Category Archives: D — VIEWING

FILMS — SEPTEMBER 2019

Posted by on September 30, 2019 Comments Off on FILMS — SEPTEMBER 2019

(Crow­ley 2007) Boy A
(Carter 2016) Mid­Somer Mur­ders: Ep.108 ― A Dying Art
(1896–1900) Vic­to­ri­an Era Footage from Around the World
(Méliès 1897) Après le bal
(White 1900) Why Mrs. Jones Got a Divorce
(Urban 1903) Cheese Mites [aka What the Pro­fes­sor Found in the Cheese]
(Urban 1906) The Streets of Lon­don
(White 1896) A Morn­ing Bath
(White 1896) Her­ald Square
(White 1896) Pas­sa­ic Falls, New Jer­sey
(White 1896) Amer­i­can Falls from Above, Amer­i­can Side
(Heise 1896) Amy Muller
Read more »

FILMS — AUGUST 2019

Posted by on August 31, 2019 Comments Off on FILMS — AUGUST 2019

(Blair 1961) The Adven­tures of Super­boy [unsold TV series pilot]
(Tut­tle 1929) The Stu­dio Mur­der Mys­tery
(Lang­dale 1995) Earth­worm Jim: Ep.1 ― Side­kicked
(Rob­bins 1978) Corvette Sum­mer
(Kin­caid 1986) Robot Holo­caust
(Trelfer 2019) Dark Cor­ners Review: (365) Robot Holo­caust
(Kin­caid 1986) Robot Holo­caust [Mys­tery Sci­ence The­atre ver­sion]
(Rear­don 1994) The Simp­sons: Ep.109 ― Tree­house of Hor­ror V
(Price 1974) The Tomor­row Peo­ple: Ep.23 ― The Dooms­day Men, Part 1: Dressed to Kill
(Price 1974) The Tomor­row Peo­ple: Ep.24 ― The Dooms­day Men, Part 2: The Burn­ing Sword
(Price 1974) The Tomor­row Peo­ple: Ep.25 ― The Dooms­day Men, Part 3: Run Rab­bit Run
(Price 1974) The Tomor­row Peo­ple: Ep.26 ― The Dooms­day Men, Part 4: The Shut­tle­cock
(Pil­lai 2016) Mid­Somer Mur­ders: Ep.105 ― Habeas Cor­pus
(Vasquez 2001) Invad­er Zim: Ep.1 ― The Night­mare Begins
(Rose 2012) Max von Sydow on Ing­mar Bergman
(Schus­ter 1952) Kid Monk Baroni
Read more »

FILMS — JULY 2019

Posted by on July 31, 2019 Comments Off on FILMS — JULY 2019

(Hawks 1955) Land of the Pharaohs
(Irv­ing 1968) Colum­bo: Ep.1 ― Pre­scrip­tion: Mur­der
(Zuck­er 1991) The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear
(Mahon 1965) The Beast That Killed Women
(Trelfer 2019) Dark Cor­ners Review: (360) The Beast That Killed Women
(Palmer 2015) Mid­Somer Mur­ders: Ep.102 ― Mur­der by Mag­ic
(King 1930) Shad­ow Ranch
(Smith 2001) Mid­Somer Mur­ders: Ep.16 — The Elec­tric Vendet­ta
(Guð­munds­son 1981) Out­law: The Saga of Gis­li [Útlaginn]
(Milosavel­je­vich 2018) How Long Have Peo­ple Lived In Amer­i­ca?
(2016) The Ark Before Noah: A Great Adven­ture [Irv­ing Finkel lec­ture]
(Griss­mer 1987) Blood Rage
(Trelfer 2019) Dark Cor­ners Review: (361) Blood Rage
(Gowarik­er 2016) Mohen­jo Daro
Read more »

FILMS — JUNE 2019

Posted by on June 30, 2019 Comments Off on FILMS — JUNE 2019

(Lantz 1930) Spooks [Oswald the Lucky Rab­bit car­toon]
(Lantz 1930) Snap­py Sales­man [Oswald the Lucky Rab­bit car­toon]
(Lantz 1928) Ozzie of the Mount­ed [Oswald the Lucky Rab­bit car­toon]
(Cooke 2018) Mid­Somer Mur­ders: Ep.121 ― Till Death Do Us Part
(Arm­strong 2000) Mid­Somer Mur­ders: Ep.13 — Beyond the Grave
(Yapp 2007) The Secret Life of Bri­an
(Jex 2008) Black­ad­der Exclu­sive: The Whole Rot­ten Saga
(Jex 2009) Fawl­ty Tow­ers: Re-Opened
(del Toro 2017) The Shape of Water
(Pil­lai 2014) Mid­Somer Mur­ders: Ep.97 ― Let Us Prey
(del Toro 2017) The Shape of Water
Read more »

FILMS — MAY 2019

Posted by on May 31, 2019 Comments Off on FILMS — MAY 2019

(Don­ner 1978) Super­man
(Annakin 1960) Swiss Fam­i­ly Robin­son
(Mar­ti­no 1978) Slave of the Can­ni­bal God [aka Moun­tain of the Can­ni­bal God]
(Trelfer 2019) Dark Cor­ners Review: (353) Star Wars: The Road to Men­ace, Part 1
(Frow 2018) Mid­Somer Mur­ders: Ep.119 ― Draw­ing Dead
(Band & Band 1992) Doc­tor Mor­drid
(Tenold 2019) Brandon’s Cult Movie Reviews: Doc­tor Mor­drid
(Hay 2013) Mid­Somer Mur­ders: Ep.95 ― Schooled in Mur­der
(Neu­mann 1958) The Fly
(Ware­ing 1989) Doc­tor Who: Ep.686 ― Ghost Light, Part 1
(Ware­ing 1989) Doc­tor Who: Ep.687 ― Ghost Light, Part 2
(Ware­ing 1989) Doc­tor Who: Ep.688 ― Ghost Light, Part 3
(Smith 2000) Mid­Somer Mur­ders: Ep.11 — Blue Her­rings
(Kel­ly & Donen 1952) Sin­gin’ in the Rain
Read more »

FILMS — APRIL 2019

Posted by on April 30, 2019 Comments Off on FILMS — APRIL 2019

(Trelfer 2016) Dark Cor­ners Review: (100) Fiend With­out a Face
(di Chiera 2009) Death of the Megabeasts
(Fried­kin 1970) The Boys in the Band
(Fried­man 1989) Phan­tom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge
(Trelfer 2019) Dark Cor­ners Review: (349) Phan­tom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge
(Sas­dy 1985) The Secret Diary of Adri­an Mole: Ep.1
(Winther 2004) The Librar­i­an: Quest for the Spear
(Schu­mach­er 1994) The Client
(Miike 2001) The Hap­pi­ness of the Katakuris [カタクリ家の幸福 ; Katakuri-ke no Kōfuku]
(Trelfer 2019) Dark Cor­ners Review: (350) The Hor­ror Films of F. W. Mur­nau
(Oliv­er 2008) On the Oth­er Hand, Death
(1928) Ear­ly Sound Footage: Unit­ed States
Read more »

FILMS — MARCH 2019

Posted by on March 31, 2019 Comments Off on FILMS — MARCH 2019

(Joffe 2017) Tin Star: Ep.1 ― Fun and (S)Laughter
(Rye 2011) Mid­Somer Mur­ders: Ep.91 ― Mur­der of Inno­cence
(Sil­ber­ston 1998) Mid­Somer Mur­ders: Ep.3 — Death of a Hol­low Man
(Rye 2012) Mid­Somer Mur­ders: Ep.92 ― Writ­ten in the Stars
(Tay­lor 1998) Mid­Somer Mur­ders: Ep.4 — Faith­ful Unto Death
(McNaughton 1974) Mon­ty Python’s Fly­ing Cir­cus: Ep.41 ― Michael Ellis
(Moore 1976) Mur­der By Death
Read more »

(Richardson 1965) The Loved One

Posted by on March 30, 2019 Comments Off on (Richardson 1965) The Loved One

This is the kind of film that should be seen by hap­pen­stance. A delib­er­ate view­ing can’t match the deli­cious plea­sure of stum­bling upon it by chance. I real­ly shouldn’t even be telling you about it.

In 1947, the British nov­el­ist Eve­lyn Waugh was approached by Hol­ly­wood for a pos­si­ble film­ing of his nov­el Brideshead Revis­it­ed. The book’s two essen­tial com­po­nents were a heavy dose of the mys­ti­cal upper-class Catholi­sism which exists only in Eng­land and bears no resem­blance to Catholi­cism any­where else, and a steamy homo­sex­u­al yearn­ing that man­ages to nev­er men­tion homo­sex­u­al­i­ty. The idea that this would have been made into a film even vague­ly resem­bling the orig­i­nal was ludi­crous, but Waugh was hap­py to let Hol­ly­wood give him an all-expense-paid trip to Los Ange­les to hag­gle. Waugh had no inten­tion of going through with the deal. Waugh was a snob — he was revolt­ed that “low­er-class” ser­vice peo­ple spoke to him as an equal, detest­ed Amer­i­can infor­mal­i­ty, and com­plained about every­thing. But snobs often write the best satire (think Thack­er­ay), as they have no com­punc­tions about hurt­ing people’s feel­ings. Hol­ly­wood is a bizarre, arti­fi­cial, and goofy place even for Amer­i­cans, and Waugh found plen­ty of mate­r­i­al for his next satir­i­cal nov­el, The Loved One, which appeared in 1948. He was par­tic­u­lar­ly fas­ci­nat­ed by Amer­i­cans’ pecu­liar atti­tudes towards death and (to a Brit) weird funer­al cus­toms. The plot is sim­ple: A young Eng­lish­man with a posh edu­ca­tion but no par­tic­u­lar ambi­tion wins a trip to Hol­ly­wood, and stays with an Uncle who is a stal­wart in the expat British com­mu­ni­ty in the film stu­dios. His host com­mits sui­cide, leav­ing him to fend for him­self on this alien plan­et. Attend­ing to his uncle’s funer­al, he becomes involved with Aimée Thanatogenos, an embalmer work­ing at Whis­per­ing Glades Ceme­tery, a spec­tac­u­lar­ly vul­gar Dis­ney­land of Death cre­at­ed by the mega­lo­ma­ni­ac Blessed Rev­erend Glen­wor­thy. He encoun­ters an assort­ment of lunatics, all of them dis­play­ing extreme ver­sions of Amer­i­can cul­ture that Waugh found offen­sive and laugh­able. As in many of Waugh’s books, and many of the same ilk, the “hero” dis­plays no notice­able virtues oth­er than not being one of the loonies. 

Tony Richard­son, a British direc­tor who had scored big with crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed and finan­cial­ly suc­cess­ful films (Look Back in Anger; The Enter­tain­er; A Taste of Hon­ey; The Lone­li­ness of the Long Dis­tance Run­ner; Tom Jones) filmed the book in 1965. The script was writ­ten by the wild­ly unlike­ly com­bi­na­tion of Ter­ry South­ern and Christo­pher Ish­er­wood. South­ern is not much read now, but in 1965 he was in lit­er­ary vogue, and usu­al­ly paired with Kurt Von­negut as a satirist. Ish­er­wood was a gay play­wright and nov­el­ist who had chron­i­cled the sex­u­al under­ground of Weimar Ger­many, and would lat­er reach a wide audi­ence with Cabaret. Waugh had vicious­ly car­i­ca­tured Ish­er­wood in one of his nov­els, but in that cat­ty lit­er­ary crowd such things appar­ent­ly did not mat­ter much. The film script sticks fair­ly close to the book, but adds a some scenes that make it fit in bet­ter with 1965. These addi­tions would, I sus­pect, have been fine with Waugh. Visu­al­ly, the film is a feast. Every shot fills the eye with details just as fun­ny as the sit­u­a­tions and the dia­log. Every cut serves a satir­ic pur­pose. But the real bonan­za is the cast­ing. Aimée Thanatogenos is played to per­fec­tion by Anjanette Cormer, whose remark­able tal­ent was nev­er well-used by Hol­ly­wood. The Eng­lish hero is played by Robert Morse, one of the few Amer­i­can actors at the time who could con­vinc­ing­ly play an Eng­lish­man — while the vul­gar Amer­i­can film mogul is played by Rod­dy Mac­Dowall, then still best known as a for­mer Eng­lish child star. Lib­er­ace turns in a hilar­i­ous per­for­mance as a funer­al direc­tor — he real­ly missed a chance to be a great com­ic film actor. Jonathan Win­ters plays both the Rev­erend Glen­wor­thy and his incom­pe­tent twin broth­er, mak­ing each char­ac­ter a gem. Rod Steiger chews the scenery with the moth­er-obsessed and near­ly psy­chot­ic Mr. Joy­boy. Paul Williams is a child rock­et sci­en­tist. The actu­al Hol­ly­wood Eng­lish Con­tin­gent (reg­u­lar­ly cast as “Lords and but­lers”) essen­tial­ly play them­selves: John Giel­gud, Robert Mor­ley, Alan Napi­er. Mil­ton Berle, James Coburn, Mar­garet Leighton, Bar­bara Nichols, Lionel Stander, and Bernie Kopell do well-craft­ed bits. There are numer­ous Hol­ly­wood in-jokes that the audi­ence could hard­ly have been expect­ed to catch. For exam­ple, the cow­boy film star who is being absurd­ly voice-coached by the stu­dio to play an Eng­lish Lord is played by Robert Eas­t­on. Eas­t­on was him­self a voice coach, and one of the worlds great­est author­i­ties on Eng­lish dialects. Many in the cast were clos­et­ed gays. Tab Hunter plays a tour guide! 

It’s extra­or­di­nary that this satir­i­cal film, made 54 years ago, based on a book writ­ten 71 years ago, remains rel­e­vant and bit­ing­ly fun­ny.

FILMS — FEBRUARY 2019

Posted by on February 28, 2019 Comments Off on FILMS — FEBRUARY 2019

(Kagan 1974) Judge Dee and the Monastery Mur­ders
(Malle 1971) Mur­mur of the Heart [Le souf­fle au coeur]
(McNaughton 1973) Mon­ty Python’s Fly­ing Cir­cus: Ep.37 ― Den­nis Moore
(McNaughton 1973) Mon­ty Python’s Fly­ing Cir­cus: Ep.38 ― A Book at Bed­time
(Ware­ing 1988) Doc­tor Who: Ep.678 ― The Great­est Show in the Galaxy, Part 1
(Ware­ing 1988) Doc­tor Who: Ep.679 ― The Great­est Show in the Galaxy, Part 2
(Ritt 1963) Hud
(Ware­ing 1988) Doc­tor Who: Ep.680 ― The Great­est Show in the Galaxy, Part 3
(Ware­ing 1989) Doc­tor Who: Ep.681 ― The Great­est Show in the Galaxy, Part 4
(Seltzer 1986) Lucas
(Guð­munds­son 2014) Ártún
(Sil­ber­ling 2004) Lemo­ny Snicket’s A Series of Unfor­tu­nate Events
(Lourié 1953) The Beast from 20,000 Fath­oms
(Elston 2013) The Oth­er Pom­peii: Life & Death in Her­cu­la­neum
(Mar­cus 2007) Roman Mys­ter­ies: Ep.3 ― The Pirates of Pom­peii, Part 1
(Hitch­cock 1936) Sab­o­tage
(Liu & Li 2008) Jus­tice Bao [包青天; Bāo Qīng Tiān]: Ep.1 ― Beat­ing the Drag­on Robe
Read more »

FILMS – JANUARY 2019

Posted by on January 31, 2019 Comments Off on FILMS – JANUARY 2019

(Melville 1950) Les Enfants Ter­ri­bles
(Arkush 1979) Rock’n’Roll High School
(Cross­land 2011) Mur­doch Mys­ter­ies: Ep.41 ― Kom­man­do
(Dante 1984) Grem­lins
(Trelfer 2016) Dark Cor­ners Review: (54) Grem­lins: The Great­est Christ­mas Hor­ror Film
. . . Ret­ro­spec­tive
(Dante 2011) Joe Dante Intro­duces Grem­lins for the Ciné Nasty Series
(Sawall 2010) Etr­uscans: Glo­ry Before Rome
(Hough 1978) Return from Witch Moun­tain
(Grin­ter & Hawkes 1972) Blood Freak
(Trelfer 2018) Dark Cor­ners Review: (332) Blood Freak
(Copp 2010) Inside the Milky Way
(Man­cori & Mann 1964) Son of Her­cules in the Land of Dark­ness [Riff­Trax ver­sion]
(Wise 1951) The Day the Earth Stood Still
Read more »