DailyView: Day 120, Movie 193

I love Alfred Hitchcock. However, when I selected the 1936 film Sabotage on HBO Max tonight for the next entry in the DailyView, I was unaware that it was directed by the master. I had read the summary on the HBO Max page and thought it sounded interesting. I saw Hitchcock’s name in the opening credits and I was immediately excited. I have not seen a lot of Hitchcock in the DailyView and this would be a treat.

Apparently, Sabotage was the final film of Hitchcock’s British movies before he came over to the States. I also discovered that the film was released in the US under the name The Woman Alone, but was not as well known among Hitchcock’s films.

Karl Verloc (Oskar Homolka) managed a little cinema in London along with his wife (Sylvia Sidney) and her teenage brother Steve (Desmond Tester). However, Mr. Verloc had a secret… he was a member of a gang of foreign saboteurs using bombs to spread their terror in London. Scotland Yard Detective Sgt. Ted Spencer (John Loder) was assigned to find out what he could about Mr. Verloc. He befriended Mrs. Verloc and Steve in an attempt to discover the connection between her husband and the espionage happening in the area.

This is another example of why Hitchcock is the master of suspense as this film is filled with it. There are some amazing sequences that build up the suspense of what the audience thinks is happening and it really works well.

The suspense is especially tense during a sequence in the film on a bus. It was a very controversial scene and, reportedly, even Hitchcock himself was unsure about it. That scene, which I will not reveal because of spoilers, is perhaps the best in the film.

Performances are solid and you do feel for Mrs. Verloc throughout the film. She is so supportive of her husband and he is just a monster. There are some satisfying moments in the third act.

It is a quick watch and, though the first part of the movie is a bit slow, Sabotage really builds up to a powerful second and third act. You can see the traits of Hitchcock’s directorial style in the movie and, if you are a fan of the director, you want to search out this film.

DailyView: Day 119, Movie 192

I was really short on time tonight, so I knew that it was time for yet another trip back into the very early days of cinema to find Charlie Chaplin once again. However, we went really short this time.

Nice and Friendly was directed by Charlie Chaplin and has the bare bones of a story. According to IMDB, the film was made only as a wedding present for Lord and Lady Mountbatten. In the film, Lady Mountbatten had an expensive pearl necklace that a group of crooks were trying to steal. The Tramp was called in to stop them. He did so with a big hammer. The unconscious crooks were lined up on the lawn afterward, next to Boy (Jackie Coogan).

There really is no reason for this. As I was looking into the background on this, it sounds as if Chaplin most likely never thought this would be shown for the public. I’m sure he never dreamed that it would find a home on HBO Max streaming for the world to see. It is not very funny and Chaplin barely appears in the 11-minute short.

If you are a huge fan of Charlie Chaplin and you want to be completist, you can watch this. Otherwise, you should only watch it if you have a very limited amount of time available to fulfill a movie viewing challenge.

DailyView: Day 118, Movie 191

Going through Shudder to try and find a good movie for the DailyView tonight and I stumbled across the thumbnail with a picture of the awesome Roddy Piper on it. It was a movie called “Hell Comes to Frogtown,” a film I had never heard of before. It was released in 1988, which was the same year that Piper starred in John Carpenter’s They Live. Quite the year for Hot Rod.

After a worldwide nuclear war, 68% of the male population was wiped out and most of the surviving men had become sterile. A virile man was rare. Sam Hell (Roddy Piper) turned out to be extremely virile and was recruited by the government to become a breeder. Along with Spangle (Sandahl Bergman), a government agent out to make sure he followed the instructions, Sam went into Frogtown to attempt a rescue of a group of fertile women from the clutches of the humanized frogs.

What a silly movie this is. You could tell what it was going to be when we found out that the government had placed a booby trap on Sam Hell’s crotch, a device that would send a shock through him if he got too far away from Spangle. It was triggered by the earrings she wore. I, of course, would have chopped off her head and took it with me so I would not have to worry about it again, but that is just me.

Roddy Piper is easily the best part of this movie. He is extremely charming and has a pretty good screen presence. He is not the greatest actor around, but he does have qualities that make him entertaining to watch.

The story is ridiculous and the humanized frogs are funny, which, I am guessing, they are not supposed to be.

This is full of cheesy action and silly dialogue, but the charisma of Piper and Bergman help make this at least engaging. Probably a guilty pleasure.

DailyView: Day 117, Movie 190

One of the iconic Marx Brothers movies was A Night at the Opera, the 1935 slapstick classic, which was the first film from the Marx Brothers after some major changes. First, they went from Paramount Pictures to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and second, this was the first film since Zeppo left the act. Zeppo was very much a straight man in the act and was the lesser known of the quartet and, here, gets replaced with Alan Jones, a talented singer, in the basic role that would have been Zeppo’s.

In the film, Otis B. Driftwood (Groucho Marx) meets aspiring opera singer Ricardo (Allan Jones) and attempts to get him a job. Ricardo is determined to gain the love of singer Rosa (Kitty Carlisle). Otis is helped by Fiorello (Chico Marx) and Tomasso (Harpo Marx). Chaos ensued.

The slapstick of the Marx Brothers was on clear display throughout the movie. There are some absolute amazing bits of comedy from the group, including the moving of beds between rooms to avoid capture by a policeman. The entire scene at the opera in the third act of this movie with Harpo swinging from the ropes above the stage was totally hilarious.

Is the story simple? Yes, but you are not watching Marx Brothers movies for deep, intricate plots. The interactions between Groucho and Chico are brilliantly scripted. They feel very much ad-libbed and are smooth as can be.

There are some great scenes of both Harpo and Chico showing off their musical skills. I can only assume that this is actually them performing. I know Harpo could play the harp, but Chico and his piano work was very impressive.

A Night at the Opera is a lot of fun and any fan of the Marx Brothers needs to see it.

DailyView: Day 116, Movie 189

This is the last day of the Showtime channel that I got real cheap on Prime Day a couple of months ago and I figured that watching one more movie on the channel would be a good choice. Going through the list, I found the 2015 film starring Charlize Theron called Dark Places.

Libby Day (Charlize Theron) was the sole survivor of a massacre at her family’s home when she was 8 years old. Her testimony helped to convict her brother Ben (played as a youth by Tye Sheridan and later as an adult by Corey Stoll) for the murder.

Years later, Libby was approached by Lyle Wirth (Nicholas Hoult), a member of a club that investigates true crime cases, who believed Ben was innocent of the murders and wanted Libby to help them prove it. Of course, this opened several old wounds for Libby as she recounted the night her mother (Christina Hendricks) and two sisters died.

This one was a mixed bag of a movie. There were several bits that I really liked, and several bits that bother me. Starting with what I liked, Charlize Theron is great. I believed her as a traumatized adult who had gone through hell as a child and just wanted to be left alone. She had capitalized on the infamy of the case, which did not make her look like a good person, but she was clearly still being tortured by the memories of that night. Sterling Jerins, who played young Libby, was just a solid in the flashback scenes of Libby’s childhood.

I enjoyed the mystery of what exactly happened on the night in question, as Ben’s guilt had been questioned by Lyle and his Kill Club and their obsession with the case (however, the one woman in the club, Magda, played by Lori Cordova was a horribly cruel person and I did not like her immediately). Again, Theron is excellent here as she is just never quite sure what she remembered from that night.

Chloe Grace Moretz played Ben’s girlfriend in the flashbacks and she is a bit of a contradiction. I’m not sure how I am expected to feel about this character. Moretz is always a solid actor and she does a good job here too. I just wish her character was better written.

However, the way the movie revealed the story was very odd. It jumped around from point of view throughout the plot, sometimes showing us memories from Libby, sometimes showing us times when Libby was nowhere to be seen. Libby did a voice over during some of it, but they revealed scenes of flashbacks that Libby could not have known. The POV was so confused and inconsistent that it really messed with the story, which could have been told in a much more useful manner.

This movie was based on Gillian Flynn’s 2009 novel of the same name and it feels as if some of the important details were left out. At times the movie felt rushed, and could have allowed more time for scenes to breathe.

Overall, I enjoyed the story and the performances more than I disliked the structure of the filmmaking. I had seen the low Rotten Tomatoes score on this before I had started it (23%) so my expectations were low, which always seems to help when watching a movie. This was passable for me.

DailyView: Day 115, Movie 188

“Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”

One of the most iconic quotes from any movie, it is from the classic dance movie of the 1980s, Dirty Dancing.

In the Catskills, “Baby” Houseman (Jennifer Grey) spends the summer at a resort with her family. This year, she winds up taking the place of one of the dancers in a performance with dance instructor Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze). Through their dancing, Baby and Johnny fall in love.

Another film that I never was interested in seeing. The rom com type dance flick never appealed to me. Yet, after watching it today for the first time, it was a decent watch. I liked the simplistic story, the development of the relationship between Johnny and Baby.

Both Swayze and Grey do a great job with the dance routines and the practice sessions, which is as fun as the finished product. The practice scenes with them in the outdoors were so much fun. The dancing on the fallen tree was impressive.

There are some excellent actors in supporting roles too, led by the late Jerry Orbach. The film also includes Cynthia Rhodes, Jack Weston, Jane Brucker, Wayne Knight, and Kelly Bishop.

Dirty Dancing is a fun movie with some great music and dance routines.

DailyView: Day 114, Movie 187

Today, the DailyView heads out to sea for a boy and his dolphin. It is the iconic tale of the dolphin that they call Flipper.

They call him Flipper, Flipper, faster than lightning,
No-one you see, is smarter than he,
And we know Flipper, lives in a world full of wonder,
Flying there-under, under the sea!

source: https://www.lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/flipperlyrics.html

The young boy Sandy (Luke Halpin), son of fisherman Porter Ricks (Chuck Connors), rescued a dolphin who had been injured by a spear, and nursed the animal back to health. When Sandy’s father discovered his son’s actions, he made Sandy release Flipper back to the sea. However, Flipper was not going to be out of their lives.

There are some neat tricks from Flipper and Luke Halpin, but, honestly, there is a lot of repeated images of the dolphin’s tricks. There are a plenty of reused scenes between the dialogue. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is obvious when it is happening.

Luke Halpin is fine in the film. He is not asked to go into depth with his performances, but what he does here is what the film needs and asks of him. Chuck Connors is the biggest star of the cast and he is the person who learns the biggest lesson. He and his son do have a solid relationship and they show it well.

This movie is not a fantastic movie, but it was fine. It was an entertaining

DailyView: Day 113, Movie 186

We are heading back to the world of the Coen Brothers with one of their best films, the satire O Brother, Where Art Thou? starring George Clooney, John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson.

This was a fun, laugh out loud film that took some great comedic performances from its three main characters and turned it into a fully engaging and entertaining movie.

Everett (George Clooney), Pete (John Turturro) and Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson) were together on a chain gang, attached by a chain, when they were able to make their escape. Everett told the others about a grand treasure that he had buried and he offered to split it with them for their help. Pete and Delmar were not the brightest bulb around so they went along, traipsing through the South where they found themselves in all manner of troubles.

The film is a satire on Homer’s Odyssey, and the trials of Odysseus in an attempt to find his way home. In the Odyssey, Homer writes about all of the distractions Odysseus had to face and overcome to continue the journey. Whereas Odysseus had to face the dangers of the Ancient Greece world, Everett, Delmar and Pete had to confront such distractions as a obsessed lawman (Daniel von Bargen), Tommy (Chris Thomas King) who was a black guitar player who claimed to have sold his soul to the devil, the Ku Klux Klan, a fairly crooked gubernatorial political race between Gov. Pappy O’Daniel (Charles Durning) and his challenger Homer Stokes (Wayne Duvall), a group of singing women ‘sirens’, and more.

Each of these trips take time away from the ultimate goal, which may not be exactly what Everett had claimed.

The music of the film is fantastic. Not only do the three escaped fugitives belt out some great music (as the Soggy Bottom Boys), it seemed as if every time they found themselves off target, it was connected to the music. There are some wonderful folk songs played throughout the film, and the music does a great job of punctuating each scene that it is used with.

There was such a clever screenplay behind this movie and the music complimented everything the film was trying to do. Then with three amazing performances from Clooney, Turturro and Nelson, this is one of my favorite Coen Brothers movies, right up there with Fargo and The Big Lebowski. Entertaining film.

DailyView: Day 112, Day 185

Trying to squeeze a movie in today, which has been a very busy one. I went to HBO Max and found The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl from director Robert Rodriguez. I had watched We Can Be Heroes on Netflix and I enjoyed it. It was about the children of the super heroes coming together to face an intergalactic threat. With that enjoyable film, the film that proceeded it had to be good, didn’t it?

Nope.

The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl is a terrible movie. The acting is below average. The special effects are cartoonish. The dialogue is laughable. Nothing makes sense.

A bullied young boy named Max (Cayden Boyd) dreams up a pair of super heroes, Sharkboy (Tayler Lautner) and Lavagirl (Taylor Dooley). They come to get Max to help save their planet, the Planet Drool.

This was shot in 3D, though I did not watch it that way. You could see where they intended the 3D to be. And it was distracting.

A lot of bad with this one.

DailyView: Day 111, Day 184

Woke up early today to take care of the DailyView since the rest of the day feels very packed. That meant that I had to return to the world of The Little Tramp, aka Charlie Chaplin.

This time, the Little Tramp starred in The Idle Class. Chaplin sneaks into an upper class golf resort. He meets a woman who is having an argument with her drunken husband who, just so happens, to resemble the Tramp. The woman mistakes Chaplin for her husband and hilarity ensues.

Much like the other silent films from the oeuvre of Charlie Chaplin, the key component is the slapstick comedy and, once again, Charlie Chaplin proves to be brilliant at it. The sequence on the golf course in this movie is genius.

Chaplin does play dual roles in The Idle Class, which is something that he will do several times in his career. There is a clever use of a suit of armor to help when the two roles are on screen at the same time.

Something that is not mentioned enough is the wonderful score that accompanies the film. This score is composed by Chaplin himself, showing off the talent that he has. The comedy is always enhanced by the music playing behind it and that helps the movie flow well.

The Chaplin train continues as it once again helps out the DailyView.

DailyView: Day 110, Movie 183

School has started (well, professional development for staff has started), but it is still technically summer, so I am continuing the DailyView. I have not yet determined exactly how long I will maintain the DailyView. It will determine how busy I get with school.

However, today was a busy day and I am very tired from the work, so I pulled out The Raven, a movie just over one hour in length that fits nicely into my time schedule. The Raven from 1935 was based loosely on Edgar Allan Poe’s classic poem of the same name. When I say loosely, I mean loosely. It featured two of the iconic horror icons of the time, Bela Legosi and Boris Karloff.

Bela Legosi played a retired surgeon Dr. Richard Vollin who had an obsession with all things Poe. So much so that he built several torture devices in his basement. Vollin is begged to come out of retirement to save the life of the injured Jean Thatcher (Irene Ware). He does so and Vollin falls for the woman.

Setting up a plot, Vollin brings in wanted criminal Edmond Bateman (Boris Karloff). He turned Bateman into a hideous monster and sent him to capture and torture Jean’s fiancé (Lester Matthews).

There is very little in this movie that connects to the poem at all. They mention the poem a few times, Legosi pictures Jean as his “Lenore” but after that, there is nothing else that ties them together. In fact, the main torture device is from the Poe short story, The Pit and the Pendulum.

Bela Legosi is way over-the-top with his performance as the mad doctor. He seemed to be Count Dracula but obsessed with torture and Edgar Allan Poe. So much of what Vollin does make little sense and he truly becomes little more than a mustache-twirling villain. You can see what is going to happen miles off.

This is one of those movies that could be a lot of fun with the Rifftrax guys riffing it. It is corny and silly.

DailyView: Day 109, Movie 182

With the inclusion of the movie, Easy Rider, I have had at least one movie during the DailyView from 2020 back to 1964, as Easy Rider’s year of 1969 was missing.

Easy Rider is considered a classic, a symbol of the 1960s. Unfortunately, I found most of the movie to be pretty boring and aimless. However, the end of the film is a shocking moment that helps bring much of the film together.

Wyatt (Peter Fonda) and Billy (Dennis Hopper), two hippie bikers from, LA who, after a drug deal, decided to head south to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. Their time traveling the land of America dealing with the counterculture and the prejudice of the time followed them the whole way.

Fonda and Hopper gave good performances, apparently making much of the trip up on the spot. I think that is part of what made the film feel so erratic.

My favorite part of the film were two main things. One, the use of the amazing soundtrack with their impressive travel scenes. The countryside was beautifully shot and the music worked perfectly. The second part was the arrival and performance of Jack Nicholson as lawyer George Hanson, who joined with Wyatt and Billy on their journey for part of their trip. Nicholson was amazing as the man searching for the freedom that Wyatt and Billy were enjoying.

Then there was the ending. The third act had some bizarreness to it that was pulling the movie down for me even more. However the final shot of the film was unexpected and doubled down on the theme of prejudice that had been shown across the movie. It was a strong and shocking conclusion to a movie that I had not enjoyed that much.

A strong ending can help a movie, but in this case, there is too much wandering for my tastes. Easy Rider lacks some essential points that are important for me and so the movie is a passable one at best.

DailyView: Day 108, Movie 181

Today’s DailyView heads back into the 1950s in a black and white movie dealing with black and white racial issues with the Oscar winning movie, The Defiant Ones.

In The Defiant Ones, two criminals, John “Joker” Jackson (Tony Curtis),a white man, and Noah Cullen (Sidney Poitier), a black man, who were on a chain gang and chained together by their arms, escaped when the truck that was transporting them crashed. As they started their flight, the two men hated each other, but as they struggled to survive, they gained a mutual respect.

The dialogue is some of the best in The Defiant Ones. It does a great job of showing these two men and their developing friendship across the racial divide.

One of the best characters in the film is the kind sheriff who was pursuing the runaways, Sheriff Max Muller (Theodore Bikel) who doggedly chased them, insisting on doing things the right way.

However, the movie depends on the the two lead actors to carry the load and Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier come through big time. Both men received well deserved Oscar nominations as Lead Actor for this performance. Poitier became the first African-American actor to be nominated in the Lead Actor category.

A simple premise leads to a deeper story. A classic movie with big time performances.

DailyView: Day 107, Movie 180

Since today is Friday the 13th, I thought it was a good idea to watch one of that franchise’s movies. The thing is…I was not sure if I had seen the first Friday the 13th. I knew of things that happened in the movie, but it was iconic so I may have just heard about it. I knew the conclusion, but again, it has been around for 40 + years. I was never a fan of slasher movies, but it is a well known one. I knew about Camp Crystal Lake, but that is something that is part of the culture.

So I put the film on and it was not long before I realized that I had not ever seen it which meant that it qualified for the DailyView.

Of course, there are a ton of horror movie clichés in the film, but they were not necessarily clichés at the time. The camp killings have been done many times before, but this is what started it all.

Jason Voorhees is the villainous murderer of the franchise, known for his hockey mask. Ironically, the first film does not include that hockey mask. I had known that, but it was still strange to see. Jason himself does not make much of an appearance since the culprit was in the family.

I was surprised to see Kevin Bacon in the cast. I may have known that in the back of my head, but, if I had, it was not something that I remembered. Most of the rest of the cast were not faces that seemed familiar to me. As with these kin of horror flicks, the characters are not specifically developed. They are in the movie to be victims and to die in terrible ways.

I really liked the way the film set up each killing, showing it to us from the killer’s POV. It was handled like a mystery although the reveal of the killer came out of nowhere. I would have liked to have the Jason stuff sprinkled in the film at least a little. Still, it works for what it was.

Slasher films have never been a favorite of mine, but you have to respect those films that started the craze. Friday the 13th has lasted for years and still is watchable.

DailyView: Day 107, Movie 179

Titan A.E. is the DailyView for today and it was a spectacular animated science fiction adventure. For some reason, it is rotten at 50% on the Rotten Tomatoes web site. That makes no sense to me because this was a beautifully animated adventure with a strong voice cast and plenty of classic twists.

Earth has been destroyed. It is the 31st century and a young boy Cale (Matt Damon), whose father left him on a question when he was but a boy, suddenly becomes a sought after resource because he has a ring, given to him by his father, that gives a map to Titan, a ship that holds the key to saving the human race.

Cale is approached by Captain Korso (Bill Pullman), who is trying to help Cale get to Titan before the evil Drej, a species of pure energy that is hoping to destroy Titan before it is activated. On Korso’s ship there is Akima (Drew Barrymore), Stith (Janeane Garofalo), Preed (Nathan Lane), and Gune (John Leguizamo).

Titan A.E. is a fun, energetic science fiction romp f an animated movie that has amazingly beautiful images. Combined 2D animation with CGI, Titan A.E. is an amazing looking film. The animation, especially of the time, was cutting edge and really should have been more of a draw than it appeared to be.

Cale and Akima had a great relationship, albeit a little typical for this type of story. They started out not liking each other and developed feelings for one another as the adventure progressed. It had a Han/Leia vibe to it.

This is the reason I think it received several of the rotten reviews. Titan A.E. has a bunch of the science fiction beats that we see in other areas and string them together into this film. While there may not be a lot of material that we hadn’t seen before, there should be some consideration about how effectively the material is presented. Have we seen a lot of this before? Sure, but has the material ever been presented with such flair or energy? I’m not so sure.

The film is paced well, as events move through the short runtime, but it does not feel rushed.

Titan A.E. is an exceptional animated movie that provides some epic sci-fi action. If you are a fan of the genre, you should check out this movie.