p e n g u i n d e v i l

I was a big fan of The Lighthouse, but I had no idea that settling down for Cold Skin would remind me of it. Cold Skin just looked like any old throw-away monster/horror movie, but it was really quite good.

A century back, a young weather man is dropped off at an isolated island lighthouse. When they arrive, one of the two people that they expect to find is missing and they don’t exactly get a good story from the fellow that as to why. So he is left with this strange, unfriendly, and paranoid old feller who seems to have oddly barricaded the lighthouse quite a bit. It only takes until the first night for the newcomer to see that maybe there is a good reason for the barricade.

If you watched The Lighthouse and would like to follow up your “Isolated lighthouse” viewing with something a bit less traumatizing, but still about two guys at an isolated lighthouse where weird stuff, violent and otherwise, happens. Then this may fit the bill.

And then Hangover Square. Part of the criterion Noir thing this month, it wasn’t really textbook noir. And didn’t seem to involve any actual hangovers. Maybe just mental ones… But it features crimes, a man in trouble, and definitely a conniving lady. Mr Bone is a well-meaning composer with a nice lady and a swell old patron. He is hard at work on his concerto, but sometimes he has these, well, fugue states from which he cannot remember anything. After a particularly long episode, he begins to suspect that he may have killed someone. But there is no evidence and no memory, so he goes about his business.

Of course, he encounters this femme who he is desirous of and who desires for him to put aside his concerto and make popular music for her so she can compel her career forward. Well, more fugue states and crimes (and murder) and burning of Guy Fawkes’ Guys is in store and nothing goes well… But it’s interesting and involving and the end is great!

George Melford’s Dracula. Well? It’s an odd combination of being very like Dracula, but then going off in weird directions. Seemingly filmed on the same sets as Dracula, concurrently, but at night?

It’s Renfield who goes (secretly this time?) to meet the count at his castle and Harker is a very minor character. The Count is played much different. Especially once in England, where he is very public and social… Even socializing with Dr Seward and Professor Von Helsing? Kind of odd.

But Dracula has some great expressions, well, a number of the characters hold some pretty dramatic expressions here and there, especially Renfield.

But all in all it was enjoyable, and strangely different and strangely similar.

Ah, The Tower from Guillaume Nicloux. To be honest, I didn’t see much point to this. It is a rather bleak, dark, and slow film about what happens when an apartment building becomes completely cut off from the outside world because it is enveloped in a blackness that just seems to disintegrate anything that enters it.

People are in a panic, at first. As times goes on through, they just band into opposing groups of terrible people (of course). And they are rather pointless power struggles and violence, and dogs become a hot commodity, and, as the years go on, the thug element becomes just more and brutal, and just nothing good (or particularly interesting) happens at all.

The Old Dark House! James Whale and Boris Karloff and more! And I’d never even heard of it… But I quite enjoyed it. From the terrible car ride at the beginning, especially with Melvyn Douglas’ droll responses to the endless complaints of his snotty companions, to the dramatic goings on at the house that they find shelter in.

When the weather disrupts the travel plans of this threesome, they take shelter in the Old Dark House, alone with the eccentric family that lives there, it gets some comical old fashioned drama as it feels like there is some kind of threat around, but it isn’t clear what (or who) that might be. I thought that the characters were all pretty fun, and it just entertaining in general. And then old Saul gets out and the troubles really begin…

A great documentary about a man who seems to be clearly wrongly convicted of a murder and the processes of Texas “Justice” around how that happened. many people bandy about the “thin blue line” shtick as some sort showing of blind loyalty to the police. But, sadly, many times the law isn’t worthy of blind loyalty and this movie shows a classic (and terrible) case of that. Once in which the only loyalty that the police have is to railroading their lies tot he finish line, regardless of the cost to innocence.

A terrible situation all around and some terrible people, on both sides of the law. But a great, and unsettling, movie.

It was quite the Vampire party this week. Trying to bring back my old and long forgotten movie-watching mojo, I watched: Dracula AD 1972, Taste the Blood of Dracula, Dracula has Risen From the Grave, and Horror of Dracula!

Firstup, Dracula AD 1972 (1972)
Probably my least favorite of the bunch. Sure it has lots of crazy 1960s-70’s swinging British style, but that wasn’t enough to leave me enthralled. Basically, one of the young hipsters is a bit troubled and decides on a black magic rite to bring Dracula back. Coincidentally, one of his friends “happens” to be a descendant of Van Helsing (yes, THE Van Helsing, who killed Dracula a century before)… In fact, not only is this woman descended from THE Van Helsing but the movie also features her grandfather who looks exactly like the Val Helsing who killed Dracula! So, when this rite works and Drac comes back, he is already ready for revenge!

The best part is that the bad youth’s name is Alucard, which reminded me that I needed to repurchase Alucarda, since I, foolishly, sold it years ago

Next up was Taste the Blood of Dracula.
This was a winner! A bunch of rich, bored with life, assholes in 19th century England, looking to just pretend that they are decent folks, badgering everyone into behaving appropriately, but spend their free time looking to debauch and otherwise experience life in whatever way strikes their fancy. When one of their debauchery moments gets interrupted by a snotty young fellow, who clearly has power, they are intrigued by him and head off after him… And get talked into bringing Drac back to life as a way to push the boundaries of their boring lives! Well, that certainly works! And, of course, disaster befalls! But, note, next time watch Dracula has Risen From The Grave first

Next was Horror of Dracula (in England, just plain Dracula).
Basically a retelling of the general Dracula plotline, but in this version, Harker was coming to Dracula’s castle under a ruse. He is really already a vampire hunter! This one has a lot of other trimming of the story… Many of the characters are gone or melded together and, rather than coursing from London to Transylvania and back again, this one just hops the relatively short 150ish miles from Karlstadt to Ingolstadt. Not super exciting.

Fourthly, Dracula Has Risen from the Grave!
I liked this one! Drac has much more a of a role in this, not just standing in the shadows, biting people, and then dying like in the others, he even does some coach driving in this! This is a fun one in which a Monsignor ventures out of his city to a little town and, in trying to free the town from their fear of Dracula, accidentally ends up resurrecting Dracula himself! Featuring Veronica Carlson as the Monsignor’s niece (whowould go on to play many similar roles for Hammer) who likes to traipse across the rooftops and otherwise endanger herself.

After this, we watched Bram Stoker’s Dracula (or Dracula, as far as I am concerned). Oddly, Keanu’s accent and stilted acting did not discourage me as much as it has the previous times I have watched this.

I Onde Dager.

Oh five thumbs up for this one! A Norwegian action comedy about a couple who retreat to a remote cabin. For why? Well, who knows what they are saying together but, individually, they certainly each harbor a lot of hostility towards the other! Some mistakes have been made… Failure, debt, adultery, commercials… Time to set things to right. Right?

Regardless of what they have planned, once up in the woods there is a table that gets turned, and then turned again, and then turned again, and then turned inside itself… And then yet more fun shows up. I Onde Dager (In Bad Days?) is quite a fun romp with: some blood (quite a bit, in fact), begging, lost fingers, laughs, and a trio of happy go lucky serial killers… And everyone partaking in wreaking havoc with: a shotgun and a knife and a shovel and a taser and a coffee pot and a plastic lemon and dear old dad’s teeth, and more!

A spiraling story of (mis)trust, love, crime, chaos, action, violence, and surprises.

Staring Askel Hennie who I have seen many many times as the ill-fated Volkov in Cloverfield Paradox (oh wait, pretty much everyone is ill-fated in that movie…), but everyone plays their roles quite nicely. I actually found Atle Antonsen as one of the cabin “guests” to be the most charming character of the bunch. Easily, a movie worth re-watching a bunch, plus, it has a really great soundtrack!


We then followed that up with The Hours.

I know nothing really about Virginia Woolf, and everything I know I learned from this movie. An intriguing and very thoughtful combination of Virginia’s process of writing of Mrs Dalloway in the 1920’s, plus the life of a woman in the 40’s, and a woman in 2000ish. Each woman in this trio is filled with doubt about their lives and a mortal depression. The movie takes place in, primarily, one day in the (seemingly) enviable life of each. They all have homes, family, security, a kind and kind and supportive spouse, but, sadly, those lives are not the lives for them. They are the lives that, due to society or themselves, they have found themselves in, but need to get out of. The different women each seem to have a varying degree of awareness of that… From VW bluntly not wanting her life (and making no bones about that), to the doubting housewife of the middle story trying to hold a smile (but barely able to), to the modern day woman who seems to be delighted by her life, but that sheen of delight is only a very thing coating on her doubt.

Really a great story about women who find themselves into roles/lives that just aren’t what they want and are fighting to find themselves. Fighting against their surroundings, their society, and themselves.

In looking over the movies I’ve been eyeing lately, I’ve decided that when looking at a movies rating in some general website, the following tends to be true:

Movies rated all 5’s are going to be boring

Movies rated all 1’s are going to be lame

Movies rated all 3’s will probably be watchable, if unmemorable…

Movies with Unnatural 3’s, meaning half the ratings are one star and half are 5 stars.. That is where the goodies lay!

Okay, they don’t technically have to be all ones and fives, but the kind of movie that a big chunk thought it was a masterpiece and another big chunk thought was terrible. To some extent, I think that there is an art vs entertainment issue with movies. Even Scorsese broached the topic recently when saying that superheros movies weren’t films. Well, a Film geek might say so but, in reality, movies are films, just like novels are literature. Not “only the good ones”. However, that doesn’t delete that fact that people should keep in mind… Many movies are just that, filmed depictions of something… But some movies are purely for entertainment, and some movies are just plain art. There’s nothing wrong with one of the other, and they don’t need different names. Transformer? Not art but purely entertainment (well, I don’t find them entertaining at all, but that’s what they’re for)… The Lighthouse, Not entertaining but art. They are for the same thing. You don’t watch The Lighthouse for screams laughs and special effects, and you don’t watch Transformers to ponder, tragically, the human condition… But they’re both legitimate movies, and films.

I was thinking about it a couple of weeks ago when put my last movie on here (How It Ends) and then when I was looking at The VVitch in preparation for ordering The Lighthouse, and then just now I watched Midsommer.

I also watched The Lighthouse in the last two days, but I’m not going to get into that now. A great film! But not one I’ll recommended to anyone. A dark, brooding cess of the human condition… A true “guy movie” in all the wrong ways. But it’s great and I’ll certainly be watching it again! Not as much as I’ll re-watch The VVitch, which has become one of my favorites of all times, but at least a couple more times.

Midsommer. Now that… Art plus entertainment… After the fact I read some reviews at CommonSense media and it was quite, not eye opening. More “putrid excess and gore” Excess, unexplained and inexplicable (what’s with everything needing to be explained? It’s a movie!), terrible, worst, etc etc. Firstly, I didn’t think it was gory at all… But aside from that, it was great! Lame and douchy guys, a woman with too much baggage piled on her, a research trip that is not at all what it seems… It’s not often that you see a movie that in, in essence, a story of some anthropology grad students going on a trip to Sweden to see a ceremony. At times they are a bit too naive (“run like hell and don’t trust anyone!!!!” should have popped into their heads sooner)… But it all works.

The setup seems to involve so many of the classics tropes of pagan festivals, all done in clear daylight with brilliantly white and shiny clothes. The antagonists are hardly antagonistic at all (unless you find people who are perpetually positive and blankly smiling and singing to be a bit unnerving) … I love the village, the buildings, the art (Siv’s house blows me away), when things get druggy and confusing and anxious, you can really feel it… I loved the end. Really. It totally put a smile on my face, which was the first smile I had in the whole movie.

Well, call me a rare fool but I watched Netflix’s How It Ends and I actually liked it. I didn’t Google it until it was over, so I was able to like it unsoiled by the amount of dislike leveled at it.


The story was maybe a bit light, but, you know, sometimes life’s just like that. A couple in Seattle are planning to get married, so the fella goes to Chicago to ask for the blessing of the gal’s dad, who is a curmudgeonly, wealthy, retired marine who thinks that said fella is kind of a loser… Fella basically blows it at dinner with the folks and leaves without asking his big question. Next morning on phone to gal, some terrible unseen and unspoken disaster happens… Gal is seriously concerned about something outside her window, but then the call goes dead. Fella heads to the airport to catch his flight, but then all the power goes out and all the flights are cancelled and a newscast comes on about how something has happened on the west coast, but they don’t have any info about what it was. Fella heads back to gal’s parents apartment and finds dad preparing to drive out to Seattle to find his daughter. Of course, regardless of the dislike between them, they team up and head out to drive through the unknown from Chicago to Seattle in a caddy.

As one might imagine, civilization has taken a bit of a fall out west, so they encounter numerous bad guys along the way, lots of scenes of driving, and a supporting character who I really liked but didn’t last long… With the two main characters, Theo James is convincing as a guy who really just doesn’t know what to do or how to react to anything, Forest Whitaker is convincing as someone who knows all too well what to do and how to react (and knows that others don’t, yeah, kind of a jerk), so Grace Dove is appreciated as the only genuinely cool character in the movie.

I quite liked the pacing of it: driving, countryside, moments of evasion, some strange and mysterious sights in the air, and then more driving. Kind of like Damnation Alley in concept, but not dumb and corny like Damnation Alley. I liked the ending as well, but we don’t walk about those things here. It’s a road trip movie, a bonding movie, an Armageddon movie (maybe), a post-apocalypse movie (maybe), and a disaster movie in which you don’t know what the disaster is.

Though there were some potentially implausible action escapes, it doesn’t have all of the stupid, over-the-top action stuff and mumbo jumbo that Hollywood usually uses to make these sort of movies boring and unbearable. Just some people trying to get somewhere and not willing to stop at anything to get there,

As soon as this all started I had a strong need to watch 28 Days Later. Though it’s my favorite Zombie movie (regardless of the fact that it contains no zombies), it is also my favorite virus movie and always a fun kick in the pants.

Thinking about how the fed’s prepared us for the pandemic, I thought of the scientist in the first scene… He really could have tried harder to convince the activists to not let the monkeys out “they’re Infected!” pause “With rage!” is going to be kind of meaningless to most people. “We’ve given the monkeys a virus that fills them with rage. Let even one of those monkeys out of its cage and they will attack us viciously and we will all be dead” would have been a much more straightforward way to communicate the issue.

And the lead character, not only is pretty annoying, but is also sort of a bad omen as, whenever he shows up people leave their “safe” situation and head out into the world to end up being killed. But I still love it! Except for the end…

I’m convinced that the movie was actually supposed to end at the gate-crashing scene and that the rest of it was added on to appeal to audiences. It should end at the gate. First time I saw it, I knew that was the end… But then it kept going…

Secondly, I tried to watch Outbreak. I’ve seen it before and recalled it being watchable… But this time, no. I maybe made it half way through… It’s just a lame movie. Everything overly-hollywooded and corny. It really should stop appearing on lists of the “best” pandemic/disaster movies.

In my DVD heyday of the late 90’s and early aughts, one of my main sources of inspiration was Glenn Erickson’s DvdSavant blog at Dvdtalk.com. I haven’t checked it out in many years, but this morning I looked again. It’s gone and moved, now at its own renamed site, cinesavant.com, but it had the same effect… I got into wondering about all the movies I’ve parted with, which I wish I hadn’t, which of those I should maybe try re-getting? Anyway, I figured I’d post a list of the movies I had, that I don’t anymore… Some of them I have now repurchased, and I’ll move those to the bottom of the list

Note that anything with an asterisk is something I’d like to still have, and anything with (alt) means that I got rid of it because I’d replaced it with a different version.

GONE
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American Psycho (102 Minute Unrated Version) – Killer Collector’s Edition (2000)

American Soldier, The (1970)

Amityville Horror, The – Special Edition (1979)

Annie Hall (1977)

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