Vampires, Assassins, and Romantic Angst by the Seaside: Takoma Reviews

A Haunting in Venice, 2023

An alienated Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) is keeping very much to himself, but he is lured out by old friend Ariadne (Tina Fey) to attend a seance in the home of famous opera singer Rowena (Kelly Reilly). Ariadne wants to debunk the veracity of medium Joyce (Michelle Yeoh). But as the evening goes on, someone begins to enact a deadly agenda.

Satisfying neither as a mystery nor a supernatural thriller, this is movie features a great cast all dressed up and with nowhere to go.

It’s fun writing about a movie I love, and there’s even some emotional fuel in writing about a movie I dislike. But what to say about a movie like this one?

Agatha Christie wrote a lot of strong mysteries, but as many film adaptations have shown, it is possible to create bad movies from them. (Though this film is apparently just loosely based on one of her novels).

Where to even begin? I didn’t hate the overall premise, which has to do with the semi-recent death of Rowena’s daughter under tragic circumstances. I will concede that once it’s all said and done, I appreciated some of the elements of the overall mystery.

But getting there? Woof. The movie is dark and muted. I didn’t like the way that I struggled with the overall geography of the large house. I wasn’t gripped by any of the characters, and I found the gestures at the supernatural annoying. Mostly I was frustrated by the sheer number of contrived character actions and choices just to put characters in the correct physical locations for different things to happen.

I felt, ultimately, really empty watching this movie. I found myself thinking things like “Michelle Yeoh sure is pretty.” “Jamie Dornan looks nice in that outfit.” “I wonder how long it took Branagh to grow that mustache.” And so on.

A decent way to pass the time, but not much more.

100.
I am aware of the Costner/HF thing and just watched the scene the other day, squirming the whole way through at the completely make-believe white-savior heroism on display to make whitey feel better about things and buy tickets and praise the film. Ick. But that's how most people will remember it from now on.

As a huge Agatha Christie fan (I am now at like 30 of her books and a helluva lotta short stories too), I feel the need to just point out this basic defense of her (from this movie).
I bought the novel on which this is based in the airport when I realized I had left the current Christie book I was reading at home. I opened it and saw that there was a foreword, which I almost always read and as I began I discovered that this one was from the writer of the screenplay for the movie. And this is what he said.
"I have committed a murder." He went on to explain that he himself is a huge Agatha Christie fan but in a rush to come up with another Hercule Poirot script that would be sufficiently cinematic, he merely took the idea of a Halloween party and the characters' names and otherwise wrote a completely new story entirely of his own invention. There is no renowned opera singer, there is no medium, there is no Venice. The book is a small affair of the murder of a child at a Halloween party. Who would kill a child and why? That's the whole story.
So the film you saw had Hercule Poirot, his friend Ariadne, the setting of Halloween, and the names of some characters from the book (but not the same people) and was otherwise entirely a creation of Michael Green.

I mean, she has written some books that are not great (and, like, also racist/anti-semitic) in a pretty overt way?), but I don't lay the blame of this film at her feet. Like I wrote, this was a loose adaptation, and I just don't think it's the best story.

But really, it's the way the story is told and the lack of flow that kills it all.

Polite Society, 2023

Ria (Priya Kansara) wants to be a famous stunt performer and works relentlessly to improve her skills with help from her older sister, Lena (Ritu Arya). At an Eid celebration, the sisters realize too late that they are being trotted out as prospective marriage material for the suave Salim (Akshay Khanna). But much to Ria’s horror, Lena is charmed by Salim and the two form a closer and closer romantic relationship. Sure that Salim and his mother Raheela (Nimra Bucha) are up to no good, Ria sets off on a mission to prove her suspicions and save her sister.

This over-the-top comedy-action film is a good time.

It’s not an uncommon film trope to have someone you love become totally infatuated with someone who is obviously a bad person, and then when you try to interfere you are accused of merely being jealous. Where this movie gets things right is by never really trying to sow that much ambiguity about Salim’s character and letting Ria’s attempts at investigation be totally bonkers and over-the-top.

The general tone of outlandishness is set right from the beginning as we watch Ria practice some of her moves for an audition tape that she hopes to send off to her idol. The moves are unreal, and we get exactly the sense of the level of reality the film is working with. And in this context, it’s perfectly fine that Raheela is so obviously a villain that if she broke into cackles of evil laughter as lightning flashed behind her, it wouldn’t seem at all out of place.

The first half of the film is dedicated to more covert attempts at discovering Salim and Raheela’s evil plot, while the last act veers more fully into martial arts infused mayhem. These last sequences, set off by the bright colors of wedding clothing and Raheela’s opulent home.

The relationship between Ria and Lena is pretty well established, and Lena’s specific circumstances help us understand why she might be so drawn to Salim. Lena has dropped out of art school and is feeling particularly like a disappointment to her family. Getting married into a wealthy family not only pleases her parents, but admittedly takes some pressure off of the question of how she will make a success of her life.

My only complaint about the film is that I think it was a bit too long. There’s absolutely no question that Salim is a bad guy, and the section where Ria is trying to figure out what he’s up to lasts just too long. Because it is so obvious to us that he’s a shady character, it makes Lena look stupid because she continues to insist on liking him. This is the kind of movie where I can imagine rewatching the last half hour over and over, but rarely revisiting it as a whole.

Runtime aside, however, this was a great time. Would have loved to see it on the big screen!

Dogman, 2018

Marcello (Marcello Fonte) is a mild-mannered dog groomer who supplements his income with some low-level drug dealing on the side. Unfortunately, he gets tangled up with one of his customers, Simone (Edoardo Pesce), who draws Marcello into more and more dangerous criminal acts. When Simone forces Marcello to help him victimize people in their own community, it pushes Marcello to a breaking point.

This is a bleak examination of how far a person can be pushed before taking a stand.

Everyone can probably call to mind at least one time in their life when, faced with cruelty or unfairness, you wish you’d stood up for yourself (or maybe stood up for someone else). Marcello, faced with the weight of Simone’s casual violence and forceful personality, consistently caves to his will, crossing more and more of his own personal boundaries.

In a stomach-turning sequence, Simone bullies Marcello into being the getaway driver for a burglary, only revealing later that he put a dog in the freezer of the home he robbed (partly to keep it quiet, and partly, one infers, as a simple act of sadism). Consumed by guilt, Marcello rushes back to the scene of the crime, hoping he will be in time to save the animal.

Marcello is a nice, harmless person on his own. Our sense of moral “correctness” indicates that other people should like him or at the very least stick up for him. But the actions that Simone ropes him into slowly start having more and more of a negative impact on Marcello’s neighbors and fellow business owners. At a certain point, Marcello’s timidity becomes something that others come to loathe about him, and he is increasingly isolated---trapped between the disapproval of his neighbors and the sure violent retribution he would face if he stood up to Simone.

If this film lacks one thing, it’s a little bit more character development. I’m not sure that Simone needed to be fleshed out, as some people are just violent creeps who only think about themselves. But Marcello’s character arc is a little too simple, boiling down to just watching a man get pushed toward the brink. Fonte is good in the role, but the character needed more depth to counterbalance the predictable trajectory of the plot.

Worth checking out, I think.

I watched this when it first streamed on Peacock. It was a fun film. One I would revisit.

Renfield, 2023

After Dracula (Nicholas Cage) has a close call with some vampire hunters, he and his familiar, Renfield (Nicholas Hoult), relocate to New Orleans. But Renfield has grown weary of the violent, unrewarded servitude he owes Dracula and begins tentatively taking steps to separate himself from his unpredictable master. Along the way he befriends police officer Rebecca (Awkwafina), a woman determined to get to the bottom of crime and corruption plaguing the force.

Wildly uneven, this film is okay but also frustrates as it squanders a solid premise and a great cast.

There is so much potential in the premise of this movie, and even the idea of Renfield joining the support group for people with toxic bosses. It might be basic at some levels, but I did get plenty of giggles out of Renfield’s fellow attendees nodding along at what they believe are allegorical descriptions of Dracula’s literal bloodsucking and cruelty.

I also really liked the idea of Renfield trying to construct his “real boy” persona---getting an apartment, buying a wonderful array of color-blocked sweaters, etc. Renfield has lived for so long in the shadow of Dracula that he no longer has an identity of his own. Memories of the wife and child he left behind haunt him, and you can sense that building a future is something that he almost can’t conceptualize.

Finally, I loved that Awkwafina brought her best slouched posture and cynical scowl to Rebecca, someone who in a different movie would be an obvious romantic interest for Renfield. Instead, they build a friendship as their interests repeatedly overlap. They are both weirdos, and this leads them to something that I found more endearing than just a basic romantic arc.

On the antagonist front, Cage brings exactly what you’d expect to his Dracula, a violent narcissist who doesn’t see Renfield’s betrayal coming simply because he can’t conceive of it. Shohreh Aghdashloo brings her slow, malevolent purr to her role as the wicked gang leader at the root of Awkwafina’s problems.

All the pieces are in place for a good time, and yet that’s not really what I got from this movie. Sure, I got some laughs from the support group scenes. Yes, I really enjoyed Cage’s self-centered and casually sadistic Dracula. Hoult and Awkwafina are actors I like in pretty much anything they are in.

But the flow of the film is just not where it needs to be. Multiple sequences feel redundant. The first time you see how the action in this movie is going to work (Renfield is basically a super-human in the model of The Matrix and ripped-off CGI limbs spray CGI blood everywhere), it’s fun. But the shine quickly wore off for me and the artifice of it all felt tiring instead of over-the-top fun.

I also find myself completely confused as to why Rebecca’s subplot is given such weight. I kept hoping it would tie into Renfield’s story in some compelling way and it simply doesn’t. It’s rare that I sit in a movie theater wanting to check the time, but this film seriously tested my patience.

I don’t regret seeing it, but I can’t imagine watching it again. If I want to see a very pale Hoult grappling with the undead, I’ll rewatch Warm Bodies.

@Takoma11 I found it a fun movie even tho I'm not a Nic Cage fan.

Yeah, it was okay. I generally enjoyed it. But it felt like it could have been so much better. (And about 15-20 minutes shorter!)

I think that would be my review in a nutshell.

The Night Walker, 1964

Irene (Barbara Stanwyck) is married to the jealous Howard (Hayden Rorke), a man who is so insecure about his blindness that he spies on and records Irene, hoping to discover evidence of an affair. Irene is not allowed to leave the house, and can only find solace in a man she takes as a lover in her dreams. When Howard is killed in a freak accident, strange things begin happening to Irene, including seeing the man from her dreams. Howard’s old friend Barry (Robert Taylor) helps Irene to investigate to get to the bottom of things.

Delightfully bonkers and full of twists and turns, this is a pulpy good time.

Some movies hit this amazing sweet spot where the things that are good are good, and the things that aren’t good just seem to somehow add to the weird energy, and this is one of those movies.

Starting from a stellar opening credits sequence---a nightmarish, visual feast----everything is just a little off in the best way. In the best and worst of ways, everything in the movie is just a little detached from reality. Is Stanwyck maybe about ten years older than you’d expect her character to be? Yes. Is it weirdly refreshing to see a portrayal of a middle-aged woman trapped in an unhealthy relationship instead of some young damsel? Yes.

Likewise, there’s something really funny about a conversation between Howard and Barry early in the film. Howard is like, “Well, Barry, you’re such a sexy man, you must have a lot of success.” And no shade to Taylor in this film but . . . okay, Howard. Sure.

Then there’s just the sheer strangeness of the story itself. Irene has been dreaming of a man and he is suddenly appearing to her? There are several sequences where Irene is not sure if she is dreaming or awake, and her confusion is matched by our confusion as the viewer. How is it possible that her fantasy has come to life? If she is being fooled . . . how? And if it’s all in her head, then what’s actually going on?

This is the kind of movie where you’re pretty sure that there must be a rational, non-supernatural explanation, but it’s just weird enough that part of you isn’t sure. There’s also the lingering mystery of Howard’s death. And is Howard even really dead? The questions stack up even as Irene and Barry conduct an investigation into all the strange happenings.

It might seem like the movie can’t possibly tie everything together in a satisfying way, but the last act more than lives up to all the strange events and complicated relationships that it’s been establishing for the whole runtime. The whole thing ends on a perfect note.

This was a solid, wacky thriller and I could easily see it becoming a rewatch favorite.

@Takoma11 , have you seen The Collector from 1965. Its a favorite of mine and I'm a fan of Terence Stamp.

The other day, when Donald Sutherland passed away, I watched Die! Die! My Darling! from 1965. I enjoyed it as well.

I got to see it at a special advance screening and absolutely adored every minute of it. I'm also hoping to revisit at some point (hopefully in the not-too-distant future)

Yes, though it's been ages. I've also read the book on which it's based.

Dreadnaught, 1981

Criminal White Tiger (Shun-Yee Yuen) goes into a downward spiral after his wife is killed by a group of men trying to capture the pair. Hiding out in a performance troupe, White Tiger attacks those who anger him. He becomes particularly fixated on a wimpy, mildly-annoying man called Mousy (Biao Yuen), who runs a laundry service with his sister (Lily Li). But when White Tiger attacks someone close to Mousy, Mousy must find a way to stand up to him.

Overall this one cruises well on its gonzo energy.

It’s always fun to encounter a movie that, when you go to talk about it, you just find yourself starting to list all of the things that happened in it. An outlandish dragon dance! A healer who performs the most aggressive style of cupping I’ve ever seen! Someone who cleans clothing with the athleticism and grace of a laundry-centric Simone Biles!

In total, the film is a wild mish-mash of action, comedy, and drama (well, melodrama). It never stands still long enough for any of the sequences to get old, and there is a wide range of physical displays of comedy and athletic ability. We get White Tiger’s frenzied attacks, Mousy’s balletic laundering, and Tak-Hing Kwan’s effortless maneuvers as healer and martial arts expert Wong Fei-Hung.

Even as characters are attacked, and even killed in some pretty gruesome ways, there is an overall feeling of joy to it all. The energy is madcap and every moment is infused with a heightened physicality. No one in this universe merely does something----there are wild flourishes and elaborate set-pieces to accompany even the most banal of activities.

The main character arc of the movie--Mousy finally realizing that he needs to stand up and fight, probably using some of those incredible laundry moves---is nothing incredible, but this is a film that understands that it’s about how you tell a story, and this one is told in an incredibly entertaining way.

I only had two issues with the film. The first is that while it may be true that the movie is tons of fun as is, the lack of character development does hit you a bit as the film goes into its last act. The ultimate showdown is really well-choreographed, but I did feel a little empty at the end.

The second problem that I had with the movie, unsurprising considering when and where it was made, is that it contains two unsimulated instances of animal cruelty (both fatal to the animal involved). That’s always a dealbreaker for me, and probably means this isn’t a film I’ll ever revisit.

Certainly a unique energy and an entertaining film.

Me too! Absolutely love all of these.

Fear the Night, 2023

Tess (Maggie Q) is an Iraqi war veteran who has a tense relationship with her sister, Beth (Kat Foster). The two come to a truce to attend the bachelorette party of their youngest sister, Rose (Highdee Kuan), but things soon spiral out of control when the house comes under siege from a gang of men. Struggling to stay alive and figure out why they are being attacked, Tess must use her military skills to survive.

Bogged down by meager characterization and a nonsensical plot, this one’s a dud.

Please don’t get me wrong: I will watch a million movies where a group of people is trapped in a house and has to fend off some person or people who intend them harm. The home invasion subgenre is one of my favorites and I tend to be forgiving as long as they are okay.

This movie is not okay. It is much less than okay. This movie is an insulting mix of pandering contemporary cliches and a barely-there plot.

It all starts with a cringeworthy sequence where Tess decides to get into a confrontation with a group of men at a gas station. She calls one of them out for stolen valor and somehow intimidates them into silence. I know that people don’t always make the best choices, but even a tough as nails woman knows that humiliating and provoking a group of men when you are in a vulnerable position (ie outnumbered and accompanied by people who are not hardened military veterans) is a TERRIBLE IDEA. While there are ultimately other factors at play in why the men attack the house, watching Tess needlessly create a hostile situation for herself and the people with her is incredibly alienating.

And from that point the movie is never able to build any compelling momentum. There are maybe a few minutes when the attack first begins, that a room full of terrified women and a single male stripper seems like it could morph into something madcap and delightfully gory, but it does not. The movie gets stuck in a repeating pattern where someone is killed, everyone else screams in terror, and then they move to another room and repeat.

It’s all very frustrating. The cast seems game enough, but they are given precious little to do. Travis Hammer plays Perry, the leader of the bad guys. He is reduced to sneering and growling, and talking in vague ways because the movie wants to hold their motivation as some sort of twist. Maggie Q works fine in the action scenes, but her character has very little depth. The fractured relationship she has with her sisters doesn’t really go anywhere.

And the movie hits all the stupid tropes. Characters open doors they clearly should not open. Someone reveals they are gay, as if that is the same as having a character trait. A woman acts like she’s into having sex with a man who has just violently killed her friend, and the bad guy is like “Yeah, makes sense! I think she’s into me!”. Don’t get me wrong: I love watching a rapist get stabbed in the face, or whatever, but these scenes are acted out in this low-energy, rote manner that robs them of any real tension.

I can’t even talk about the ending. When you find out why the men are attacking the women, it is incredibly dumb. Just absolutely completely stupid on multiple levels, not the least of which is that attacking them, given the problem they are trying to solve, is clearly the worst way to go about it. And in the last 10 minutes, the main characters make a decision that is also completely inexplicable. At first I thought I’d missed something in the film, but reading a handful of other reviews reveals that, no, there is just no reason at all for what happens at the end of the film.

My bar for these kinds of films is really low, and yet this one managed to slip below it!

You Can’t Take it With You, 1938

Alice (Jean Arthur) is a stenographer who is in love with businessman Tony (Jimmy Stewart). Unfortunately, Alice’s eccentric family----ruled over by gentle contrarian Martin (Lionel Barrymore)---is not a good fit for Tony’s more uptight, wealthy parents (Edward Arnold and Mary Forbes). Worse still, Tony’s father is attempting to buy out an entire neighborhood just to spite a rival.

This is a gentle, endearing screwball comedy.

What this film gets most correct is the balance between the more plot-centric sequences involving Tony and Alice, and the looser sequences just observing the quirky family doing their thing.

The most enjoyable parts of the film are where we simply watch the family going about their daily routine. They have a hodge-podge of interests and money-making hobbies. The film begins with Martin going to an office and basically poaching a worker named Poppins (Donald Meek) and bringing him home where Poppins is delighted to discover a workshop in the basement where he can create moving figurines. The youngest daughter, Essie (Ann Miller) dances ballet under the tutelage of ballet instructor Kolenkhov (Mischa Auer), who conveniently always shows up at dinner time. Alice’s mother, Penny (Spring Byington), pursues a range of creative interests from writing to painting.

The romantic arc between Alice and Tony is also a lot of fun. Jimmy Stewart is obviously a super likable person, and Jean Arthur brings both likability and force of spirit to her role as Alice. What we see of their courtship is very sweet: dancing with little hustling kids in the park, exchanging a mix of snarky flirting and nonsensical declarations of love. But they also don’t shy away from some of the complicated nature of dating with a large wealth disparity. Tony and his family are Alice’s bosses. Tony is charmed by Alice’s family, but he’s not sensitive enough to her anxiety about how they will be perceived by his parents. In a really stunning betrayal, Tony brings his parents over to Alice’s house unannounced, leading to an embarrassing, stilted interaction. When things come to a head and Alice accuses Tony’s parents (and Tony himself) of “slumming,” there’s definitely some truth to her accusation. Tony is a rich kid and he doesn’t understand that there’s a stress and precariousness to living the kind of free and eccentric life that the family does.

The one piece of the film that isn’t quite as overall compelling is the character arc of Tony’s father, who right from the start is set to discover that money doesn’t buy happiness. While this part of the film is very predictable, it does have one moment I absolutely loved: as a way of throwing a bone to the family----whose house he is scheming to steal---Tony’s father offers to pay a moderate fine that they’ve been charged. Martin declines the offer politely, but the friends of the family, the people from their neighborhood, regard Tony’s father with something more like contempt. They recognize the difference between a self-soothing gesture of charity and actual giving, and rally themselves to raise the needed cash.

For me the only downside to this movie is just how narrow the film’s idea of a good family is. Okay, this is a movie from the 1930s, fine. But it’s striking that this family who supposedly is sort of living on the edge, still has two Black servants, Rheba (Lillian Yarbo) and Donald (Eddie Anderson). Like, even when you’re these eccentric rebels who don’t pay income tax and manufacture fireworks in your basement, there will still be Black servants around to do all of the cooking and the laundry. The exact nature of how Rhaba and Donald fit into the house is left a bit vague----are they paid? When we see Donald helping in the basement is that because he wants to?---but there’s no question that they are ordered around by everyone else in the house, even the teenager. It’s an interesting window into the limits of imagination when it comes to what the “ideal” family looks like.

Overall, the winning element to this film is the cast. Everyone in it is absolutely pitch-perfect, and it’s amusing even when they are all in their home doing their own thing. I don’t hear this film talked about as much in Capra’s filmography, but I thought it was a delight.

The Face at the Window, 1939

A town is experiencing a series of murders in which people are terrified by a gruesome face that appears at their window before they are brutally stabbed to death. When the mysterious monster attacks a bank and kills a worker there, banker Brisson (Aubrey Mallalieu) must turn to the wealthy del Gardo (Tod Slaughter) to save the bank with a large deposit. But the lecherous del Gardo has his eye on Brisson’s daughter, Cecile (Marjorie Taylor), who herself is already in love with the dashing Lucien (John Warwick). Del Gardo will stop at nothing to implicate Lucien in the killings and take Cecile for himself.

Benefitting strongly from a scenery-chewing central performance, this film doesn’t quite have the pace or overt weirdness to be a winning so-bad-it’s-good film.

While the poster for this film, the title of the film, and ostensibly the plot of the film revolve around the monstrous face at the window, the absolute epicenter of this movie is the deliciously wicked and scheming del Gardo.

The most enjoyable aspect of the film comes in the first act, where a seemingly oblivious Brisson has conversations with del Gardo in which he never picks up on the fact that his supposed friend is stalking around and overflowing with evil laughter at every turn. Slaughter’s performance as the diabolical del Gardo injects the film with emotion and energy, which it desperately needs.

Unfortunately, most of the film around Slaughter is not quite up to the same level of camp magnificence. Cecile is someone you feel sorry for, and she might be a bit more proactive than some damsel in distress types, but she’s the kind of character you can mainly describe as “nice.” Lucien is much the same, although being the strapping male protagonist he gets to take part in a bit more action, like, you know, burning down a building full of people so that he can get away from the police.

The last act introduces a truly ridiculous and enjoyable subplot about a professor who has ideas about using electricity to reanimate dead bodies. This subplot is probably responsible for the best dialogue in the whole movie, such as when Lucien declares that he will finish the professor’s experiment and an alarmed Cecile exclaims, “But you don’t know a thing about electricity!”. During said experiment, beakers and flasks bubble and wheels spin to make sure we know that electric stuff is totally happening.

At a brisk 65 minutes, the film certainly doesn’t overstay its welcome. There are enough flourishes that it keeps you engaged, even if it’s sometimes a more ironic appreciation of another scene that is subtitled “sinister cackling”.

Goofy fun, but a bit too mild on the whole.