muppet Show with Truffaut as Kermit.
I’d been familiar with the character Irma Vep, the star of the film Les Vampires for a couple of years. I was intrigued enough by this iconic cat burger who inspired DC’s Catwoman and others, that I wanted to see if there had been other films about the character. All I found was the next film on my list, Irma Vep, by Olivier Assayas, which while being about our title character, really isn’t.
What it is about is a film crew that is making the titular film as a low budget remake of Les Vampires. And when I say that I am not talking about an up to date thriller. I’m talking about a strange avant-garde, art for art’s sake silent film.
Hired to play the title role is Hong Kong star, Maggie Cheung, played by herself. Maggie finds herself a stranger in a strange land, unable to speak the language (everybody else can speak English to her but it still feels off-putting) and continually confused by the crew’s lack of professionalism (in comparison to what she’s used to, back in Hong Kong) To make matters worse her costume consists of a latex catsuit, that literally started out as fetish wear.(There’s a fun scene with her being fitted for it by the customer, Zoe, (played by Nathalie Richard) at a sex shop.
All and all this was a fun film, showing the horrors of producing a low budget film through the eyes of an outsider.
A couple of months ago I did a group of movies about people who were blatantly and totally not Sherlock Holmes. Even if they claimed or even believed to be. This week I decided to go with films about the great detective himself. To make things more interesting I went with actors who were not particularly associated with the part, having played him only once.
I’d known of Murder By Decree by Bob Clark, starring Christopher Plummer as Sherlock Holmes for some time, though I’m afraid that all I knew about it was that it was “Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper. “
Our story starts in the middle of the Ripper murders with Holmes finally being contacted by some “concerned citizens” who think the killings are bad for business. (The fact that Holmes has not been contacted by the police already is immediately suspect) Holmes is on the case but as things go on it’s clear that things go far beyond a mere serial killer with cover-ups going as far as the Prime Minister… and possibly even higher.
This film was blatantly based on Steven Knight’sJack the Ripper: The Final Solution and having watched and read other Ripper fiction using this material including the 1988 Jack the Ripper starring Micheal Caine, and of course Alan Moore’s From Hell, this one felt painfully predictable and by the numbers. The only thing that saves it is that Holmes is functioning just outside of the actual history-making for his own story.
Next on my list was the Hound of the Baskervilles. Now there are lots of different versions of the original novel, and I had an entertaining comedy of errors when many of these were at Scarecrow’s Sherlock Holmes shelf in their crime and mystery room except for the one that I was looking for, the 1959 Hammer Films version. Turns out it was downstairs with its director, Terence Fisher.
This film went through the usual notes of this story. Holmes and Watson are contacted to investigate a legendary ghostly dog in the moors of Dartmoor that apparently is targeting the latest holder of the House of Baskerville.
This was mostly a mediocre effort with only one thing making it worthwhile., in fact, the main reason I picked this in the first place, was Peter Cushing as Sherlock Holmes. As always Cushing owns every scene he’s in, making me wish he’d had the opportunity to play the role many more times.
