Masterpiece of Horror Theatre- Red Dragon

         This was the third film in the trilogy of films with Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter, and the final time he would play the character. Dino De Laurentiis, who had the rights to the Lecter character, had given the rights to the name for free to Silence of the Lambs, because of the financial failure of Manhunter, but would return to produce the last film in the series, Hannibal and this one, effectively a remake of Manhunter. Brett... (oh, Jesus) Brett Ratner, fresh off Rush Hour 2 directed this (this time, not an insipid comedy). Edward Norton, who would use his salary to make The 25th Hour, was the new Will Graham. It was receive mixed reception and box office success, though not enough to apparently sustain interest in a prequel.

          Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) attends an orchestra performance, and later entertains some of the board (while getting rid of a flutist he disliked). FBI agent Will Graham (Ed Norton) comes over to discuss a serial killer called "The Chesapeake Ripper," who appears to be a cannibal, and who Graham has been consulting Lecter with. Of course, Graham puts two and two together, and Lecter and Graham do battle, before Lecter is subdued. However, Graham can't handle the encounter, and retires. A few years later, another serial killer, "The Tooth Fairy" (Ralph Fiennes) is on the loose. Jack Crawford (Harvey Keitel) recruits Graham back, and when they stall, Graham decides to look at the one source he has, aka Hannibal.

        Perhaps the most distinct and interesting part of this film is Ralph Fiennes. He manages to bring the character of Francis Dolarhyde to life better than Manhunter, with a more interesting performance, and a more menacing presence on screen. It's well worth watching the film for him and the way he portrays the character. It also fully emphasizes the connection to the Red Dragon painting to its fullest extent. Anthony Hopkins continues to do well as Hannibal, especially in the few scenes he has, managing to be menacing, but charming, as the character should.

     Ed Norton's terrible dyed hair is perhaps a symbol for the entire film in general. It appears to be closer to the book, but that's ultimately to its detriment. Manhunter mostly stuck to the important bits, and just cut all the unnecessary parts. Not only are the additions the worst part, they make the film a lot less interesting. A lot more is explained (again, to its detriment), and the film is just stretched. Ratner directs this in such a generic way, with all the marking of studio film. None of the tense moments of Manhunter. It's also just completely forgettable. Nothing stands out, especially with the generic directing and writing. 

    So, yeah, you want a really good adaptation of this book, watch Manhunter. I didn't hate the film, but it wasn't really one that worked, especially with a better adaptation around. Maybe if you want to compare the two, or just want to complete Hopkins performance as Lecter, it might be worth watching, but otherwise, definite skip. 

    So, finally caught to the schedule. To finish off at the right film, our penultimate film is a very different sort of horror film in Darkman.

Dailles and Nightlies- Beyond the Sea

       So, yeah, big global pandemic. Really distressing. Couldn't really do anything last month with the whole "country in shutdown" ordeal. Might as well look at a film by noted actor, sex predator, possible murderer Kevin Spacey. A film that he not only starred in, but he directed, produced, and co-wrote. Yes, this was his passion project, his magnum opus, his attempt to bring a unique vision to the screen. Watching this in light of Spacey's fall from grace, it becomes clear the film is little more than a vanity project by a narcissist who wants to show just how great he is and how much people love him. Oh, and also something about Bobby Darin. Maybe.

     So, the film chronicles the life of crooner Bobby Darin (Kevin Spacey, even when Darin is a young man, and yes, it's off-putting), from his childhood in the Bronx as Walden Robert Cossotto (William Ullrich, who Spacey spends a lot of time interacting with, and yes, it is incredibly creepy to watch now), encouraged by his former vaudvillian mother Polly (Brenda Blethyn), his sister Nina (Caroline Aaron) and Nina's husband Charlie (Bob Hoskins) to become a star on par with Frank Sinatra. He manages to do so in the late 50's, with the help of agent Stephen Blauner (John Goodman) , with hits like "Splish Splash" and "Mack the Knife". From there, he makes his mark on entertainment, headlining the famous Copacabana nightclub, starring in award-winning films, and romancing movie starlet Sandra Dee (Kate Bosworth). All the while, he feels his time is slowly diminishing, primarily because of a childhood disease he was not expected to survive.

     If the slimy, skeevy presence of Spacey is too much to bare, we are a character actor double punch of Bob Hoskins and John Goodman, who both manage to be the best parts of whatever scenes they're in. Hoskins especially has his usual charisma and energy popping out every time he's on screen. There's a nice sequence detailing the production of 1963's Come September in Italy, that looks far better than the rest of the film. Some of the renditions of the songs were alright.  Kate Bosworth is alright.

    Before I get into the meat of my criticisms, let me start with the fact that this movie looks terrible. Awful, cheap looking sets; a weird, distracting blue tint to the scenes that drains all the energy out of the scenes; bad production design for many of the musical sequences. It's not even so much bad as just weird. These large elaborate song sequences, set against these really cheap looking club sets and small feelings venues. Not helping is the fact that Kevin Spacey is way too old to play this role. He was 45 when he did this part. The real Bobby Darin died at age 37. Whenever he's in Darin's most iconic roles, it's jarring. He looks like a 40 year old being a teen idol, and yeah, hindsight is a big part of why this doesn't work, but he still couldn't pull off being a wide-eyed younger Darin trying to make his way through show-business. The film also has this bizarre framing device where they're filming Darin's life with Darin in the lead role, and it is so weird and confusing, and brings Spacey in proximity of that kid, and it's creepy as hell watching it. A lot of this film is just Spacey displaying his various skills, showing both light-acting, hard emotional acting, singing, dancing, impressions. Which might be forgiven for this, but in light of the revelations, comes across as the work of a massive narcissist who wants to show the world just how talented and awesome he is, and burying the fact that he's a manipulative rapist.

    I honestly don't know why I did this. We're all stuck at home, watching as governments and organization struggle with the fact that this pandemic is still ever-growing. I don't recommend watching this except maybe morbid curiosity. Spacey continues to pop up every Christmas like an anti-Santa Claus and remind us that the law hasn't caught up to him yet. Let's hope it does in the coming years. 

Masterpiece of Horror Theatre- The Devil's Backbone

     Guillermo del Toro wrote the screenplay to this film in the mid-80's as a film student at University of Guadalajara. It was influenced by Del Toro's longtime fascination with ghost stories, including his interactions with apparations as a child and how his uncle became a ghost, and was originally set during the Mexican Revolution with a "Three-armed Christ". When his 1993 feature film debut Chronos was screened at the Miami Film Festival in 1994, del Toro ran into Spanish director and producer Pedro Almodóvar, who loved the film, and was willing to produce del Toro's next feature. Almodóvar and his brother Agustin produced the film through their company El Deseo. Despite this, del Toro went through some troubles before he could get into his passion project. His Hollywood debut, Mimic, was distasteful behind the scenes because of the interference of the producers: The Weinstein brothers. Not helping was when his father was kidnapped for ransom. Finally, he and the Almodovar brothers were able to move forward with the project after Mimic's release. By then, the story was shifted to Spain during the Spanish Civil War, and a ghost boy was made the focal point. Other influences included the Spanish graphic novel Paracuellos by Carlos Gimenez, who served as a storyboard artist. Made for $4.5 million, it would make $6.5 million, and become critically acclaimed, cementing Del Toro as one of the finest directors of his era. On del Toro's part, he says this and its spiritual successor Pan's Labyrinth are his favorite and most personal films.

     During the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930's, young Carlos (Fernando Tielve) is dropped off in a orphanage run by Republican sympathizers Dr. Casares (Federico Luppi) and Carmen (Marisa Paredes) after his father dies fighting the Nationalists. The groundskeeper Jacinto (Eduardo Noreiga) is involved with both Carmen and teacher Conchita (Irene Visendo), but secretly wants some gold he had found in the orphanage, and plans to destroy it to cover his tracks. While Carlos has trouble fitting, he soon befriends the bully Jaime (Íñigo Garcés), and has an encounter with an apparition. He soon learns of Santi (Junio Valverde), an orphan who seemingly died in an aborted bombing. However, Santi's story may have more to it.

  Starting off, the lighting in this movie is great. There's a surrealness to it, both in the scenes set in the hot sun and at night, which helps ground the viewer in the world the characters inhabit and the eventual supernatural elements which gradually reveal themselves over the course of the film. It also is just good to look, with enough realism that you are able to accept the scenario much as the characters in the film have. I liked how the political nature of the film is very subtle. The cruelty of the villain Jacinto is juxtaposed towards the cruelty of the fasicst allied nationalists, and the heroes are explicitly helpful and kind, as well as very strongly affiliated with the Loyalists/Republicans. The image of the defused bomb sitting in the orphanage was a fantastic center for the entire film, and helps with showing the shadow of war the characters constantly live under. And it has del Toro's tropes, which he always does masterfully, from the monstrous, but very handsome villain and the strange creature turning out to be less threatening than said villain. I liked that he can juggle multiple characters and plotlines without any of them feeling too rushed or I honestly think one should see this film to soak it in fully, because just describing it doesn't really put up the scale of this film, and how it really gives a great mood.

    I don't have many criticism. Maybe that it was a bit too long, but it never feels dragging and none of the scenes were unnecessary.

    This is del Toro. He's a personal hero of mine, and I've never disliked any of his films. I'd say I'd prefer Pan's Labyrinth, but that is a perfect film on all measures, and I prefer it over almost all films. That said, this is still a masterpiece, and anyone and everyone should watch it no matter if you like horror or not. It is great, and I am very glad I watched it.

   So, apologies for the lateness of this. I haven't had the best October, shall we say, and Saturday was especially hard, because of circumstances beyond my control. Anyway, tomorrow, we go from arthouse horror homage to Pleasantville horror homage, with The Final Girls.
      

Dailles and Nightlies- Crash (2004)

     When Green Book won best picture at the Oscars a couple months ago, the inevitable comparison was to the Best Picture winner at the 2005 ceremony, Crash. Both were dramas revolving around racism, involving the idea that racism was simple misunderstanding and that one could redeem themself of this bigotry. Because of that, both appealed to the liberal, yet very old and white Oscar voters. There was a massive backlash to the win for both (though, in Crash's case, the backlash, in part was because it beat out favorite LGBT+ romance Brokeback Mountain), and both are prime examples of the kind of insultingly simplistic racial dramas that tend to curry favor at the Academy Awards. As I enjoyed reading the reviews and retrospectives of Crash (cultural commentator Ta-Neshi Coates called it the "Worst Film of the Decade"), I came to the realization that I've never actually seen this film. I've seen clips of it, but never the entire thing. Well, this is a whole series for movies outside of recent releases or horror films, so why not explore this, and see if it really deserves its reputation (spoiler: it does)

     So, there is not really cohesive plot to this, but rather a group of interlocking narratives involving several characters. Graham Waters (Don Cheadle) is a detective investigating a crime scene, after getting involved in a fender bender while driving with his girlfriend Ria (Jennifer Espicito) with an Asian driver, resulting in a racial scuffle (setting the tone for all the dialogue in the film). The day before, carjackers Anthony (Chris "Ludacris" Bridges) and Peter (Larenz Tate) steal the car of DA Rick Cabot (Brendan Fraser) and his wife Jean (Sandra Bullock). Director Cameron Thayer (Terrence Howard) and his wife Christine (Thandie Newton) are pulled over by officers John Ryan (Matt Dillon) and Tom Hansen (Ryan Phillippe). Shop owner Farrad (Shaun Toub) and his daughter Dorri (Bahar Soomekh) are trying to buy a gun. Each of these stories intersects and shows how people can be subject to prej... I feel disgusted just finishing that sentence.

    Good things, good things..... There are some decent performances, like Don Cheadle, Ludacris, and Brendan Fraser. It does manage to end most of the stories in a satisfactory manner, without any sort of dangling threads or plot holes. Sometimes, it gets so melodramatic, it's somewhat entertaining.

   First things first, the lighting in this film is horrible. It is often either too bright that it overwhelms the scene, or it is just dim enough that it makes the characters hard to see. The combination makes the film literally hard to watch sometimes. Sometimes, it leads to unintentional hilarity, as serious needle drop moments are staged like some bizarre parody. The big moment in this got a laugh from me. Well, both for the odd lighting which emphasized the wrong things, and how contrived the whole thing was. Which leads to my next problem: the plots in this are very contrived. Only a very specific set of circumstances can lead to the events that occur, and it really stretches disbelief, especially when this is allegedly set in a real-world setting. The way the plots intersect and weave are so absurd, it's almost comical. It's like one of those Gary Marshall holiday movies, where the varying plots are related in weird ways. Finally, of course, there is the writing and the message. Much has been written about this. How all the dialogue somehow finds its way to reveal racism, even when it makes absolutely no sense. How each character is just a vehicle and not a full character. How the characters do absolutely heinous things, but are redeemed in over-the-top ways that ultimately don't address the things they did or really tries to redeem (or even say that some people are beyond redemption). The thing I want to focus on is how... confused the message is. It's either a.) racism is just misunderstanding and can be solved by grandstanding acts, or, b.) it's institutional and possibly can't be solved. The movie ends with the big metaphoric snowstorm in LA, and with people arguing again, which seems to contradict the entire rest of the film.

    I haven't seen Brokeback Mountain, but I can postulate it is far better than this. This was just awful. I can totally see why someone would call this the "Worst Film of the Decade", and get mad this won an Oscar (though it is a superb example of Oscar Bait). I disagree that Green Book was a worse Best Picture win than this, because, in spite of its horrid messaging and bending of the truth, Green Book is mostly competent and well made. I wouldn't recommend watching this as a good movie, but there are moments of unintentional hilarity that can be gained from watching it and how deadly serious it takes itself.