DailyView: Day 259, Movie 364

Today’s DailyView is on Netflix and it is a Jack Black biographical comedy film about a Polish-American polka band, led by a man named Jan Lewan. Jan Lewan was the head of a polka band and was arrested for running a Ponzi scheme that cheated seniors out of their money.

Jan Lewan was struggling to be successful with his store while pursuing his love of performing polka. When he started to take “investments”, according to the film, he did not realize what he was doing was illegal. When approached by Ron Edwards (J.B. Smoove), an officer for the SEC, Jan discovered the hole that he had found himself in. With a deadline of three days to return all the money to his investors, Jan, instead, doubled down on the scam and conned his way out of trouble.

When Jan’s wife, Marla (Jenny Slate), wanted to enter the Mrs. Pennsylvania Beauty Pageant, Jan made the victory happen. When the truth came out, the scandal frightened Jan’s investors and the light began to shine on Jan’s crooked plan.

Jack Black is fantastic as Jan Lewan. He played the Polka King with such a warmth and kindness that , despite the fact that we could see the criminal aspect of what he was doing, you couldn’t help but root for him.

One of the best parts of the film is the performance of Jacki Weaver as Barb, the mother of Marla. She had an adversarial relationship with Jan and was having an affair with Jan’s friend and band member Mickey Pizzazz (Jason Schwartzman). Weaver was hilarious in her anger and frustration with the Polka King.

The polka music was fun as Jack Black sang the songs. The polka music made the whole film feel surreal.

The film was entertaining and worth a watch on Netflix.

DailyView: Day 258, Movie 363

When I was looking for a movie to watch to honor Sidney Poitier after his passing away, I wound up watching To Sir, with Love II. This was the film I should have watched.

Lilies of the Fields, in which Sidney Poitier won an Oscar (the first African American to win an Academy Award), is such a charming, funny, engaging film and I was not expecting it to so entertaining. I laughed more in this than I did in Dirty Work yesterday.

Homer Smith (Sidney Poitier) was heading out West when he stopped at a farm for some water for his overheating car. The farm was run by a group of East European Catholic nuns, led by the strict Mother Maria (Lilia Skala) and they believed that he was sent by God to help them build a chapel.

The clash of personalities between Poitier and Skala is one of the best parts of the film. Both are stubborn and they work tremendously well together.

The score of the movie was outstanding too. I loved the soundtrack to so many of the moments of the scenes. There is a great scene where Poitier and the nuns sing “Amen” and it was completely wonderful.

The film is shot in black and white and it really fits with the feel of the film.

I enjoyed this way more than I ever expected that I would. I can see why Sidney Poitier received an Oscar for his work. I watched this with a smile on my face the entire time. It was great.

DailyView: Day 257, Movie 362

Yesterday we lost Bob Saget, former star of Full House and America’s Funniest Home Videos. It was an unexpected blow after a tough few weeks. Bob Saget was a beloved comedian and comedic actors around.

So, in honor, I found a film that was directed by Bob Saget for the DailyView today. It also starred the recently departed Norm McDonald. It was called Dirty Work.

Unfortunately, this was not a great example of Bob Saget’s humor or quality work, because this wa absolutely horrible.

I feel bad that I picked this film to commemorate the life of Bob Saget. I should have kept looking.

Mitch (Norm McDonald) and Sam (Artie Lange) are close friends, but when Sam’s father Pops (Jack Warden) needs a heart transplant and the crooked doctor (Chevy Chase) said he could get a heart for $50,000, Mitch and Sam start their own business of revenge.

Norm McDonald is a great comedian. He is not a great actor. In fact, he is really a poor actor. I don’t want to pile on here.

The story was lame. There was almost no humor. I may have snickered once or twice.

This was also the final movie appearance by Chris Farley. RIP.

I guess the moral of the story is, if you want to honor Bob Saget, go watch some Full House episodes.

DailyView: Day 256, Movie 361

Heading over to Disney + for the day, I watched The Sign of Zorro, a film from 1958 that was actually an edited version of an eight episode TV program about the outlaw Zorro.

Starring Guy Williams as Don Diego de la Vega, the mysteriously masked Zorro, this film had several storylines weaving the way through, including an imposter Zorro, the fight for honorable justice and an attempt to keep the identity of Zorro secret.

Britt Lomond played the crooked commandant Capitán Monastario, whose power hungry nature placed him in situations where he would do what was best for himself no matter what and this put him on the opposite end of Zorro’s blade.

There was a lot of fun in this black and white thriller, with plenty of swordplay and some fancy horse riding action.

The humor was fine. Most of the acting was passable. Diego’s loyal servant Bernardo (Gene Sheldon) interestingly enough was mute in the show and he decided to pretend to be deaf as well. I wonder what the purpose was to have Bernardo to be mute. I had never seen that version of the character before, but my familiarity with Zorro is limited.

The Sign of Zorro was a lot of fun and presented a hero who lived up to the name.

DailyView: Day 256, Movie 360

Two all-time greats are together on stage for a variety show for Netflix and the result is a lot of laughs and some fun music. Steve Martin & Martin Short are longtime friends and it certainly comes through in this show on the streaming service.

They go from doing stand up comedy slamming each other (lovingly, of course) to individual moments on stage for each to banjo playing, a “ventriloquist” act with Jiminy Glick, to a duet with a backing band, Martin and Short really bring plenty to the show.

It is a quick show too. Honestly, it was over before I knew it. Even with the encore that was “required” by a guy from Netflix, the show zipped through rapidly.

Some of the best moments of the show were when Martin and Short were just telling stories about their lives and their past. Steve Martin meeting Elvis, Martin Short meeting Sinatra among other show how much funnier real life can be over scripted material at times.

Martin Short and his marionette legs was really funny. There was a pianist taking several daggers from the pair as well, as good of a sport as one could expect.

This was fun and enjoyable for the short time that it took to watch. It is currently on Netflix if you like either of these two comedic men.

DailyView: Day 256, Movie 359

American Factory was a documentary on Netflix from 2019 that wound up winning an Academy Award for best documentary at the Oscars. I think one of the big reasons why this doc received such accolades was the fact that this was the first film acquired by Barack and Michelle Obama’s new production company, Higher Ground Productions. Of course, it was also because it was a well told story filled with a ton of drama and compelling stories.

American Factory told the stories of the workers of a Chinese glasswork plant called Fuyao, that had relocated outside of Dayton, Ohio, with plenty of promises of better jobs and chance to create a cultural connection with another arm of workers. Both American workers and Chinese workers were hired for positions within the company and the doc spent a good deal of time emphasizing the differences between the culture and the work ethics of the two group of workers. It was intriguing to hear what the Chinese workers thought of their American counterparts, who approached the job in a much different manner.

The doc was directed by Julie Reichert and Steven Bognar was also able to highlight the conflict between workers and their bosses, and followed the attempt to unionize the plant as well as the efforts to keep the union from gaining a foothold inside Fuyao.

There some fascinating film of a trip by the American bosses to the plant in China. It included a New Year’s Eve party thrown by the company that included singing and dancing, as well as weddings. It was an amazing cultural example of how differently we approached these events.

One of the best parts of the doc was that the stories were all balanced out. They did not favor one over the others. The documentarians provided the images and the narrative and allowed it to speak for itself.

DailyView: Day 256, Movie 358

Bruce Campbell is a national treasure…

But what the hell did I watch?

Bruce Campbell made his directorial debut with 2005’s Man with the Screaming Brain, which he also starred and I found on Amazon Prime this morning.

William Cole (Bruce Campbell) and his wife Jackie (Antoinette Byron) came to Bulgaria on business. William hired himself a taxi driver Yegor Stragov (Vladimir Kolev) as a guide. This led to both William and Yegor being killed by hotel maid and gypsy, Tatoya (Tamara Gorski). Crazed scientist Dr. Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov (Stacy Keach) tried out his new scientific discovery by combining part of Yegor’s brain into the body of William. Yegor was able to control part of William’s body and somehow talk to him.

Holy cow. This was terrible. The only positive is that it was supposed to be terrible. It was designed to be a horribly stupid movie. I’m not sure if that is a benefit for the film, that it was going for stupid and it achieved it. Is that a positive?

There were some ridiculously funny moments, such as Jackie being thrown down the steps that had to be done for laughs. There is no way it was meant to be serious.

Bruce Campbell is still an amazing performer, being able to play this silly situation straight. No other actor could have pulled this role off.

This was stupid as could be, but I was somewhat entertained.

DailyView: Day 255, Movie 357

Whoa, I have to say that I am shaken.

Incident in a Ghostland is a horror/thriller currently on Netflix that is tense and taut throughout the entire film and left me feeling unsettled unlike too many films have.

A family is moving to the home of their Aunt Clarisse, who has recently died. Colleen (Mylène Farmer) and her two daughters Beth (Emilia Jones) and Vera (Taylor Hickson) had an incident on the highway with a candy truck, which was odd, but did not set off any concerns at the time.

Later at the weird old house, the candy truck returned and the Fat Man (Rob Archer) and the Candy Truck Woman (Kevin Power) invaded the house and tried to abduct the family, but Colleen fought off the pair, desperately trying to save her daughters.

Flash forward 16 years, Beth has written a successful book about the night in question, but a horrifying phone call from Vera brings her back to the house for more horror.

There were two moments in this that I will not spoil, but that caught me off-guard. I enjoy when something happens in a film, particularly a horror movie, that I do not see coming. That helped out the fairly simple remainder of the film quite a bit.

The film is exceedingly violent and filled with unnerving moments and situations. There are several moments where the film bordered on torture porn. I usually am not a huge fan of that type of horror but I was engaged with this story, the two girls especially. I found myself rooting hard for Beth and Vera and yelling suggestions to the screen, wishing that Beth could hear me.

Emilia Jones, who is brilliant in 2021’s CODA, does a tremendous job here too. She was the standout of the cast. Admittedly, the villains are just monstrous creations that have no reason for their actions. There are people like that, unfortunately, and while I prefer villains that I can understand, some times you just need monsters to fight.

I found this film to be filled with anxiety and a lot of unsettling fun to watch. If you are a horror fan and you do not overwhelm easily, you may want to check this one out.

DailyView: Day 255, Movie 356

One of my favorite childhood books was the beautifully illustrated Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, but when I discovered that it was being adapted into a full fledged live action feature film, I was not too excited. It was a weird thought to adapted a short picture book into a full length movie. Then, in my memory, I had heard some negative word of mouth about it, so I did not go to see it.

Since it was on HBO Max, I thought I would watch it as part of the DailyView, which was when I discovered that the Rotten Tomatoes rating was at 73%, considerably higher than I thought it would be. I also learned that it made several people’s best films list that year.

Now that I have watched it, I can see both sides to this. I have some problems.

Max (Max Records) was a troubled, lonely and problem-making pre-teen. He lost control of his behavior several times, sending him into a violent spiral. destroying property and physically acting out. He seemed to regret his actions when he would settle down, but his life appeared to be quite sad.

When, one night, when his mom (Catherine Keener) had a guest (Mark Ruffalo) over for dinner, Max flipped out totally and wound up biting her on her shoulder. Max took off out of the house and ran away. He found himself by the edge of water with a boat that he climbed in and sailed into the sea.

After several days of voyage, he found himself on an island where giant creatures lived. To prevent these creature from eating him, Max told them that he was a king, and they adopted him into their group as a king.

Carol (James Gandolfini) was one of the biggest supporters of Max among the creatures, but he was sad because of the absence of KW (Lauren Ambrose), one of the group’s members.

Directed by Spike Jonze, the one thing you have to get through your mind is that this is not a children’s movie, despite it being based on a beloved children’s picture book and told from the POV of a child. This is a movie about childhood and the troubles faced by a child.

The film was very dour and depressing through most of the run time and the time in the land of Wild Things was not what i would have thought it would be. Even when something fun was happening, it was tempered by the fact that it was terribly dangerous or that someone was going to be hurt because of it. There was not the amount of joy that I thought would be.

The visuals of the creatures were fantastic and there were so many beautiful shots, but the entire film felt darker than I expected, in tone and in visual. Again, not that it was a bad thing, but it was just unexpected. When you realize that this is not for kids, it makes more sense in the overall plan.

This was better than I thought it was going to be, yet I am not sure if I agreed with some of the choices of the filmmaking.

DailyView: Day 254, Movie 355

Over the last couple of days, we lost a couple of legends, director Peter Bogdanovich, and Oscar winning actor Sidney Poitier. As I was looking at some of the Sidney Poitier movies to use for the DailyView today, I found this TV movie that Poitier starred and was directed by Peter Bogdanovich.

I have not seen the classic original from the 1960s, which sounds like it is very similar to this film. Thankfully, I do not think that I had to watch the first film to watch this sequel. They give us enough of a background for the character for me to understand his motivation.

This film is a part of the “teacher in a tough classroom” genre. Sidney Poitier comes into this Chicago classroom where we have the typical rough students with problems, and Poitier comes in with his respect and his bad ass dedication that wins them over.

I have seen this story many times. Still, it showed the power that a teacher can hold, although it maybe a bit of a stretch for everything working out as it did.

Sidney Poitier was always so great and he was just as great here too. He had a presence on screen that was unmatched by most. Most of the kids were okay, at best.

I did not like Daniel J. Travanti as the principal. He felt like a weak character. They tried to make him connected to Poitier, but I did not buy it. He brought him in to the classroom and then immediately started questioning it. Then, firing him as he did was pretty unrealistic. Principals do not do the firing, that is a school board responsibility.

As I said, I do feel that everything wrapped up neatly and it felt as if the students came around easily to what Poitier was doing.

The movie was well directed and acted from our two recent RIPs. The world is a lesser place without these two talented individuals.

DailyView: Day 253, Movie 354

A 2019 biographical black comedy/drama based around the Panama Papers scandal and based on the book Secrecy World is the next DailyView. This is directed by Steven Soderbergh and had a huge cast telling three stories mixed together with the characters of Jürgen Mossack and Ramón Fonseca.

Jürgen Mossack (Gary Oldman) and Ramón Fonseca (Antonio Banderas) are the narrators of this film, weaving through the three stories.

The cast of the film included Gary Oldman, Antonio Banderas, Meryl Streep, Sharon Stone, David Schwimmer, Jeffrey Wright, Will Forte, Chris Parnell, Matthias Schoenaerts, James Cromwell, Melissa Rauch, Rosalind Chao, Robert Patrick, Larry Wilmore, and Jesse Wang. There is a huge cast of talented actors, but, to be honest, they are not used that effectively.

The film had a definite “The Big Short” feel to it. With Oldman and Banderas, in character, speaking to the camera, explaining complex ideas of taxes and ways to manipulate them, trying to make it more understandable. It succeeds some, and does have some moments of humor, but it is nowhere near as effective as The Big Short.

The end of the film does become preachy. I was all for the message being given here, but I do not think that this is the best manner in which to present it.

I loved the work of Antonio Banderas, especially, and also Gary Oldman. They were great in their fourth wall breaking narration. There were some wonderfully funny and effective moments in the film, but it did not all fit together well.

There were parts here that I enjoyed and other parts that felt like a slog. The Laundromat could have been spectacular, but it settles for being just okay. If you want to check it out yourself, it is on Netflix.

DailyView: Day 252, Movie 353

I wanted to take a break away from Hitchcock for awhile during the DailyView so was looking for something just fun to spend some time with tonight.

Unfortunately, what I found myself watching was the Star Wars TV movie, Ewoks: The Battle for Endor.

Not quite the “fun” I was thinking about. It started with a little girl Cindel (Aubree Miller) running from a group of Marauders who had slaughtered her family. She and Wicket (Warwick Davis) escaped the villains and met a creature named Teek. Teek took them back to his place where he lived with Noa (Wilford Brimley), a grumpy human who had been stranded on Endor for years.

The Marauders were led by King Terak (Carel Struycken) and the witch Charal (Siân Phillips). They were after a power source that they believed would give them amazing power.

I have to say, there were some dark moments in this movie for kids. The battle at the very beginning saw several deaths and the conclusion was brutal and, at times, scary. Other times I was rolling my eyes, very hard.

For a TV movie in the 80s, the effects were okay. Most of the effects were practical and they were fine, but the other effects were Land of the Lost level (well, a little better but you get the idea). Fortunately, they kept those effects to the minimum.

I did like Wilford Brimley’s character, but the little girl was not the greatest actor in the world. She was cute. That was about it. Wicket could now talk English, which I do not believe that he could do in Return of the Jedi. Now I have not watched the first Ewok movie so maybe he learned it there.

There were enough okay about this movie to keep me from hating it. It is clearly directed toward little kids who want a nice stuffed Ewok toy. I’ll never watch it again though.

DailyView: Day 252, Movie 352

Snow day!

With bad road conditions outside, the DailyView continued on with the week of Hitchcock as I watched the 1945 film, Spellbound on YouTube. It starred Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman.

Dr. Constance Petersen (Ingrid Bergman) was a psychoanalyst at Green Manors, a mental hospital in Vermont. At the hospital, the director was Dr. Murchison (Leo G. Carroll) who was being forced to retire after a nervous exhaustion. He was to be replaced by Dr. Anthony Edwards (Gregory Peck), a young doctor who immediately started showing some cracks.

Dr. Petersen started to have feelings for Edwards, and she figured out the shocking twist, he was not the real Dr. Edwards. He was an amnesiac who could not remember who he was or what he did. He believed that he possibly had killed the real Dr. Edwards.

Dr. Petersen was convinced that he had not killed Edwards and she pursued him to New York in an attempt to prove his innocence.

Admittedly, the perception of the female doctor is different in the 1940s than it would be today so many of the comments leaned more toward misogamy than it would today, meaning that a good chuck of this movie does not work as well today. Many of Hitchcock’s films could fall into this category of not holding up because of outdated thoughts about women. But overlooking that, Ingrid Bergman does bring a strength to a character that may not have as much on the page as one might expect. Add to that the fact that Gregory Peck showed several moments of weakness and was more of the damsel in distress than Bergman was, perhaps this is more of a step than first considered.

The film has some wonderful POV shots, in particular one at the very end that was extremely effective and, actually, a bit disturbing. Hitchcock brought some really awesome moments of imagery in a film that could have just been a typical thriller. He lined the story with a lot of psychological drama and the scene with the dream was expertly shot and was completely engaging.

I did like the resolution of this movie and I found the relationship between Peck and Bergman to be excellent. I found Peck’s freakout moments to be very scary and intense and I was not sure what it meant. Peck was vey effective.

Spellbound received several Oscar nominations and they were all very well deserved. It is a difficult movie to find, but it is a great movie to watch if you can find it.

DailyView: Day 251, Movie 351

The week of Alfred Hitchcock in the DailyView continued with the 1934 classic, The Man Who Knew Too Much. I had seen a movie with this title, directed by Hitchcock, featuring Jimmy Stewart. I had enjoyed that one quite a bit, so I did not think this would work. However, Jimmy Stewart was not listed on this film which was when I realized that the one I had seen was a remake from Hitchcock. The one I had seen was from 1956, but this one was from 1934.

I needed a film from 1934 for the DailyView so I decided to see how close this was to the Jimmy Stewart version.

The answer to that is not very close at all.

British couple Bob and Jill Lawrence (Leslie Banks and Edna Best) are in Switzerland with their daughter Betty (Nova Philbeam) vacationing. They meet a Frenchman named Louis Bernard (Pierre Fresney). Later that night, Louis and Jill are dancing and he is shot and died. Before he died, he told her about a note in his room. It was a note which warned about an international crime.

The man behind the shooting, Abbott (Peter Lorre), had Betty kidnapped and was using her to keep the Lawrences in check.

There are few similarities between the films. Both had a child kidnapping involved in the story (one a daughter, one a son), both had a scene at the Royal Albert Hall and both had dealing with an international incident. That is where it stops though.

This was a good version, but it was truly missing a star the level of Jimmy Stewart. The closest to his name was Peter Lorre, who was the antagonist in the story.

I definitely preferred the 1956 version, but I was happy to have seen the first film. It is fascinating to see how Hitchcock changed things from the first one. Plus, this is considered a classic and a huge success at the time.

DailyView: Day 250, Movie 350

Another first tonight in the DailyView as the week of Alfred Hitchcock continued. This was the first feature length silent film in the DailyView. Yes, I have done silent shorts featuring Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, but this was an hour and a half silent picture, not a 20 + minute short, and it was a new way to watch a film for me.

The Lodger told the story of a Jack the Ripper-like killer terrorizing London, killing another blonde, curly haired woman each Tuesday. Seven victims had the city scared for what was happening.

A stranger named Jonathan Drew (Ivor Novello) arrived at the Bunting lodge where Mr. Bunting (Arthur Chesney) and Mrs. Bunting (Marie Ault) live with their daughter Daisy (June Tripp). Drew looked to be very suspicious and would head out of the lodge on Tuesday nights.

Daisy’s boyfriend Joe Chandler (Malcolm Keen) was a police officer who was given the case of the Avenger, the serial killer tormenting London, killing blonde haired women and leaving a piece of paper with a triangle and the word “Avenger” on it. The newspapers jumped on the sensationalism of the stories, spreading the word of the killer.

Meanwhile, Drew and Daisy started to connect, Despite her feelings for Joe, Daisy seemed to be falling for the charms of Drew.

The music of the film was great, as it had to be. The silent movies were not actually silent. They just did not have talking from the actors or other sound effects. It did have music which helped to create the tone and the mood of the film.

Hitchcock told an interesting story, including an unexpected twist of the story. In fact, as I was watching the ending, I still felt there was more beneath the surface than what we got. Maybe I was just looking into it too much, but I do think it is there.

I really had to focus on the film because the storytelling was not just in the screens of dialogue printed on the screen. You had to watch closely because they did not write every word said. The storytelling came through images and facial expressions.

I certainly would not want to watch a lot of silent films, but this one was pretty good and it was a great example of Hitchcock’s skills. It looked like there was a remake of this movie in 1944, which I may visit before the end of the DailyView.