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

Frankenstein vs. Baragon, 1965

During WW2, a Frankenstein’s heart is given to the Japanese army, who take it to Hiroshima, where the nuclear bomb is dropped. 15 years later, a wild boy runs through the streets eating small animals. This catches the interest of local doctors James (Nick Adams), Sueko (Kumi Muzuno), and Yuzo (Tadao Takashima). As they attempt to figure out the boy’s origins and the reason that he is growing at an astonishing rate, the monster Baragon emerges to cause chaos.

An outlandish premise and a strong core cast of human characters make for an entertaining if kooky film.

I wasn’t too sure about this film after the opening sequence, which was a bit wild and I wasn’t sure if it was going to be wild in a good way. But shortly thereafter it won me over with a sequence involving the doctors. James and Sueko are caring for a young woman who is terminally ill. In a touching, subdued sequence, they talk about admiring the young woman’s spirit. After a small jump in time, we learn that the young woman has passed away. On her birthday, James invites Sueko to go and visit her grave, and they make a lovely day of it.

The human characters here are just very winning, defined (especially in Sueko’s case) by empathy and curiosity. The heart of the film is the scientists trying to figure out what is happening with the young Frankenstein as his increasing size poses more and more of a threat.

Much as with the original Frankenstein, this creature is shown to me more naive than malicious. I loved the way that his size is scaled up through the film. At first he’s just a big kid. Before we know it, he’s the height of a balcony. Later, he’s standing above the treetops. There’s a tragic undercurrent of this young man who poses a threat to anyone around him, and can clearly never be safe in the modern world.

Baragon gets a fun entrance and is a great-looking monster, but he makes a bit less of an impression. As you might imagine, the clashes between Frankenstein and Baragon make up the climax of the film. And while I didn’t find those fights to be the most thrilling things, there is a twist to the final fight that took me very much by surprise.

This isn’t an A-tier monster movie, but I really enjoyed the human character, especially Kumi Muzuno as Sueko. The monsters themselves are enjoyable enough, and the ending certainly makes a splash.

The Fall of the House of Usher, Miniseries, 2023

Siblings Roderick (Bruce Greenwood) and Madeline (Mary McDonnell) are the heads of the sprawling Usher empire---a pharmaceutical company that wields immense power and seems to always elude justice for their many criminal and immoral acts. But things take a dark turn for the family as Roderick’s children begin dying in gruesome and mysterious ways. Present at all of the deaths is a strange woman (Carla Gugino), who has a connection to the Ushers’ early history.

Horrifying and humorous in turn, this is a fun interpretation of many of Edgar Allan Poe’s famous works.

I have often had a mixed reaction to movies and shows that try to take classic stories and give them an incredibly modern spin (“It’s Hamlet, but at a tech startup company!”). To often there’s minimal creativity involved as the only spark comes from seeing how all of the elements are updated.

In the case of this miniseries, however, the framing story---the true history of Roderick and Madeline Usher---is very compelling, and the cast of characters are very enjoyable.

Greenwood and McDonnell are strong leads, both of them playing characters who have clearly weathered many storms and who always have their eye on the big picture. But the absolute anchor of this series is Gugino, a character whose exact nature remains elusive, but she is by turns eerie, sarcastic, seductive, and vengeful. The character, sometimes called Verna, doesn’t fall into any shallow “devil as a woman” tropes. She has a point of view on the people whose deaths seem to be very much her business, and she manages the neat trick of being a character who is scary and who I found myself rooting for.

And boy is it easy to root for Verna the more we get to know the Ushers. They are all, save sweet granddaughter Lenore (Kyliegh Curran), monsters, so crippled by never having faced real challenges that they think that the use and abuse of the people around them is just the way of nature. Perry (Sauriyan Sapkota) is the worst kind of rich kid who fancies himself a business genius with his idea of exclusive sex parties. Vic (T’Nia Miller) wants to be famous for developing a new heart mesh, and is willing to kill, mutilate, and torment an endless supply of chimps to put her name on the map. Tamerlane (Samantha Sloyan) is a wellness guru wannabe, who is so allergic to real intimacy that she can only get off watching her husband role-play with sex workers. Leo (Rahul Kohli) is a drug addict who “creates” video games and cheats on his sweet boyfriend. Camille (Kate Siegel) is a PR guru who wouldn’t know a genuine emotion if it kicked her in the butt, and she gleefully exploits in every way possible the two young interns who work for her. Oldest son Frederick (Henry Thomas) has a dopey mannerism that masks a deep and unsettling cruelty when he feels betrayed.

The portrayal of all of the Ushers shows us just how normal they find it to use anyone or anything they want in order to satisfy their desires. There’s a common thread of not just a lot of debauchery, drug use, consumerism, but specifically of exploiting those who are powerless. They cling to bribery and non-disclosure agreements, caring only about their public image and not a single bit about the countless number of people they have harmed.

Overall I liked the re-imaginings of the different Poe stories/poems. It doesn’t try to get too cute with it, and wisely lets some of the sequences be more nods to the originals than blow-by-blow revamping. I liked that there are little details that might stick out to you if you know the original stories, but they are also compelling enough scenarios to make an impression. While the Ushers are figures of comedy in many sequences (“Well I can’t have them coming over to my place.” “Oh, right, because of all the hookers”), they have a deeply cruel streak that shows itself more and more as the series goes on. They might be buffoons, but they are the worst kind of buffoons: buffoons with money and power and endless resources. Buffoons who can do something truly terrible to another person, place a phone call, and have the police report torn up or “lost”.

I also enjoyed the way that the series is framed. A prosecutor named Dupin (Carl Lumbly) meets Roderick in the crumbling home where Roderick and Madeline grew up. Under the pretense of a confession, Roderick tells Dupin of the family’s recent misfortunes.

I also must devote a short paragraph to Ruth Codd, who plays Juno, Roderick’s most recent wife. Juno is a character who feels like a throwaway at first. Just someone to be around to remind us that Roderick likes to sleep around. But Codd’s snappy line delivery makes an impression, and later in the series Juno becomes a more significant character. She takes a tremendous daily dose of one of Roderick’s medication which is notorious for causing addiction and deaths, and so she symbolically is a defense to what Roderick and his family have been accused of. I found Codd incredibly charming and I was delighted any time she was included in a scene.

Generally I thought that this series was a lot of fun, and I appreciated that it stuck the landing.

WNUF Halloween Special, 2013

Reporter Frank (Paul Fahrenkopf) spends a Halloween night doing a live broadcast from a supposedly haunted house where a notorious murder took place years before. Accompanied by married mediums Louis (Brian St. August) and Claire (Helenmary Ball) and priest Joseph (Robert Long III), Frank persists in his broadcast despite an increasingly ominous and disturbing series of events.

A fantastic retro look and solid scares make for a memorable piece of found footage horror.

I think that this film is a great example of living and dying by a dedication to authenticity. A perpetual problem with found footage movies is getting past the contrivance that someone would continue to film after, say, watching someone get eviscerated. In this case, the film maintains a pretty solid sheen of believability via a slow-burn escalation of events in the house.

I liked the everyday feeling of Louis and Claire---along with their familiar, a cat named Shadow---as they explore the house. Likewise, even the throwaway moments with other characters capture the slight weirdness of adults on Halloween.

Overall, I bought the arc of Frank’s character. At first, he’s a man trying to milk any spookiness and interest out of an old house and an eccentric couple. Then as things do get weird, there’s the thrill of having something exceptional on his hands, and thus his reluctance to pull the plug even past the point of danger.

I can imagine that some people would be split on the overall structure of the film. Part of its authenticity is the fact that watching evening TV on Halloween (if you were one of those kids without cable) was kind of a slog. The news broadcast is stuffed full of ads, many of them nasty campaign back-and-forths due to an upcoming election. I actually liked this. As one of those people that gets hung up on the realism piece of found footage, I found myself much more immersed in the story because it was so well framed. At times the film itself seems to wobble on this strategy, as an unseen hand will fast-forward certain sections of the tape.

As for the look of the movie, I thought it looked very much like a VHS tape. There’s a sort of slick-retro look I’ve seen over the last 10 or so years in horror, and I find it very distracting. It looks more like a filter over modern footage, while this film does look like it was made in the 80s.

While I can’t say that I see myself revisiting this one all that often, I enjoyed the ride. It builds to a memorable finale.

Holiday Boyfriend, 2023

Mandy (Natassia Malthe) is feeling the pressure of approaching middle age without a significant other. After her gym rat boyfriend inelegantly dumps her, Mandy is swept off of her feet by attorney Blake (Louis Mandylor), who is secretly just wooing her to gain American citizenship. When Blake flakes out on her around the holidays, Mandy invites co-worker Nathan (Paul Collett) to accompany her home for Thanksgiving and pretend to be Blake.

Inexplicable acting, writing, and editing make this by-the-numbers romantic comedy more of a disorienting fever dream.

I had to rewatch this movie before writing this review, because I kept going to write something and thinking, “Did that REALLY happen?”. And my rewatch confirmed that, yes, yes, all those things actually happened.

To start with the good: it was kind of refreshing to watch a romantic comedy with a cast that for the most part look like normal people. Mandy and Nathan work at an ad agency and you see them in their cubicles and it’s like, yeah, that makes sense.

I also think that the actors put in a really good effort, especially Collett and Cody Kennedy, who plays Blake’s actual romantic partner. The writing is particularly thin at times, and it’s impressive that they manage to keep their characters engaging and likable.

And it must be said that while on the whole the writing is, well, bad, at times it does come through with some cute or just outright weird gems. “I’m going to crush him like a can of . . . of . . .give me something!” “Chips?”. (Okay, this sequence looks like it might have been improvised by Mandylor and Kennedy, but I chuckled either way). Or Mandy’s mother (Sally Kirkland) hugging Nathan and calling him by his real name, responding to his startled look with “Oh, don’t be afraid. When I hug someone I can see straight into their heart.”.

For the most part, this is a movie where even the bad stuff is sort of endearing, or the kind of bad you can’t look away from. Mandylor’s accent changes from Australian to British to American about every three minutes, and what can you do except laugh? Someone must have been really proud of making Mandy’s car look like a reindeer, because we get like 5 superfluous shots of her car’s exterior. Also, someone says “Scooby-Drew” instead of “Scooby-Doo” and I’m not even sure it’s a joke.

The only actual drag for me were the sequences taking place at Mandy’s family home. Mandy’s family is crazy, okay, and apparently how that worked out is that they hired 6 actors and told them each to come up with a “fun quirk.” And the results are like what you’d get out of a C-tier improv troupe. There’s the really horny sister! There’s the brother who thinks he’s a werewolf! There’s the old man who recites facts about WW2, sometimes thinks he’s General Patton, and also has narcolepsy (jeez, guy, pick ONE QUIRK!). There’s the sister who thinks she’s invisible and is also obsessed with spoons. Most off-putting----and naturally given the most screen time--- is Mandy’s brother who will only talk about how much he wants to have sex with her. His sister. He wants to have sex with his sister. That’s the joke. And for absolutely no reason at all, he also has a stereotypical Southern accent, something that matches absolutely no one else in the family. (Mandy also has a thick accent, but that’s just the actress, so whatever). Watching 6 actors trying to out-quirk each other gets very old very fast, and it also comes off as a somewhat offensive interpretation of “crazy”.

Anyway, this movie is nuts and all over the place and I’ve watched it twice now and I’ll probably watch it again! I’m delighted that this movie exists! It ends with “rain” falling down on the main characters on what is a visibly very sunny day!

Chicken for Linda!, 2023

Linda (Melinee Leclerc) is wrongly accused of theft by her mother, Paulette (Clotilde Hesme). When Paulette realizes her mistake, she offers to make things up to Linda, who requests a meal of chicken and peppers, one of the few memories she has of her deceased father. Chaos ensues as the pair steal a chicken from a neighbor, then go on a quest to find someone to help them kill and cook it. Along the way, police officer Serge (Esteban) gets caught up in the madness.

Engaging visuals don’t quite save a culinary quest that goes on too long.

Several years ago I was impressed by the animated film The Girl Without Hands from this same directorial pair. As with that film, Chicken for Linda! uses a bold animation style, where characters are more blobs of color floating in a black-lined frame. It’s a painterly universe, creating an interesting contrast with the very real, day-to-day experiences that are being portrayed.

The concept itself is also very powerful. Food is such a foundational part of family culture and memory. We know when something “tastes like childhood,” and the film is able to capture just how much this simple dish means to Linda and, by extension, Paulette.

For the most part, I liked the characters, especially the befuddled Serge. Paulette’s harried, anxious sister Astrid (Laetitia Dosch) really adds some comedy to the proceedings, and a romance that begins to blossom between Astrid and Serge is really sweet.

Overall, however, I struggled with this film specifically in the way that it treats the titular chicken. I don’t object to the idea of eating meat, or killing an animal for food. But I strongly believe that animals need to be treated in an ethical manner, and the chicken in this film most certainly is not. The things that Linda does in an attempt to catch or kill the chicken made me viscerally disgusted. I could feel myself fully uncouple from her as a character when she first throws the chicken out a second story window and then, when that is unsuccessful, attempts to snag the chicken on a barbed fishing hook. Linda, you’re a sociopath. And the most the movie tried to put quirky music under these sequences, the more I was like, “Gross. These people are gross.”

I also feel as though the story goes on a bit too long, by about 15 or even 20 minutes. This is one of those movies where the characters rush from place to place, accumulating more and more characters racing around with them and leading up to a crowded finale. But after the first 15 or so minutes of adventuring, it takes on an episodic feel and lacks flow.

Great animation style, but loses many points for the animal stuff.

The Gospel According to St. Matthew, 1964

This film follows the life of Jesus (Enrique Irazoqui), from his birth to his death and eventual resurrection.

A neorealist approach to Christ’s life makes for a refreshingly human look at one of the most famous stories ever told.

I started watching this film about a year ago and just completely bounced off of it. I turned it off after about 15 minutes because I was totally failing to connect with it. I’m not sure what was different this time around, but I was captivated by the film from beginning to end.

The entire approach to the story is understated---bordering at times on a feeling of distance---and that light touch allows for really lovely moments of nuance and humanity. The challenge of telling the story of Jesus in a film is that your audience already knows exactly what to expect. How do you surprise or innovate when every story beat is already overly familiar?

The answer is in that subtle approach, where fleeting expressions or brief flares of emotion become the story as opposed to the actual narrative logistics. As Jesus travels the countryside attempting to spread his gospel to an audience that is, at times, willfully obtuse, I loved seeing irritation and impatience pass over his face. He is a very special, very important person . . . but he is still a person.

This humanizing of the characters extends to the supporting cast as well. One of my favorite moments involves a distinct breaking point for Judas. Having a meal with Jesus and others, Judas notes that the ointment a woman applies to Jesus should be saved and given to the poor. This sounds, of course, like the correct sentiment for a good person. Ah, but Jesus instead chastises Judas, saying that the woman knows Jesus will die and that the ointment is a proper gift from her. Embarrassed and angry at being undercut, it is immediately after this that Judas betrays Jesus. The film is not justifying Judas in his choices, but it is putting them in a relatable human context.

Most powerfully, for me, is the portrayal of Mary (Susanna Pasolini) as she bears witness to the crucifixion of her son. Powerless to stop the death of her child, all Mary can do is be a witness, be with her son in his darkest hour. As he is nailed to the cross and lifted in the air, Mary wails on the ground. She looks at her child in disbelief, then must look away, but then must look back again. It’s heartbreaking, and makes something that could have felt rote---it’s hard not to be a bit desensitized to the crucifixion when you literally see it in images every day of your life---absolutely shattering by giving it to us through the eyes of a disbelieving, devastated mother.

I can appreciate that the understated vibe might not be for everyone. I personally found it very impactful.

I need to check back on that one. I saw it long ago in a movie series, recall that it was really great, not the usual church-y pomp that comes with the story, which, after all, is a human story as much as religion.

So wait, that is not Baragon in the image?

Nope! Giant octopus cameo!

This is Baragon:

Ha! That's great. It's like Pro Wrestling with a Monster and a Giant Horned Frog.

That is exactly the vibe of much of the final third of this film.

An Affair to Remember, 1957

Terry (Deborah Kerr) is aboard an ocean liner headed for New York when she meets playboy womanizer Nickie (Cary Grant). While both are already attached to significant others, they cannot deny the sparks that fly between them. Despite some attempts to give each other space, the two end up unable to accept walking away from each other, and agree that if they have ended their current relationships and made a success of themselves, they will reunite at the top of the Empire State Building in six months time. But neither foresees the complications that will threaten their blossoming romance.

This romance soars when its main couple shares the screen, and flops when they are apart.

This is a film that I went into with decently high expectations. It’s probably one of the most famous romances, to the point that other famous romance films have been inspired by it, at times explicitly. And so perhaps I had the bar set too high, but I was pretty underwhelmed.

On the technical front, this film is very well made. The staging of the final scene of the film is very strong, and the camera knows just how to show--or not show---its charismatic cast. The best sequence in the film is a side-quest whereby Terry and Nickie end up paying a visit to Nickie’s grandmother, Janou (a fantastic Cathleen Nesbitt). At this point in the film, Terry has acknowledged her physical attraction to Nickie and his rich-boy easiness, but is still unsure of his character. Through watching his interactions with his grandmother, and then speaking to Janou alone, Terry sees him in a kinder light.

Kerr and Cary make for a fantastic lead, and particularly on Kerr’s side, in terms of showing how someone can fall in love at the worst time. The film lets us see the different stages of their relationship, evolving from something purely physical to something deeper. While the two do a fair amount of bantering, they also have conversations, and they listen to one another. We get to see two people making a connection with each other. Having had a few friends experiencing a sudden (and frankly disorienting) attraction to someone who isn’t their romantic partner, I appreciated that the film gives Kerr time to sort out just what this all means for her.

And as an aside to that thought, I also appreciated the portrayal of Terry’s boyfriend, Ken (Richard Denning). While he senses the distance from Terry on her arrival in New York, he’s overall very even-handed when he learns he’s being pushed to the side. When Terry falls on hard times in the second half of the film, he becomes a supportive friend to her, giving her good advice (THAT SHE DOES NOT FOLLOW!) and genuinely looking out for her best interests.

Unfortunately, once that boat pulls into New York, things get pretty stale. When the strength of your movie is the chemistry of your two leads, separating them from each other for like 30 minutes is just a poor choice. The low point of the movie is the looooooong portion of the movie where we see Terry teaching music to a group of children, an excuse to wedge underwhelming music into the film. Hey, remember when this movie was fun banter on a boat and not a children’s review show with a father proudly proclaiming that now that his son knows how to sing he won’t grow up to be “a mug”?

For me, the magic of the movie just drained out in that last half. Is the final sequence really well executed? Yes. Was it enough to save the film? Nope. And for me that was doubly true because the thing that has been keeping them apart feels incredibly contrived, so that the desired catharsis of that last moment falls a bit short.

Sometimes I read a review and it gives me flashbacks to a traumatic moviewatching moment - that musical portion of the film with Terry and the kids is something you and I agree heartily on. I liked An Affair to Remember, but I love the original Love Affair - it's much better. It's tighter and much funnier than the remake and Irene Dunne is great in it - her chemistry with Charles Boyer really convincing. The last act isn't fumbled like it is in An Affair to Remember. (I have Love Affair on Criterion.)

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I don't think I've seen Love Affair, but it's on my list now.

Oh god, the singing children. A real low point. My mum loved Sleepless in Seattle so we once watched this as they reference it a lot. When it got to the part with the singing children I'm pretty sure my brother walked out.

You guys are making me feel better. I thought everyone was going to be like "GASP! You didn't like the adorable children?!?!?!?!!?!"

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, 2005

Mr. Lazarescu (Ion Fiscuteanu) is an elderly man living alone who one night begins to experience a headache and stomach pains. Eventually calling an ambulance, he is shuttled from hospital to hospital by EMT Mioara (Luminita Gheorghiu). Through the night, various doctors dismiss the pair and push them on to different hospitals and Lazarescu’s condition deteriorates.

This intentionally frustrating drama interrogates the ultimate purpose of health care.

I’ve avoided this film for years because it looks like such an obvious downer. And spoiler (not really): it is! But it’s also a very interesting look at the priorities within society and the healthcare system.

I think that an important aspect of this film is that Mr. Lazarescu is most likely dying. The “death” in the title is not necessarily meant to be interpreted as an avoidable one. All of the different information we learn about Lazarescu as the night goes on is terminal, unpleasant stuff. Mioara thinks he has colon cancer. Another doctor thinks there’s a worrying spot on his liver. The headache is probably much more than just a hangover. So this is not a matter of saving Mr. Lazarescu, and that’s okay. Medicine and care is about more than life. What this film illustrates is not a lack of “saving”, it’s a lack of caring.

Many people have stories about not being listened to medically, and those stories range from annoying (*cough* doctor who told me my severe vertigo was stress *cough*) to harrowing (*cough* doctor who told friend’s sister to stop complaining about her post-C-section pain then it turned out they had not correctly set up her IV and she was literally getting no pain medication *cough*). And I think that it would have been an easy out if this was a movie about a man who just needed the right injection or the right diagnosis. Instead, this is a story about someone who just needs compassion, and a woman battling to advocate for a man who is quickly losing the ability to do any advocating for himself.

Over and over, we watch as the doctors in the various hospitals classify Lazarescu---alcoholic, irresponsible---attempt to dismiss him, and get overtly hostile when Mioara pushes back at their non-diagnoses. Mioara is the hero of the film, sticking by Lazarescu hour after hour, unwilling to release him to the care of anyone who will not pursue actually figuring out what is wrong with him. She puts on an absolutely splendid poker face as she is insulted and put in her place by a series of irate doctors. Lazarescu and Mioara don’t have any special bond, but unlike the other medical professionals encountered on their odyssey, Mioara has compassion for Lazarescu and sees him as a person.

While the doctors and nurses at the other hospitals come off pretty horribly---talking down to Mioara, being outright mean and condescending to Lazarescu---I do appreciate that we get glimpses of how this has come to be the state of affairs. The doctors are all tired and overworked. They are frustrated by patients they see as wasting their time, like drunks who come in, throw up all over, and don’t actually need medical intervention. No, there’s not really an excuse for their behavior (and an imaging expert at one of the last hospitals is very punchable in his treatment of Lazarescu, Mioara, and his assistant), but there are important gestures at the larger systemic problems that lead to such an environment.

This is a harrowing watch---though not without moments of humor!--that effectively makes its point about how people are allowed to fall through the cracks and the absolute injustice that those who are socially isolated can be denied a good death.

I liked TDoML well enough. Just could not get into its black humor.

That would probably make it somewhere in my top 100 favorite films. Mioara is just so relatable to me. It's clear she's done her job for many years and the pushback she received from the doctors wasn't anything new, but as ineffective as you may be at making a change, the importance of what you're standing for outweighs whatever verbal abuse you'll surely receive along the way. I think about that quite often in my day-to-day interactions.

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Nice review.

Long ago, I revisited the year for my blog, but was dragging my feet on returning to TDoML because I remembered it as just overwhelmingly painful and depressing (with the exception of the tenacious ambulance driver), but a second go through was rewarding and revealed more than just darkness. It wound up edging past my beloved Pride & Prejudice as my Best Picture for 2005.

I wrote...

The sad thing is that it was inspired by a true story, which was even more awful - after being turned away from several hospitals, paramedics just left the guy on the streets where he died. I'm glad the filmmakers gave us a Mioara.