DailyView: Day 141, Movie 216

Primer was a psychological science fiction movie unlike anything I had seen before. This seemed to be the ultimate independent film as it felt as if this was completely down to earth and grounded like we were watching the every day life of two friends who stumbled across an unbelievable scientific discovery.

While it was treated like real life, it was a challenging watch, with the scientific lingo being very difficult to follow. In fact, much of the story of Primer was difficult to watch and I believe that was the filmmaker’s purpose.

According to Rotten Tomatoes:

“Intellectual engineers Aaron (Shane Carruth) and Abe (David Sullivan) build and sell error-checking technology with the help of their friends Robert (Casey Gooden) and Phillip (Anand Upadhyaya). But when Aaron and Abe accidentally invent what they think is a time machine, Abe builds a version capable of transporting a human and puts the device to the test. As the two friends obsess over their creation, they discover the dark consequences of their actions.“

This feels like a film that has to be rewatched several times if you want to truly understand what is going on. I have always considered myself an intelligent film viewer, but I am not ashamed to say that much of Primer was over my head. There have been comments that this film deals with time travel in a manner that is the most realistic, which I found funny considering how unrealistic the concept was.

For me, this was too much like those college science classes that I did not understand. While I appreciate the originality and taking the big swing doing something unlike that has ever been before, I did not enjoy the movie much. I am glad it exists and I am happy to have watched it, but I am not sure I know what had happened.

DailyView: Day 140, Movie 215

We return to the oeuvre of Charlie Chaplin tonight to come across one that is unlike many of the others… a short that is not very funny.

A Day’s Pleasure ha Charlie and his family, (including longtime co-star Edna Purviance) headed out for a day of fun and frolic, boarding a ship for a cruise. First, they had to endure the car that would not start. Once that bit was over, we had a whole series of bits involving seasickness. After the cruise, they had trouble with a cop and hot tar on the way home.

Overall, this has been the weakest Chaplin films that I have seen so far. There are moments of brilliance, such as when Chaplin has to wrestle a deck chair. This scene placed Chaplin’s expertise at physical comedy front and center, but this was the lone standout in the film.

The music, composed by Chaplin himself, is, as always, entertaining and fits the film wonderfully.

In the end, this is below the high standards of Charlie Chaplin, but at a scant 18 minutes, it is hardly a bother.

DailyView: Day 139, Movie 214

Director Stanley Kubrick and one of his earliest films is the DailyView today. The Killing was a film noir that told a story about a carefully plotted heist at a horse race which was based on a novel called Clean Break by Lionel White.

Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) has come up with a daring idea: a robbery of Lansdowne Racetrack as one of the biggest horses, Red Lightning, was racing. Johnny compiled a five-man team to play their respective parts. Johnny believed that he could get away with over $2 million. Unfortunately, everything did not go quite the way it was intended.

The storytelling gimmick of the film was telling the story in a non-linear manner, something that was not being done as much in 1956 as it is today. There is a voice over narrator helping the audience keep track of what was going on. It was an intriguing way to present the story of the film and may have been too ahead of its time for the 1950s audiences.

Joining Sterling Hayden in the cast was Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards, Jay C. Flippen, Ted de Corsia, Elisha Cook Jr, Marie Windsor, Joe Sawyer, and Kola Kwariani. The cast was outstanding.

I enjoyed this movie. It felt a film of its time, yet had some creative ideas that made it more than just another 1950s movie. The ending is great, filled with irony and comeuppance.

DailyView: Day 138, Movie 213

The DailyView choice today is a coming of age drama focused on a couple’s nasty split and how it affected their two sons. The name of the movie came from the American Museum of Natural History exhibit/diorama, The Squid and the Whale.

Bernard (Jeff Daniels) and Joan (Laura Linney) were married, but growing apart. Joan had been unfaithful and Bernard was an intellectual snob and they were not happy. The separation was particularly hard on their sons, Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) and Frank (Owen Kline), with each boy bonding with the opposite parent. Walt becoming more like his father, struggling with his relationships and pretending that the song Hey You by Pink Floyd was his creation. On the other hand, Frank began drinking beer and masturbating, spreading his sperm in strange places.

Meanwhile, both Bernard and Joan started different relationships to a varying success. Joan stated dating Frank’s tennis instructor Ivan (William Baldwin) and one of Bernard’s students, Lili (Anna Paquin), moved in with him.

You have four distinct characters who all have major problems, energized by the failed relationship of the parents. It is a fascinating look at these people who have made so many poor choices in their lives. The performances of these four actors carry the movie and are engaging as can be.

There are some scenes that are truly brutal between Bernard and Joan and the words they use cut deep to the kids. The third act confrontation was difficult to watch as Walt and Frank were literally between their parents.

Director Noah Baumbach tells the semi-autobiographical tale of two boys in Brooklyn. The direction of the film is outstanding and builds a tone of discomfort with the characters and the audience as well.

The soundtrack was great, with a variety of songs from Pink Floyd’s Hey You to Figure 8 of the Schoolhouse Rock collection.

The Squid and the Whale was not a movie that I was familiar with and it is a shame that a film this good is under the radar.

DailyView: Day 137, Movie 212

Um.

Okay. WTF.

Yes, I knew that The Wicker Man (2006) is considered one of the worst movies ever made, but it couldn’t be that bad, could it?

Yes, it could. Yes, it is.

I watched this on Apple TV but it was weird. The movie ended and I realized that the infamous scene of Nicolas Cage having a cage around his head with bees poured into it was not in the version I was watching. Did Apple TV edit the version of The Wicker Man? I had to go to YouTube and find the scene in order to see it. It was weird, but the dialogue of the scene was included in the Apple TV version, dubbed over top of the women carrying Cage to the giant wicker man. I thought it was odd when Nicolas Cage said “My legs!” as he was inside the bag being carried, but now it made sense. Too bad the rest of the movie did not make any sense.

There were so many things in this movie that had absolutely zero reason for being in the movie. One of the very first scenes, one that is repeated multiple times, is a scene where police officer Nic Cage pulled over a woman and her daughter alongside the road. I guess the girl had thrown her doll out the window and the cop stopped them to give it back to her. The car was then struck by a semi and exploded into flames. Nic Cage tried to get the girl out, but failed. This is apparently a massive, vital scene for the film…. no. It plays no part in the story. Nic Cage kept remembering it…dreaming about it…but it had no ties to the story.

The film is littered with examples like this. Nic Cage bought a self-help tape at the beginning and the movie went out of its way to show it, so, of course, it will play a role in the story later, right? Nope. There was a burned doll in a grave on this mysterious island so this is a prominent piece of storytelling, right? Forget it.

Nicolas Cage is doing his most Nicolas Cage performance in The Wicker Man, delivering these insane lines with such a ferocity that they are laughable. I loved it when Nic Cage just hauled off and punched the one woman right in the face. It was a laugh out loud moment. He then put on a giant bear costume and joined in with the rest of the crazy women. Nicolas Cage was dressed up as a bear. Not even kidding. There is so much unintentional humor in this movie that I laughed more with The Wicker Man than I did in the last couple of comedies I have seen (certainly more than Observe & Report).

I’ve skipped over the plot summary in this review because it does not matter. Nothing in the film makes any sense and the plot is just meant to give Nic Cage a reason to run around this island and yell out crazy things.

You owe yourself a chance to see this horrendous film, but do not go to Apple TV and their censors. I still can’t believe that the version I saw had the most infamous scene removed. This is a terrible movie, but still strangely entertaining.

DailyView: Day 137, Movie 211

I have always been a huge fan of Jim Henson and the Muppets. The Muppets take me back to my childhood, watching the Muppet Show. It was wonderful and I love all of the Muppet movies. However, the Jim Henson movies that do not include the actual Muppets, such as the Dark Crystal, have never been my favorites. Labyrinth was one of those. I had never seen it. It did not have my favorite characters.

I remember I had almost gone to a special Fandom screening of Labyrinth once, but I chose to head home instead. It just did not appeal to me.

This morning I pulled up Labyrinth on Netflix for the DailyView. It started out with me thinking that I was correct in skipping this for so long. When Sara (Jennifer Connolly) showed up, she was such a brat that I wasn’t sure if I would want to watch her for a whole hour and a half. She was cruel to her step-mother and treated her baby brother Toby as if he was just an imposition. She went as far as to wish that the Goblin King would come and take Toby away.

Of course, you need to be careful what you wish for, because David Bowie showed up and told her that he would have Toby and he would become one of them. Sara regretted her selfishness and wanted the baby back, but Bowie said no. The only way she would be able to retrieve Toby was to come to the Goblin Castle at the center of the Labyrinth by midnight.

BY this point, I was not sure what I had gotten myself into. It was feeling like a chore to watch the film and I was not excited about continuing. However, Labyrinth began to grow on me as it continued and, it got to the point where I was seeing why this had become such a cult classic.

Sara began showing more positive character traits, traits that allowed me to root for her in her quest to reclaim her brother. She seemingly cast aside those annoying traits that made me immediately dislike her in the beginning and she became a much more interesting heroine.

David Bowie, who played Jareth the Goblin King, performed some songs and, though they may not be among his biggest hits, they were all engaging and entertaining, The Magic Dance my personal favorite. I did not know Labyrinth was a musical, but it made sense and fit every time a song was used.

The absolute strength of the movie is in the puppetry created by Jim Henson and his crew of puppeteers. The characters found in the Labyrinth are so magical, so artistically beautiful that it totally envelops you into the world of the Labyrinth and every level displayed the artistry and imagination of Jim Henson. I never once wished for a CGI creature as these masterfully designed and realized puppets filled whatever need I had for fantasy.

Of ocurse, all of the classic Muppet performers were here, including Frank Oz, Steve Whitmire, Brian Henson, Dave Goelz, Kevin Clash among others.

Labyrinth has a tone much like The Wizard of Oz, with Sara leading her crew of outcasts through the magical labyrinth in an attempt to face off with the man behind the curtain, in this case, the Goblin King. There is even a little dog, too.

This movie won me over as the fantasy grew. It is a master class in set design, puppetry and creating a world that feels real and has its own real texture. Jennifer Connolly, whose first few scenes nearly turned me off completely, came back strong and had me rooting for her to succeed. David Bowie is a wonderful antagonist and is still quite mysterious when dealing with the young girl. Labyrinth is a perfect example of creativity meeting imagination. This was sadly the final film before the untimely passing of Jim Henson and it truly deserves its cult classic designation.

DailyView: Day 136, Movie 210

Tim Burton has had plenty of classic films in his illustrious career, but I believe there are few as beautifully rendered as Big Fish, a tale of a father and a son and the stories told between them.

A fantastic cast with a witty and creative tall tale of a man’s life brings magic to the screen. Touching and emotional, Big Fish is a film I did not know I would love as much as I did.

Will Bloom (Billy Crudup) was frustrated by his father Ed Bloom (Albert Finney) because he was always telling tall tales about his life, emphasizing the fantastical elements over the reality. Will never knew what was true about his father and what was simply embellishments and that led to a period of estrangement between them. So when news came to Will that his father was dying from cancer, Will and his pregnant wife Josephine (Marion Cotillard) returned home.

Desperate for some level of truth, Will hoped to have moments alone with his father to learn something real about him. However, despite the illness, Ed was more than happy to recount his tales of his youth, leaving his hometown and making his way to find the love of his life.

Ewan McGregor played Ed as a young man working his way through a lifetime of memories, filled with hyperbole and exaggeration though we never really know what exactly was true or what was not. The main story he told, the story of the day his son was born, was about the catching of the Big Fish that was uncatchable, with the use of his golden wedding ring.

Jessica Lange starred as Ed’s wife and love of his life Sandra. Jessica Lange is one of those actresses that, no matter how big or little the part is, will never give you anything but an exceptional performance. She is a treasure and her unrelenting support for Ed in Big Fish tells you everything you need to know about him.

Big Fish was another collaboration between director Tim Burton and composer Danny Elfman, famously working together on other projects such as Batman (1989), The Nightmare Before Christmas and Sleepy Hollow. Elfman received an Oscar nomination for the score of Big Fish and it is well deserved as the music perfectly encompassed the whimsical aspects of the story, beautifully tagging the important parts with a beauty.

Without spoiling the movie, the conclusion in the third act was one of the most emotional moments of the film and it drove home the importance of the relationship between father and son while showing the impact of a person’s life on those around him.

The film may be a tad long, as some scenes from act 1 may stretch out the run time unnecessarily, but that would be the only criticism that I would have. There are great performances and stellar writing, full of metaphors and themes that provide the true magic of life. Big Fish is Tim Burton’s masterpiece.

DailyView: Day 135, Movie 209

I had seen the 2019 remake of Black Christmas and I was not impressed. I have heard a lot of positive about the original film, a Canadian slasher movie directed by Bob Clark and is considered one of the first examples of the slasher genre. I was curious to see how this may or may not compare with the newest version of Black Christmas.

As holiday break approach, the sorority sisters put on a party before people leave for their plans. A series of obscene phone calls break the feel of the party, and lead to the murder of Clare (Lynne Griffin), by a mysterious intruder who had climbed into the sorority’s attic. Stashing her body away, the other did not know what had happened to Clare and when she did not show up to meet her father (James Edmond), they begin to become worried.

The group of sorority sisters is an interesting collection of characters that work well in the film. Jess (Olivia Hussey) is our lead character and she is having problems with her boyfriend Peter (Keir Dullea). She is pregnant but does not want to keep the baby and Peter disagrees. Barb (Margot Kidder) has her share of problems and she is using alcohol to cover them. Phil (Andrea Martin) is a fascinating and one of the most different looking character in the film.

This is nothing like the 2019 version. In the new film, there was a whole plot about a Satanic cult committing the murders. There was so much overacting nixed with poor story telling. The 1974 version was considerably more intense and scary. The whole intruder in the attic character is way more frightening and the calls on the phone were disturbing at any time.

There are some outstanding shots in the movie. The sequence with Barb and the killer was an amazingly beautiful and terrifying scene at the same time. There was some feel with this movie that it was a smaller, artsy work with some of the best shots of any horror movie I have seen.

This was 100% better than the remake in 2019. I loved how this film developed and the mystery of who the killer is and how the ending remained unresolved. This was a fantastic horror movie.

DailyView: Day 134, Movie 208

I have had three consecutive DailyView that have been terrible. So when I needed to find a film that was a sure fire winner. In order to find that, I went back to my childhood to one of my favorite comedic pairs, Abbott and Costello. Looking through their list of movies, I found one that was intriguing and that I had not seen. It was Abbott and Costello Meets the Killer, Boris Karloff.

Freddie Phillips (Bud Costello) is a bumbling bellhop at a secluded hotel where a murder has taking place, and the clues are pointing to Freddie as the culprit. Freddie turns to hotel detective Casey (Bud Abbott) for help as bodies continue to pile up.

The original victim was Amos Strickland (Nicolas Joy), a lawyer who planned on releasing a memoir of all of the secrets that he picked up over the years. This attracted plenty of potential suspects, including the Swami Talpur (Boris Karloff).

Lou Costello was great as Freddie. This film highlighted the classic Abbott and Costello slapstick humor and wordplay that made them such an iconic duo. You can’t help but find the hijinks of the EYG Hall of Famers funny. This film even had a pretty decent mystery with the murders. The title of the movie may or may not be a spoiler.

Some of the situations are silly, but Lou Costello never fails to dive in with both feet. He is clearly willing to do anything for a laugh and Bud Abbott continues to be perhaps the best straight man to ever appear on screen.

This was a lot of fun, filled with laughs and ended the streak of flops for the DailyView!

DailyView: Day 133, Movie 207

Boy, the DailyView is in quite the slump lately.

Today’s film is another of the “leaving HBO Max” is September films and it is the third straight film that is just terrible. This movie stars Katie Holmes in the 1992 psychological thriller, Abandon.

The DailyView is 0-3.

Katie Burke (Katie Holmes), a senior at a prestigious college, was struggling to finish her thesis and find a good job when a detective Wade Handler (Benjamin Bratt) interviewed her on his missing persons case, Katie’s former boyfriend, the eccentric Embrey Larkin (Charlie Hunnam). Things become even more complicated when Embrey returned and started seeing Katie around.

For a psychological thriller, this movie is really quite dull. I was bored by a good chunk of the first hour of the movie as it inanely moved from current day to flashbacks dealing with Katie and Embrey’s relationship. The plot is a mess, needlessly convoluted and, as I said, took too long to get going. The twist of the story was clear as the film progressed, unsuccessfully toward the third act.

To be fair, the best part of the movie was the very final scene with Katie and Handler, but by that point, the film was beyond making a comeback.

No performances stood out in this clunker. Zooey Deschanel was the one actor in the film that did anything with her character, playing Katie’s roommate.

I need to try and find a film for tomorrow that breaks this string of crap that I am on.