Past seven days

The highlight of the week was the chance to see the "dark" alternate ending to 1986's Little Shop of Horrors.  Thank you to DarkRefrain for hosting the screening.  It also gave me a reason to visit another of Chicago's old movie theaters I have never been to before, The Patio Theater.  They screen first run and a lot of cult movies, and for good prices too.

Across 110th Street
21 and Over
The Caller
Dark Skies
Little Shop of Horrors (with alternate ending) (1986)
The Sweeney
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers
Wake in Fright

Bless Me, Ultima

This Mexican-themed coming-of-age film, which also touches on religion and mysticism, is based on a book of the same name by Rudolfo Anaya, apparently banned in some schools for its pagan depictions. The story is told from the point of view of its young protagonist, Antonio (Luke Ganalon). It tells of the year or two when Ultima, an old woman and friend of the family, comes to spend her final years in New Mexico with them. The story stars an all-Hispanic cast of mostly unfamiliar (to me) actors. I believe Alfred Molina narrates as the adult Antonio.

The story takes place in 1944. Antonio and his sisters have it in their heads that Ultima is a bruja, a witch. But she says she is only a curandera, a healer, and this is borne out a few times during the film when she uses her knowledge of plant lore to save the sick and dying. But, Ultima also uses voodoo-like rituals and this witchlike behavior makes her a bit feared among the Catholic-religious Mexicans who live here.

Antonio’s father has dreams of moving from New Mexico to California where he hopes for a better life. Antonio’s mother comes from a family of farmers and is content to stay here where her father and brothers are close. Since it is in the era of World War 2, Antonio also has several older brothers, barely men themselves, who are fighting in the war, soon to return home.

We see Ultima teaching Antonio plant lore, and he witnesses both tragic and happy incidents involving his family and community. An uncle was unlucky to chance upon some local sisters in the night, who are suspected to be witches, and falls ill because of it, but Ultima cures him. This angers the sisters’ father Tenorio, a powerful man who vows vengeance on Ultima when one of his daughters dies, he believes from Ultima’s curse.

Antonio grows up and starts school, has scrapes with friends. His young uncles have wanderlust and want to migrate elsewhere to start their own lives. Summers are spent harvesting on the mother's family's farm. Antonio's father makes a stand to protect his family and Ultima, but her last days are spent with Antonio’s family as she vowed.

Past seven days

I've been on a Star Trek kick lately, rewatching the Deep Space Nine and Voyager series, instead of movies.  And I started watching Netflix's original series, House of Cards, which is quite entertaining.  But I still managed to squeezed in a few movies this past week:

Bless Me, Ultima
Flight
The Hole
Oscar Nominated Shorts-Animation
The Tiger's Tale

Chasing Ice

This doc addresses climate change, pointedly through the work of a professional photographer James Balog. In recent years he has been trekking to the northern parts of the Earth to photograph glaciers. As a longtime nature photographer, he discovered the beauty of glaciers and then in later visits of the same locales, saw them receding too fast to be explained by nature.

In an effort to document glacier movement, he took it upon himself to set up cameras in different locations that would take photos long term, which he would then string together into a time lapse video.

His first effort is unsuccessful as due to a faulty computer motherboard and other issues few of his cameras have captured any photos, leading him to frustration.

Redesigning the tech components, Balog tries again. Success! His videos show dramatic change in how terrifyingly quickly the glaciers are receding. He feels that a visual medium, rather than facts and figures, will convince humans to not only acknowledge that human-influenced climate change happens, but that we must do something about it--and NOW.

I'll Come Running

I think is hard to categorize this movie as it has elements of an independent, foreign, romance, drama, and light comedy script. I would categorize it most as an independent drama.

A Danish tourist, Pelle (Jon Lange) is in Texas with a couple friends. They are at a Mexican chain-type restaurant where they flirt briefly with the waitresses, one whom forms a quick bond. Veronica (Melonie Diaz) claims not to be able to pronounce Pelle's name so nicknames him Milhouse from The Simpsons cartoon TV show character (Milhouse is sort of a geek/milquetoast) after they have some repartee about that show. Pelle in turn nicknames her Lisa, also a character from The Simpsons, and they address each other with these names throughout this story.

Pelle gets a message from a friend at home, Soren (Christian Tafdrup), who has gotten a job for him, so Pelle decides to cut his vacation short as his vacationing friends move on. He changes his flight but has a day more before his flight leaves, so Veronica/Lisa and her roommate invite Pelle to a party, after which Pelle/Milhouse stays the night since he has nowhere to stay. He and Veronica have some casual sex and bond a little over the next day or so, but Veronica often reminds him about the impermanency of their relationship, and gets him to get in a cab to return to the airport.

Unfortunately a tragedy happens and despite Veronica's knowing very little about Pelle (not even his real name) she impulsively goes to Denmark, and manages to get inside his apartment. His friend Soren is dismayed to learn the bad news and can't seem to get over it. He seems to have his heart on his sleeve in a way about Pelle. Soren embellishes Veronica's relationship to Pelle's parents, making her more important in Pelle's life than she was.

Escape From Planet Earth

This new animated film has a pretty substandard script.  It's about two alien brothers--one brawny, one brainy--who have to work together when the brawny brother (voiced by Brendan Fraser) is stranded on Earth, believing he doesn’t need his brainy brother’s (Rob Corddry) assistance to fly his spaceship and other help. Unfortunately parents will bring their kids to this and think they come out with a “cooperation” moral, but there is rampant commercialism in the first part of the film.

The brawny brother, Scorch, is beloved by all due to his heroic deeds. His brother, Gary, is a mission control technician who operates Scorch’s spaceship by remote control. I thought this in itself was a stupid premise because it just seems nonsensical to have someone else fly your spaceship for you. But then I saw it needed to be part of the plot so that when Gary refuses to help Scorch, Scorch ultimately gets stranded on an alien planet since he doesn't know how to fly his own ship. Anyway, Gary’s son even admires Scorch over Gary, emanating his braggadocious behavior. Gary gets fed up with being unappreciated, and just when Scorch gets a new mysterious assignment to the “Dark Planet” aka Earth, Gary quits and refuses to help.

What Scorch and everyone else doesn’t know is that instead of saving someone on a secret mission, Scorch has been duped to deliver some priceless energy component to an evil Earth military officer (William Shatner) who intends to use the energy to travel to other worlds to dominate alien races. Scorch and other stranded aliens are forced to work for the military, and once Gary finds out, he gives in to save his brother.

Identity Thief

Even if the jokes are kind of run of the mill, the two leads are able to do their characters pretty well as they are probably types of people they have played before. Jason Bateman shows that if given the right material he can play a dramatic role well, and even Melissa McCarthy too can do some convincing dramatic scenes if required (even if in this film her dramatic scenes are ploys to fake out Bateman's character into feeling sorry for her--or are they??)

Bateman does a good job as the straight man here although his character becomes pretty desperate and mean. He plays a financial advisor Sandy working behind the scenes at his company, and along with some other disgruntled employees who feel they are undervalued, quit to form their own company. Just when this happens, Sandy's identity is stolen and his new boss feels he is a liability as their clients are questioning his "criminal" activity. After the local police tell him that since this crime took place elsewhere, their hands are tied in being unable to help him.  So Sandy convinces his new boss to give him a few days to clear this up.  Sandy is extra desperate as he is trying to provide for his growing family and feels, as a "little guy," being taking advantage of by people in power, personified here by his insensitive old boss (Jon Favreau) as well as the unseen identity stealer.

As the identity thief McCarthy plays up stereotypes and then some.  She dupes Sandy into giving her some personal information and proceeds to max out his credit cards and destroy his credit rating.  The film portrays her character as thinking of her victims in an "out of sight, out of mind" way, until the real Sandy tracks her down.  Although for most of the story she is still devious and uncaring, there are small moments when she actually thinks about the people she is scamming--some who fall for her sob story, others who unwittingly, like Sandy, think they are being helped.

Past seven days

The days are getting longer, yay! It's so nice to be out and about while the sun is shining.  For some reason it felt like I didn't watch a lot of films, but I got in an average of one per day.

Chasing Ice
Choose Connor
Escape from Planet Earth
Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
Identity Thief
Lost in Thailand
Parker

Past seven days

It's been a pretty active week, with a wide range of stories.  I appreciate that the Criterion Collection and it's more budget-conscious brand, Eclipse, continues to issue and reissue older films, such as The Mikado from 1939, and Thirst for Love, a more obscure Japanese film from 1967.  I'm sure film nerds might quibble with some of their selections that are more modern, i.e. whether or not they deserve the Criterion Collection treatment, but I say, who cares, more good movies!

Be Good
Dark and Stormy Night
Lost Horizon
Mad Detective
Mama
The Mikado-Criterion Collection
Saving Grace
Second Skin
The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister
Thirst for Love

Stand Up Guys

I'll say it straight off--don't waste your money on this film. It's obvious the movie company already did, by having this film made. The only ones who benefit are the people they paid to make the movie. It's an easy paycheck for the three senior actors in the film, Christopher Walken, Al Pacino and Alan Arkin, and even for supporting ut established actor Juliana Margulies. Maybe it offers some exposure to its first time screenwriter but perhaps the only ones who can come out a bit above water is Lucy Punch doing what she can with her comical role, and Addison Timlin offering a bit of poignancy to a story that really doesn't do it much justice.

The basic plot concerns some old mobsters who go for one last spree in their old age. The most central character (or at least the loudest) is played by Al Pacino, Val, a con who has just been released from prison after almost 30 years, for the stray accidental murder during a shootout of the son of his mob boss. He is greeted upon release by his best friend Doc (Christopher Walken) who seems to have been the only one to have remained his friend. What Val doesn't know is that their old boss has forced Doc to kill Val in payment for his son's death. Doc of course does not want to do this.

The story takes place in about 24 hours. Val wants to do stuff like party and have sex, which he hasn't done during his time in prison, so Doc takes him to a madame (Lucy Punch) and a bar. They break out another old cohort Hirsch (Alan Arkin) from a nursing home, unknown to his daughter (Julianna Margulies), and steal a sports car where Hirsch, apparently a getaway driver or or lover of fast cars in his past life, has a fun time on a joy ride. There is a screwball subplot where in the trunk of the car is a woman whom they help get revenge on some rapists (Craig Sheffer and other no name actors) that really have nothing to do with the plot other than to show what decent guys the threesome are.

They stop now and again in a diner where the waitress Alex (Addison Timlin) works, a nice friendly girl who has a connection to Doc she doesn't know about. Throughout it all, the three men can't help but admit they are old and that any good times they had in the past, are in the past.

Les Visiteurs du Soir (The Devil's Envoys)

This French film from the 1940s has a feel similar to La Belle et le Bete, the Jean Cocteau version of Beauty and the Beast, although less fantastical.

The plot concerns two disciples of the devil, Gilles and Dominique (Alain Cuny and Arletty), in the Middle Ages. They aim to destroy the relationships of some humans, probably because they are bored and have nothing better to do, but mostly at the devil's whim. It appears they have blood contracts with the devil so can't escape their plight. They play the part of traveling minstrels, sent to the castle of a widowed Baron (Fernand Ledoux) whose daughter, Anne (Marie Dea), is engaged to be married to Renaud. Renaud (Marcel Herrand) seems to value Anne only as a thing to be conquered, so when Gilles sings mournful love songs at a pre-wedding banquet, Anne can't help but be drawn to him instead. In a sequence where Dominique stops time (she's actually a woman who masquerades as Gilles' brother/minstrel partner), she and Gilles take Renaud and Anne out to the garden where each seduces their respective prey. Later Dominique also plays up the Baron, revealing to each of her men that she is really a woman.

The lustful Renaud as expected takes to Dominique quite readily, and doesn't even want to be reminded he has a wedding soon. The Baron though, still faithful to the memory of his dead wife, finally allows himself to succumb to Dominique's charms and feels protective of her.  Anne and Gilles' relationship is more serious, as Gilles really does fall in love with Anne. Then the devil himself appears (Jules Berry) in the guise of a lord seeking shelter from a storm, creating machinations so that Gilles and Anne are caught together, thus sentencing Gilles to death. Meanwhile, both the Baron and Renaud duel over Dominique. Anne promises to marry the devil if he will release Gilles from his blood contract.