DailyView: Day 323, Movie 463

St. Patrick’s Day brought an animated film called The Secret of Kells to the DailyView tonight and it is a gorgeous artistic masterpiece. This film was nominated for the Academy Award in 2010, losing to the eventual winner, Pixar’s Up.

The animation style was very reminiscent of last year’s Wolfwalkers, what was considered the third in the Irish Folklore trilogy from director Tomm Moore.

The protagonist of the film was named Brendan (Evan McGuire), a boy who lived with his Uncle Abbot Cellach (Brendan Gleeson) in the Abbey of Kells. Abbot Cellach wanted to build a wall around the Abbey to prevent any Viking attacks and has not allowed Brendan outside of the Abbey.

However, things change when Brother Aidan (Mick Lally) arrived with his cat Pangur Bán, after his own monastery was destroyed in a raid. Aiden brought with him the book that he was still illuminating the pages. Aiden sent Brendan out to the woods to find gall nuts to make ink. Once out of the Abbey, Brendan meets the fairy Aisling (Christen Mooney) who helps him find the gall nuts. They become friends and she said he was welcome to come back again.

I found this animation style absolutely gorgeous and perfectly suited for the story being told. The sequence where the Vikings were attacking the Abbey of Kells is one of the most sensational animated sequences I may have ever seen. It was stunning, both visually and emotionally.

The narrative may be fairly simple, but the imagery and the colors were out of this world. The character design are beautiful and fit wonderfully in the tale being woven.

I will say that it felt a little rushed at the end, with the basic story wrapping up quickly. The last ten minutes of the movie was spread over years of story time and I would have liked more where the film skipped a chunk of time. Still, it resolved the main conflict skillfully.

This was exceptional. One of the best visually animated films I have ever seen.

DailyView: Day 323, Movie 462

It is St. Patrick’s Day and I searched up some Irish films to watch tonight. The first one is a coming of age story of a young girl who got pregnant unexpectedly, and brought chaos upon her family by refusing to name the father.

Tina Kellegher starred as Sharon, the young girl who got pregnant by one of her friends’ father (Brendan Gleeson), though she claimed that it was a Spanish sailor instead. Colm Meaney played Sharon’s father who went through the gamut of emotions. First he was embarrassed by the shame of Sharon’s tryst, then angry when the rumors of the possible father came out, and finally a caring and supportive, reading books on pregnancy.

Meaney was the top performer in this film. He was great throughout, as he was able to show many sides to the character. His comedic timing was impeccable and his work as he was rushing Sharon to the hospital was absolutely hilarious.

The family comedy-drama of The Snapper was excellent and realistic. This is a real family and they showed the strains that would come with this situation.

Just a solid little film that was entertaining and funny.

DailyView: Day 322, Movie 461

The documentaries have been dark recently. While there is no sexual abuse involved here, cannibalism is a different kind of abomination.

This documentary (which apparently was released in Spain in 2011, but Amazon Prime lists the year as 2015) deals with a dark spot in Russian history. In 1933, Joseph Stalin deported 6000 “unwanted” citizens of Moscow and Leningrad to a desolate Siberian island, Nazino Island with little in way of clothing, food or materials needed for survival. After a certain amount of time, the deportees turned to violence, including murder and cannibalism to try and maintain their lives.

The whole time I was watching this documentary, all I kept thinking about was the Holocaust that would begin in Nazi Germany in less than 5-6 years later. Stalin was an ally with the United States and Britain in World War II, but Stalin had committed many atrocities against his own people by the time World War II was underway.

There were people who were removed to the island who had done nothing wrong. People who had gone out from their house without their passports to prove who they were had been grabbed and deported among this group of people. The randomness of the whole situation makes it all the worse.

It makes one wonder at what point do you go from a normal human being to someone who is so desperately hungry that they would kill someone for food. It certainly is not a situation that I ever plan on being stuck within.

Cannibal Island told a story that I had never heard before, but should be something that we never forget.

DailyView: Day 321, Movie 460

This did not feel like a movie that could have possibly failed. Bill Murray in a comedy filled with miscommunication and a dialogue heavy story. Unfortunately, this movie does it.

Wallace Ritchie (Bill Murray) comes to London to see his brother James (Peter Gallagher) on Wallace’s birthday. James has a major business meeting and he does not want his brother hanging around. So he sets him up with a special treat, an improv theater business called “The Theater of Life” that treats the customer as a character in a crime drama. However, a miscommunication lands Wallace in the middle of a real crime spy story, still thinking that he is in the Theater of Life.

This was really the only joke going on in the movie. It is a continuous miscommunication, with no one smart enough to figure it out and Wallace being unnaturally lucky in situation after situation.

The Man Who Knew Too Little, which parodied the classic Hitchcock film title (The Man Who Knew Too Much), was not funny and had so many ridiculous moments that I lost interest soon after the film started. Wallace was such a dimwit that there was no way that this film would work, except that everyone else in the movie was way stupider.

There is a good cast here, led by Murray that also included Alfred Molina, John Standing, Joanne Whalley, Richard Wilson, Geraldine James, and Anna Chancellor.

Silly and ridiculous. One-joke film only. Bill Murray deserved better than this.

DailyView: Day 320, Movie 459

Eagle vs. Shark was the directorial debut of Taika Waititi and was shot in New Zealand.

According to IMDB: “In Wellington, wallflower Lily (Loren Horsley) is inexplicably attracted to loser Jarrod (Jemaine Clement). She’s out of a job; he’s nursing a decade-long grudge against someone who teased him in high school. When she accompanies him to his seacoast hometown where he intends to take on his nemesis, she meets his father, his daughter from a one-night stand, and other family members–plus the memory of his talented, dead brother. Jarrod treats Lily badly, invents a relationship with his dead brother’s fiancée, and gears up for his fight. Will she finally have enough and go home?“

I did not love this film, but you could definitely see the style of Taika Waititi coming through in the movie. The was a lot of quirkiness and oddball characters that develop into deeper characters than you expect. There are some very imaginative scenes including one of a hula hoop, and some others involving stop motion.

The relationship between Lily and Jarrod was a bizarre one. I did not find it that interesting and that definitely flawed the film for me. Both actors were intriguing, but I just did not feel the connection between the characters.

I actually liked the friendship between Lily and Jarrod’s father (Brian Sergent) more than the romantic relationship with Lily and Jarrod.

Maybe the film did not grab my attention at first and maybe I did not find anyone to really root for in the story. I usually like the eccentric films like this, and I loved Taika Waititi’s film oeuvre. There are some highlights in Eagle vs. Shark, and you can definitely see it leading to some of the other Waititi films, but I was looking for more out of it.

DailyView: Day 319, Movie 458

Brian DePalma directed this horror/psychological thriller that looked at the world of multiple personalities and mental illness. John Lithgow starred as Dr. Carter Nix, a child psychologist who was starting a trial on childhood development.

It is not too long until we discover that Carter has some personal issues. They tried to make it look like Carter had a twin brother, but it was pretty obvious what was going on. Carter had multiple personalities and he was imagining that he was talking to a twin brother.

Carter’s wife, Jenny (Lolita Davidovich) is uncertain about what Carter wanted to do with their daughter, and was unhappy in their marriage. She came across an old flame Jack (Steven Bauer) and entered into an affair.

Meanwhile Carter and his “twin” Cain started stealing children and killing their mothers.

I’m not sure what to think about this one. It felt too over the top, especially with John Lithgow’s performance. How did this guy get to be a child psychologist? Of course, it was blamed on his father, also played by John Lithgow. The film made us think that the father was another personality at first, but he turned out to be real.

It felt as if the idea of mental illness was not taken as seriously as it could be, but this was the early nineties and that is how it was presented.

DePalma was a big Hitchcock fan and there are definitely some homages to the master. Unfortunately it was just not quite as clever as Hitchcock films. It all just felt like a TV movie.

DailyView: Day 319, Movie 457

I decided to watch a documentary today that was not a story of sexual abuse (which the last couple of documentaries that I have watched were about). This doc is much more inspirational. It was all about DDPYoga.

Diamond Dallas Page was a professional wrestler who, in order to work his own injuries out, started a yoga program designed for the regular guys. The documentary, called Relentless, was the story of how Diamond Dallas Page got his program started and the path it took to becoming a huge success.

The doc does touch upon Dallas’s early days as a wrestler, but it is not a major focus. It is basically included to show how DDP started the yoga program and to give a reason behind his choices. Then the doc features several of the people who have been helped by the DDPYoga and the benefits that they have received by working in the program.

The film tells the abridged story of Jake “The Snake” Roberts and his own personal struggles and how DDP helped save his lie. Plenty of other wrestlers shared their own successes with the program like Chris Jericho, Mick Foley, Stone Cold Steve Austin and Cody Rhodes. But it also included other celebrities who found DDPYoga and changed their lives like Darius Rucker and Gabriel Iglesias.

Even more inspirational was the stories of the non-celebrities that had been helped by DDP.

There were several times when I had some tears in my eyes while watching this doc because of the tales being told by these people. The Jake Roberts stuff was especially touching. DDP truly has made a difference in the lives of people and he deserves every benefit coming his way.

DailyView: Day 319, Movie 456

WTF?

I guess I had no idea what this was going to be, because this wild and DARK comedy caught me completely off-guard.

A young girl named Carly (Anne Winters) and her little brother Josh (Zackary Arthur) have to survive a period when a mass hysteria swept the nation, that caused parents to turn on their children.

Carly’s parents were Brent (Nicolas Cage) and Kendall (Selma Blair) who had already started to regret the lives that they were living and this mysterious illness made them easy victims.

I don’t want to go into much detail here in case someone out there wants to see this because if you can approach this like I did, with absolutely no idea what was going to happen, you’ll have the same wild and shockingly fun time that I did.

What I will tell you: this movie is funny. Maybe you’ll feel bad about laughing, but laugh you will.

Second, it features one of those Nic Cage magnetically unhinged performances that he has become infamous for.

Other than that, I don’t want to spoil this crazy ride. I constantly had my eyes bulging and my mouth open in shock. Mom and Dad is a psychotic compilation.

DailyView: Day 318, Movie 455

Another documentary that deals with the horrible topic of sexual abuse. This time, it deals with the abuse of power with a school and members of the faculty that used their power to abuse a group of boys, which went on for years and lead to multiple suicides.

The school: Porter-Gaud in Charleston, South Carolina. Paige Goldberg Tolmach had received word that another former student from her alma mater had committed suicide, she decided that there was something going on and it needed to be looked into. What she found was one of the worst hidden secrets of the school.

Eddie Fischer was the popular teacher who found ways to bring thee young boys to his home and rape them. People were quiet, even though it sounded as if many people already knew that Fischer’s behavior was suspicious, if not criminal. He was a coach and, apparently, any time anyone had an injury, no matter what the injury may be, he wanted them to “drop your drawers.” This became a running gag at the school. This hid a deeper and much worse situation.

Allegedly, administration covered for Fischer when some parents stepped up and came forward to confront the school.

If this doc gives us anything, it tells us that we must not be afraid to step forward and give a voice to the fears or the secrets. This kind of behavior can not survive in the light. It requires kids to do nothing, afraid of being exposed.

It makes one wonder how many Eddie Fischers there are out in our schools today.

DailyView: Day 318, Movie 454

One of the greatest Westerns around is My Darling Clementine from director John Ford. I had never seen it, but it always felt as if I had because I was first introduced to the movie through the iconic M.A.S.H. episode “Movie Tonight” where Col. Potter arranged the showing of My Darling Clementine to raise the morale of the camp. Of course, the film kept breaking down, forcing the members of the 4077 MASH to entertain themselves. During the episode, several scenes were shown from the John Ford movie and it was interesting seeing these scenes in their actual context.

Wyatt Earp(Henry Fonda) and his brothers were driving their cattle to California, but stopped off on a break in Tombstone, Nevada. Their cattle were rustled and one of his brothers was shot dead. Earp decided to accept a position as town marshal until he could discover the man or men who was responsible.

In Tombstone, he met Doc Holliday (Victor Mature), who ran the local gambling. Doc had a love interest with a local lady named Chihuahua (Linda Darnell). Doc had fled from the east and a relationship that he had with Clementine (Cathy Downs) because he was sick with tuberculosis. Clementine tracked Doc to Tombstone, setting off some anger from Chihuahua and Doc. Wyatt Earp found that he was also having feelings for Clementine.

It turned out that Old Man Clanton (Walter Brennan) and his four sons were behind the rustling and the death of Wyatt’s brothers, which led to the classic gunfight at the OK Corral.

This version of the Wyatt Earp story was based on a highly fictionalized novel Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal by Stuart Lake. While there are some actual events (according to Ford, the Gunfight at the OK Corral came directly from stories told him by Earp himself when he would come to the set to visit friends he had known from Tombstone.

The focus of the film was on the relationships between Doc, Wyatt, Clementine and Chihuahua, which was uncommon for Westerns at the time. It is also, most likely, the reason why this film is considered such a classic and how it has survived the test of time.

Seeing the actual filmed section of the gunfight at the OK Corral, the scenes from MASH made it seem much more violent than what this film showed. It was an intriguing scene with some surprising decisions made by the characters.

I can see why Colonel Potter thought that this film would raise the morale of his camp. It raised mine.

DailyView: Day 318, Movie 453

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is a film where I am not sure how to feel. I am torn about how to review or grade this movie, because there are some moments where the film is absolutely mesmerizing and other times it is like a parody.

The film followed the life of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw), from birth to death. Grenouille was born with a miraculous sense of smell and a determination to survive. This film was taking place in 18th Century France so the feel of the film was already one of grubbiness and you could almost smell the odor in the mass of people. One could only guess on what the smell was like for someone with super smell like Grenouille.

So he would become a perfumer because he was desperately looking to recreate the aroma of a woman that he accidentally smothered and killed. The scent of her final moments haunted Grenouille and sent him on his life’s work.

He began his mission by grabbing women and killing them, trying to distill their essence into a perfume to capture the scent that he had experienced at the end of the woman’s life. He was not having any success, but he continued on his murderous mission.

When he came across Laura Richis (Rachel Hurd-Wood), the beautiful, red-headed daughter of wealthy nobleman Antoine Richis (Alan Rickman), Grenouille decided that she would be the “thirteenth” scent he collected and would be the focus of his perfume. Desperate to protect his daughter, Antoine swept her away, placing her under lock and key, but it was all for naught as Grenouille was able to find her and kill her anyway.

While there are some gruesome imagery used in the film, much of the film was beautifully registered by the team. The look of the movie was one of the strongest and most compelling parts of Perfume. At times it felt like a car wreck that you simply cannot take your eyes off.

Performances were top notch. Ben Whishaw was frightening as this bizarre perfumer and it is always great to see Alan Rickman. Dustin Hoffman is in the film too as Giuseppe Baldini, a perfumer who worked out a deal with Grenouille to teach him the skills he needed. Hoffman was so out of place here that every time he was on screen, I thought, “hey, it’s Dustin Hoffman.” That was not what you want for an actor.

The problem was that there were so many moments in this movie that were so ridiculous that it took me right out of the film. There was a moment when the newborn baby, who had been born and deserted beneath a fish market table, was taken to an orphanage. Other kids sensed something wrong with the baby as when one of the kids reached down to see if it was alive, the baby grabbed his finger and pulled it to his nose so he could small it. It looked as ridiculous as it sounds.

There are too many silly scenes like that scattered throughout the movie that end up making this feel more like a spoof than a psychological thriller. And speaking of spoofs, the third act conclusion is perhaps one of the stupidest things I have ever seen in a movie. I was totally out after this. I will not spoil it, but the finale of this storyline was just laughable. However, I did like the final resolution of the character of Grenouille.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer has its moments that transcends the film, but way too many scenes that play against the story that is being told.

DailyView: Day 317, Movie 452

I have always enjoyed a good documentary, and I have seen several great docs over the years. However, every once in awhile, one comes along that is really difficult to watch. The 2019 documentary on Hulu, Rewind, was one of those.

Director Sasha Neulinger documented the case of his own family that had to come to understand that there were multiple cases of child abuse within their family. Sasha was one of the children who had been abused by three family members, leading to a terrible childhood where he was on the brink of suicide several times.

Sasha used his family’s extensive home videos to help illustrate the story that he was documenting. Some of the imagery of the young boy made the stories that he was recalling and highlighting all the worse. Some of the footage was of the boy acting out, doing things that were mean or violent because of the horrors he was living through and that made the doc all the more heartbreaking.

Yet, the documentary also had a message of hope, because Sasha was able to survive the abuse heaped upon him, find himself a new, positive situation and prove that the shadow of sexual abuse does not automatically mean that your life is ruined. He showed that even the worst of the worst can be overcome with the dedication of will and help of those good people around you. With the number of kids that are abused every year, that is such an important message to hear.

DailyView: Day 317, Movie 451

“She’s a Super Freak… Super Freak… she’s super freaky…”

What an unexpectedly wonderous experience watching Little Miss Sunshine, filled with members of the Hoover family, odd and offbeat, down and defeated, yet filled with life. I had heard of this movie before, but I had no idea what a gem it was and how much I would enjoy spending almost two hours with these damaged and dynamite characters.

IMDB hits the synapsis well: In Albuquerque, Sheryl Hoover (Toni Collette) brings her suicidal brother Frank (Steve Carrell) to the breast of her dysfunctional and emotionally bankrupted family. Frank is homosexual, an expert in Proust. He tried to commit suicide when he was rejected by his boyfriend and his great competitor became renowned and recognized as number one in the field of Proust. Sheryl’s husband Richard (Greg Kinnear) is unsuccessfully trying to sell his self-help and self-improvement technique using nine steps to reach success, but he is actually a complete loser. Her son Dwayne (Paul Dano) has taken a vow of silence as a follower of Nietzsche and aims to be a jet pilot. Dwayne’s grandfather Edwin (Alan Arkin) was sent away from the institution for elders, Sunset Manor, and is addicted in heroin. When her seven-year-old daughter Olive (Abigail Breslin) has a chance to dispute the Little Miss Sunshine pageant in Redondo Beach, California, the whole family travels together in their old Volkswagen Type 2 (Kombi) in a funny journey of hope of winning the talent contest and to make a dream come true.

This film started out and I wondered exactly which of these characters were worth rooting for. Olive was a sweet child with large ambitions, Dwayne was in his own little world, Frank moped and was seemingly on the edge, Sheryl seemed to be in full denial, and Richard was as obnoxious of a father as you were ever going to find.

That left us with Edwin, the dirty grandpa who liked to look at porn magazines and said whatever came into his head.

Then, without warning, the characters took a turn and every one of them became something new, something unexpected and they became a family, dysfunctional, sure, but a family nonetheless.

There were a few moments that I had my jaw on the ground. I could not believe that the film went in a couple of different directions, but the dedication and determination to get Olive to the Little Miss Sunshine pageant was a clarion call to the entire group to overcome their individual issues and focus in on a singular goal.

By the way, there is an obvious slap at these beauty pageants designed for the little girls. I found the few minutes that they spent in the third act at this pageant to be very disgusting, taking these little children and dressing them up like they were adults in swimsuits and gowns.

This movie is heart warming, emotional and very funny. It is a magnificent film with a bunch of amazing performances from a stellar cast.

“That girl’s alright with me…Hey Hey Hey Hey…”

DailyView: Day 316, Movie 450

Since The Sky was so short, I figured I would do a second short film on YouTube for the DailyView this morning. It is going to be a long fay, so starting it off with two compelling shorts feels like a great start.

The second one I chose was from 2016 and it was a stop-motion animated film called Fabricated.

Fabricated takes place in a future world where the organic material has mostly died off and the only remaining forms are machinery. The main character, a weird looking robot with a dinosaur skull, sets off on a wandering mission.

Honestly, I am not sure exactly what had happened in the short, but it was such a spectacularly amazing accomplishment of stop-action that the narrative was of a lesser importance. The meticulous work that was out in on this short is mind boggling and shows an incomparable creativity and dedication.

The artistry of this short is amazing and should be appreciated for what it is.

DailyView: Day 316, Movie 449

Who would have thought that 11 + minutes could be so compelling?

This morning, I watched the sci-fi/horror short called The Sky, directed by Matt Sears. It was just over eleven minutes long and, my goodness, it was good.

Two women were sitting together on a hill, watching the darkening sky and playing “Never Have I Ever”. Ellie (Chloe Fox) received a voice mail from her estranged mother (Renee Sears), begging for her to come and meet her before everything ends. Ellie’s friend Victoria (Charlotte Christof) talked her out of leaving saying that it was “too late.”

This is an apocalyptic tale about the end of the world. We do not need to know about the reasons the world is ending, because the short is really about family and what is important in life and the importance of mending fences while you still can.

The special effects for this short was impressive. The sky itself feels like a character as it slowly comes along, marshaling destruction in its path.

Chloe Fox was the definite standout in this short. She does a great job with her frightening performance. And the heartbreaking ending is extremely powerful as well.

It is a strong short that you should find. It is on YouTube and it is just a minimal time commitment to see how effective movies can be at presenting a message.