Yellow Fever and Psycho Ghosts...

It’s another hot, hot, hot week in the South…so we cooled off the best way we know how—sitting in the AC watching movies.

Movie #1:  Jezebel  (1938, with Bette Davis, Henry Fonda)

The “poor man’s” Gone with the Wind

We wanted another “oldie but goodie” in black and white this week, and as we love Bette Davis, we selected Jezebel.  A front-runner for Scarlett O’Hara before it went in the end to Vivien Leigh, Bette Davis won a Best Actress Oscar for this role as manipulative, headstrong Julie.  Set in the waning years of the 1850s, the story of this flippant Southern belle and her on again/off again romance with banker Preston Dillard (who I think is remarkably similar to simpering, weak Ashley Wilkes) is set against the backdrop of a pre-Civil War, Old South New Orleans.  Several things keep Julie and Preston at constant odds with each other…her stubbornness and unwillingness to behave like a gentile Southern debutante; Preston’s preoccupation with his banking business; and the attentions of rival beau Buck Cantrell (don’t you just love that name!).   Throw into this mix a deadly and vast epidemic of yellow fever that threatens to envelop the entire city of New Orleans and its outlying parishes.  AND—as if that weren’t drama enough for the movie, we have duels between young men over their gentlemanly honor.  AND ON TOP OF THAT—Preston runs off up north after Julie mortifies him at a public ball and returns with a new wife.  THE MAN MARRIED A YANKEE!!!!!  (**SHOCKS, GASPS, AND SWOONS ALL AROUND AT THAT TIDBIT!)

Ratings:  Jason 3.5; Kathy 3; Me—3

Movie #2:  The Uninvited  (2009, with Emily Browning, Elizabeth Banks, David Straitharn)

Kathy wanted a ghost story that has this same title starring Ray Milland.  By happy mishap, this is the DVD we were given.  None of us had seen this movie before—or heard of it for that matter.  We figured we’d watch it and see what happened.  I will only give a very minute hint of plot, as this is worth watching, and I don’t want to include spoilers.  You have a teenage girl who’s been released back to her family from a mental hospital after her mother’s tragic death.  The movie is her search to discover the truth of that horrible night.  We were trying to figure out what type of movie this was—ghost story…psychological thriller…psycho step-mom slasher—we agreed it was a mix of all three.  We enjoyed it.  It was eerie and scary (I jumped a couple times) without being gory. 

Ratings:  Jason  3.5; Kathy 3; Me 3.5

I realize my blog is lacking the extensive comedy and sarcasm this week; however, these movies don’t really give me much fuel for fodder.

Favorite Line of the Night:  “I prefer my convictions undiluted—just like I like my bourbon.” 

From Jezebel

**NOTE:  Many props and thanks this week to EAST COAST MUSIC & VIDEO.  Again, they had movies that we couldn’t get on streaming or Netflix.  If you’re in the Greenville area, stop by their store on Charles/Cotanche Street (https://www.facebook.com/ecmvgville).  If you’re not in the Greenville area, visit your local independent video store.  They’re a dying breed—let’s show ‘em some love.  You know… sometimes it’s just nice to deal with a real person.

"Pre"Feminists, Strange Sights, and Big Ties!

Finally, we had some rain to break this heatwave we’ve been suffering. We decided to watch a classic from the ‘50s and one more old, scary movie.  It was…..interesting???

Movie 1:  Crime of Passion (1956, with Barbara Stanwyck, Raymond Burr, Sterling Hayden)

                                                                          

Kathy called this the movie for “pre” feminists—Women who were feminists but didn’t know it yet.

Fairly simple plot—career woman who shuns all things “typically feminine and domestic” falls for a detective and gives it all up to be the “little woman”.  We see her start out infatuated with the idea of catering to her new husband’s every whim with no other purpose or pleasure in life than to darn his socks and cook his ham and eggs.  However—this ambitious, power-hungry modern woman is not satisfied for long with the life of domestic “bliss”.  She uses schemes, machinations, and games (including a well-planned car accident) to maneuver her unambitious husband up the chain of command at the precinct and herself into a higher class of society.  As is the case with those hunting power like a lion hunts a poor gazelle in the savannah, the story ends badly.  And who bears the brunt of it all—the poor, oblivious, long-suffering husband who was content with his life as it was and didn’t see the need to seek out glory and control.

Notes:  1. I was at times confused about the timing of certain plot points.  I don’t know if that was on purpose to illustrate the “whirlwind romance” between Barbara Stanwyck and Sterling Hayden, or if it was just poor editing.  2.  Kathy loved this movie because it was “just like a soap opera”.  As she is the only one of the three of us that doesn’t watch Young and the Restless, I would be tempted to say this movie was a bit tame for a soap opera…. Although….for 1956, I would say this would be right out of a soap opera.  Definitely had the drama for one.  3. For the time this movie was released, it was interesting to note they had a couple women in roles typically dominated by males:  Barbara was a newspaper columnist/reporter; Barbara and Sterling Hayden’s characters were married by a female justice of the peace.  4.  Barbara Stanwyck  was 49 when this movie released…. She looked like she was going on 70.  The June Cleaver hairdo just did not do anything to help her.  5.  In the beginning of the movie, there were a number of times where we just could not understand the dialogue.  If closed captioning had been available, we would’ve used it.

Things we loved:  1.  “The Hip Shot”.  I won’t explain it because it’ll give plot points away…but if you watch this, you’ll know it immediately.  2.  Raymond Burr—he was young and gorgeous in this movie.

The line we loved to hate:  Your job is to be home cooking your husband’s dinner so it’s ready when he gets home from work.   Said by the police captain to Barbara Stanwyck at beginning of movie when she attempted to use a murder case as fodder for a newspaper story.    WHATEVER!!!

Ratings:  Jason  3.5; Kathy 3; Me…2.5

Movie 2: The Sentinel (1977, with Chris Sarandon, Cristina Raines, Ava Gardner)

                                                                         

Okay… I’m not even sure how to start out this particular review.  I’m very hindered in what I can say about this movie because I’ll need to censor my comments due to the adult nature of this film.  (I try to keep my blog PG.)  What I can say about it is BIZARRE.  WEIRD.  FREAKY.

The basic plot premise is a young, pretty fashion model moves into an incredibly cool, yet surprisingly cheap (Red Flag #1), Brooklyn Heights apartment after the death of her father.  As she settles into the apartment, strange things begin to happen (Red Flag #2), and she begins to suffer from unexplainable physical ailments (Red Flag #3).  There is the ever popular (for horror/scary movies) use of the secretive and mysterious inner workings of the Catholic Church as a backdrop for the plot (Red Flag #4).

I don’t want to really state the plot points in case anyone decides to watch it.  Honestly, if you tell anything, it will ruin it.  I will say this… you all remember the movie FREAKS I reviewed a couple weeks back?  We think they somehow merged that movie with this one….

Notes if you choose to watch:  1. Do NOT watch this with children.  I’m serious.  There is a lot of nudity and a lot of lewd and/or perverse scenes (“perverse” depending on your view of certain sexual activities).  Here’s a hint…. This movie was rated R in 1977.  It included scenes/acts that rated R movies don’t show NOW.   2.  I, myself, found that the movie didn’t really explain what was happening all that well, especially in the first half, and a lot of the time we were all just sitting there going “What The ____???”  I think a lot of the oddest scenes were thrown in for sheer shock value.   We were confused on more than one occasion.

Odds & Ends:  1.  Ava Gardner must have REALLY needed a paycheck.  She was beautiful (even older) and was good in her role, but boy she must have needed money to do this movie.  2. This movie offers glimpses of a lot of famous actors at the very onset of their careers:  Jerry Orbach, Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Walken, Beverly D’Angelo (her role is WAY different from Ellen Griswold, folks!).  3. There were some great appearances by Eli Wallach, Arthur Kennedy, Burgess Meredith, Jose’ Ferrer, John Carradine, and Martin Balsam….again, we think these folks really needed to pay the rent.

Favorite Line:  As Ava Gardner (playing a real estate agent) is showing the model the apartment, she says “I find that New Yorkers have no sense for anything but sex and money.”

Things We Loved:  Eli Wallach’s tie!  It was golden yellow.  It had paisleys (or some other similar print).  It was HUGE!!  ‘70s fashion at its worst.  And we loved it.  Why on earth designers thought it would be good to have a tie so wide it would cover a man’s whole midsection, we’ll never know.  But it was awesome.

See!! Awesome tie!

Ratings:  Jason: 3; Kathy:  2.5;  Me…2( mainly because I kept getting confused in the beginning.)

Disclaimer:  View this movie at your own "risk".  But if you do... I just want it to be known that it was KATHY that picked this one out.  (Although, to be fair, she had no idea just exactly what she'd picked out.)

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Fireworks, Pizza, and Haunted Houses

Well, 4^th of July week.  We gathered together for movie night delirious with the exhilarating thought of no work the next day and settled on the couch with the glorious knowledge that there was no alarm clock ticking like a bomb in our future that night…   For the blissful moment of peace wherein we reveled in our “no work for a day; the alarm will stay off” temporary future, we thanked you George, Thomas, Ben, John, Patrick, and all our other brave forefathers who fought against tyranny, injustice, increased taxes, and oppression.  Oh yeah, and for our freedom and this country and stuff….

Movie 1:  The Innkeepers (2011, with Sara Paxton, Kelly McGillis)

You would think we’d celebrate the birth of our nation with some patriotic movies or some military pieces….No.  We celebrated the birth of our nation with ghost stories and haunted houses!  We started with The Innkeepers.  A fairly recent movie that none of us had heard of but seemed promising.  An old hotel called the Yankee Pedlar Inn was closing after one final weekend.  The two young caretakers deciding to use the almost empty hotel to do some paranormal research into the haunting story of a Madeleine O’Malley….a poor tortured soul who hung herself on her wedding day and was hidden in the cellar by the hotel owners back in 1890.  The movie was divided into 3 “chapters”, 4 if you count the “epilogue”.   It was kind of neat, actually.  They did a screen that looked like those old silent films with the fancy scroll to announce each chapter:  “The Long Weekend”; “A Final Guest”; etc.  The first act was great—good development of characters and introduction of the Madeleine story.  Then, it sort of went downhill….  The second act/chapter really dragged.  By the third act/chapter, we had checked out.  We just didn’t care what happened really. 

We all agreed that the acting was great.  We really liked the characters.  I get the impression we were all sitting there thinking what every 14 year-old-boy thinks when he’s making out with a nervous girlfriend… “This is good, but when am I gonna get some action??? I mean, is this it?  Is this all there is?  Really?”   This movie was all build-up with no real climax.  They spent so long holding a still shot that is meant to scare you into a “jump” when the paranormal activity started, that by the time something happened… we weren’t scared at all and started to get bored.  So much potential here…. And it was just wasted.

Ratings:  We all gave it 2 stars—and that was being generous.  We gave it 2 because we felt bad for the actors, who had done really well.

One good line:  “It’s, like, a moral imperative.”     Said by the young maid about capturing paranormal activity on film/tape.

Movie 2:  The Changeling (1979, with George C. Scott, Trish Van Devere)



NOW THIS IS A MOVIE ABOUT A HAUNTING!!!!  None of us had seen this movie before, and we all loved it.  For this movie to be 33 years old, the effects still hold up!  I’m not going to talk plot because I HIGHLY recommend watching this, and I don’t want to give ANYTHING away.  Great feature points:  awesome, haunted house outside Seattle; horrifying moments (for more than one reason); George C. Scott’s performance—I’ve always liked him, but he was fabulous!; family secrets; grieving for lost children; gorgeous cinematography.  It really is a must-see.  I actually want to own this myself now. 

Ratings:  Jason gave this 4 stars; Kathy and I give it 4.5.   We all really, really enjoyed this one.

Favorite moments: 

1)      We were so engrossed in the movie, which was at a very spooky and suspenseful moment, at the same time there was a loud, sharp knock on Jason’s door—we all 3 jumped and gasped/exclaimed.  We were scared by the Jet’s Pizza delivery boy.  It took us a good 2-3 minutes to get composed and answer the door; we were that shaken.  We had gotten so engrossed in the movie, we mostly forgot pizza was on its way.

2)      There are some gorgeous shots of the woods/forests surrounding Seattle and the outskirts where the haunted mansion is.  Jason was saying he didn’t remember it being that green, and wondering if they had actually shot the movie there on location.  To which I leaned over and replied very authoritatively:  “Oh yeah, the entire Pacific Northwest is totally green and wooded.  I’ve watched all the Twilight movies.”

**Note for this movie:  We could not get it on Netflix or Amazon streaming... Netflix may have it on actual DVD.  If you live in the Greenville area, you can rent it where we found it:  East Coast Music & Video on Cotanche/Charles.  Outside the Greenville area, look in your independent video stores.

God Bless the USA!  Land of freedom, bravery, opportunity, pizza delivery and scary movies!