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

Ok, after this I will only be about a dozen movies behind. Once I finally get the taxes done (due last Friday, of course) then I’ll get cooking! But I think that we will stick to the capsule commentaries for now. We’ve been do busy watching Big Love, Lost (yes, it does suck, but I watch it anyway… So there), Flight of the Conchords and working our way through all 11 hours of the Lord of the Rings trilogy… How will I ever fit all of this on my tombstone?

Trying to recall the recent movies… We watched A Stranger in the Kingdom. The second of Jay Craven’s film adaptations of Howard Frank Mosher’s Vermont novels. A Stranger in the Kingdom was much more engaging then the other that I have seen, Disappearances. Taking place in “Kingdom County” Vermont in the early 1950’s, it is the story of three strangers who arrive in the area: the new minister and his son, who are black, and a French Canadian girl. A couple of black folks arriving in rural New England in the 1950’s was certainly something that would cause a stir, but a French-Canadian? The girl arrives as a sort of Mail Order Maid who is not pleased with who she finds to be her employer when she arrives. In fact, she finds someone that she likes much better. Tensions start to increase and combine themselves together… The minister wants the best for everyone, but not everyone wants that. Once a body turns up, all sorts of finger pointing is engaged in, there is a trial (the the prosecution calling in the big guns… Martin Sheen!), lies, truths, backstabbing, gunfire. Yes, the responses to all these incidents by the locals are not completely good. It’s a nice and engaging story with some good mystery, and for the most part, it actually was filmed in the “Kingdom”. Unlike that fraud of a few posts back..

We also watched Good Morning Vietnam. This is certainly an entertaining Robin Williams comedy, but it wasn’t quite as satisfying as I used to find it around the time that it came out. Though it is a solid, filled out story, based on true events, Robin Williams is so non-stop Robin Williams that it becomes a bit overwhelming. His shtick is pretty tiresome, though there are some good relationships and he does do a great job though as the loud-mouthed and iconoclastic Disc Jockey Adrian Cronauer who is send to work on Military radio in Vietnam during the early years of the American involvement there. He makes some fast friends of the locals and some fast enemies in the Army, especially Bruno Kirby who is great as always here (and he gets another role where he can mention Frank Sinatra). But Cronauer maybe gets himself in a bit over his head and a bit too friendly with the locals. It was also my first awareness of Forest Whitaker, and he does a great job here.

Oh, and this. What a disappointment. I recall Picnic at Hanging Rock being a big deal when I was a kid, but I never got around to it until now and, personally, I found it rather dull and had a hard time paying attention towards the end. One thing that is done well is that I had always thought that the novel was based on a true story, but it’s not so they got me there. The story of a group of girls from a private school boarding in Australia who go on a day trip to a barren, rock surrounded by scrubby brush for a picnic. They don’t seem to have any plans except for to sit around in the heat at the base of the rock in all of their Victorian clothing. And I didn’t get the attraction of the rock. And the tale, well, some of girls go climbing to the top and get all mysterious up there by disappearing. The trouble is, who cares? I’ve never before seen a mystery where I cared so little about what the mystery was. I just wanted to movie to end so that I could watching something else. The rock and the movie both look unpleasant, the characters are obnoxious, it’s slow and, in fact, there isn’t really anything to recommend this movie.