Death Race 2000 is a cult flick written and directed by Paul Bartel and produced by Roger Corman. If you're a Corman fan, then you know his a what to expect from his films, low budget, bad dialogue, and scantily clad women. The director, Paul Bartel, has a fiendishly wicked sense of humor. The film was released in 1975, but was set in a nihilistic future, a dark idea of the world in the year 2000. The Death Race is a bloody cross-country race in which the goal is not only to reach the finish line first, but also to reach the finish line with the highest body count. The drivers are worshipped, the fans are brainwashed sheep, and the Death Race is government sanctioned. Throw in some rebels trying to sabotage the race and it makes for an entertaining and fascinating 79 minutes. David Carradine, Simone Griffith, and Mary Woronov star.
Rear Window is one of my favorite Alfred Hitchcock films, because I find the world he created in the courtyard of the apartment buildings fascinating. Hitchcock was master filmmaker, and he often incorporated a challenge into his films, like shooting the entire film in one continuous shot like he did in Rope. In Rear Window, the film begins with one continuous shot around the courtyard, and continues with all but a few shots from the perspective of one apartment. This technique added to the suspense and the artistry of the film. Rear Window showcases the talent of James Stewart, Grace Kelly, and Raymond Burr, and the film has the look of a classic Hitchcock film, because he tended to collaborate with the same talent from one film to the next. For Rear Window, the editing was done by George Tomasini and the costume design was done by Edith Head, bringing about much of the classic feel of the film. I love this film.
Calendar Girls tells the true story of a women’s group in Napley, England whose middle-aged members pose nude for a fundraising calendar. This is a funny movie, a great story, and it stars a group of wonderful actresses, including: Helen Miran, Julie Walters, Linda Bassett, Annette Crosbie, Celia Imrie, Geraldine James, and Penelope Wilton.
I finally got a chance to go see a movie with my friend, Carol. She picked a film I had not heard of, but trusting her taste in movies, I went with it. We went to the Angelika and saw Bride and Prejudice, the new Bollywood/Hollywood hybrid. It turned out to be a lot of fun. In the early nineties there was a cable channel that had Indian programming. For some reason, that is the channel my TV was programmed to whenever I turned it on, so I ended up seeing bits and pieces of Indian movies for a year or so. I couldn't watch one all the way through, because they seemed so silly, but more often than not, I found myself mesmerized by the song and dance numbers that are inevitably in most Indian movies. These films were not high art, but were more like the films that were produced during the Depression and again during WWII in Hollywood, purely escapist fare. Bride and Prejudice is the retelling of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice told from the perspective of a modern day Indian woman. Filtering the classic story through Hollywood and Bollywood actually works, and the singing, dancing, costumes and cultural mix was a lot of fun. I found I was either smiling or laughing throughout the film, and I can’t remember the last time I had that kind of reaction to a film.
The Indian music is mixed/balanced with songs that sound like music you would hear while out clubbing or at a Broadway musical, and the rock, pop, and hip hop influenced music should make it a good soundtrack The actors in the film are wonderful and I think the hype about the female lead is true (Aishwarya Rai); she is probably the most beautiful person I have ever seen on screen. They found an equally stunning actor to play opposite of her in Martin Henderson, a New Zealander who will probably be seen in a lot more Hollywood movies in the coming years. The supporting cast is also terrific and most of the faces are recognizable from other films. The writer/director, Gurinder Chadha, is best known for writing and directing Bend it Like Beckham, and her work on Bride and Prejudice is equally enjoyable.
This week's Netflix:
Lost in Translation stars Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansen. This film was released in 2003 and got rave reviews. I agree with most of them, but I found that is was a little slow in the beginning and almost lost my interest. The humor is subtle making it smart funny, not guffaw funny. I am a Bill Murray fan from his SNL days through Caddy Shack, Meatballs, and Stripes. This film is not like anything I have seen him in before. Sophia Coppola did a really good job in her directing debut.
The British sitcom, Coupling, inspired our Netflix choice of The Wicker Man . I heard about it while watching the British sitcom, Coupling, and thought it would be some melodramatic or angsty teen film from their description. My curiosity got the best of me, so I added it to the Netflix list. The Wicker Man turned out to be one of the weirdest films I have ever seen. Filmed in 1973, it stars Edward Woodward as a mainland police officer who has come to a small Scottish island to investigate the reported disappearance of a girl. Christopher Lee plays the island laird, Lord Summersisle, and Britt Eckland plays the island strumpet. The inhabitants of this odd isle are all pagans and they have very open sexuality and observe some very stange rituals. The film is Felini-esque and sinister, and has a surprise ending. The best thing about the film is Christopher Lee dancing in a macabre drag outfit as he leads the pagan procession (although I'm sure that men will be more impressed with Britt Eckland's naked pagan dance. The worst thing about the film is the music, which is a kind of '70's Celtic tripe. The scenery is beautiful and the story is fascinating, if not believable.
Stargate is the predecessor to the Sci-fi Channel's T.V. show, Stargate: S.G. 1. I saw this one when it first came out and it was nice to see it again 10 years later. Stargate stars Kurt Russell and James Spader. The supporting cast includes French Stewart, playing a fairly butch soldier, instead of an alien and Jaye Davidson, playing a gender-bending alien, instead of a transsexual. In the film, the military and scientists work together to discover the secrets of an a giant ring (stargate) found in an archeological dig in Egypt in the 1920's. I still think the storyline is unique and interesting and the special effects still hold up a decade after it was released. If you like sci-fi, then you should enjoy Stargate.
A week ago we bought a new vacuum cleaner, a Bissell Cleanview II Bagless Upright, to be precise. I never thought I would care about a vacuum cleaner enough to blog it, but this vacuum is amazing! The Hoover Power Drive vacuum, that faithfully served us since 1988 (yes, 1988) finally gave out. Truth be told, after using the new vacuum cleaner, it is apparent to me that our old one has not worked (not really worked) for the last 2 years or so. Sad, but true.
We hate to clean. We do it because we have to, and that's the only reason. So, after I brought it home, the new vacuum cleaner (which has been dubbed Zoey II), sat in the living room floor for a couple of days and we walked around it, and occasionally oohed and ahhed. It is pretty spectacular in appearance, compared to the Hoover. Zoey is a sexy French maid kind of vacuum, making its predecessor a dumpy old Hazel. We call her Zoey after a dog we grew to love very much. When the dog was no longer around, Connor said, "I miss Zoey, she ate cat barf, like a good dog should." Needless to say, so does Zoey II.
Of the three of us, Connor was the most impressed by our new acquisition. He kneeled next to it and inspected all of the attachments and apparently imagined what it would be like to clean our filthy carpets with it. After he finished his homework one night, he cautiously asked, "Can I use it?" To which I replied, "Of course, honey. Who do you think I bought it for?" Grinning from ear to ear, he offered to vacuum my room, and I responded with, something along the line of "Knock yourself out, kid." I showed him the nifty carrying handle and he was ecstatic. He lugged the vacuum up the stairs and started to work. In about 10 minutes he asked me to come look at what he'd done, so I went up to look and the floor looked pretty good, but the canister was disgusting. It was FULL of dirt, dust, and cat hair. He vacuumed most of the room and was pretty proud of the job he had done, but he was also full of admonish ions about letting the carpet get that "gross." I was humbled, but not so humbled that I didn't tell him to have a go at the window treatment with the cool attachments. So, this weekend, I pulled the rugs out of my room and washed them and I started vacuuming. In no time I had filled the plastic canister with the same amount of stuff that Connor removed just a few days before. I continued vacuuming and filled it again. A couple of realizations dawned on me. The first is that the old Hoover was probably not working properly for a year or two, and I must be some kind of mental midget in the vacuuming department to not see that before now. It's not that I hadn't vacuumed in the last couple of years, it's just that I didn't do it often and when I did, it was pretty bad, so any improvement was better than whatever drove me to haul out the vacuum and us it. The second realization is that we have a very low standard for clean. I am going to try to raise my standard in that area, and I am pretty sure that using a bagless vacuum will help pull me out of my cleaning malaise. It's hard to face a canister full of the most repulsive stuff (three times over) without admitting that you have issues. Hi, I'm Karen and I am a dirt-a-holic, or maybe I'm a clean phobic. Either way, change is underfoot; ) .
What is the measure of a soul? 21 Grams is a movie that deals with that question, in a really round about way. There are three main characters (Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, and Benecio Del Toro) who are living and dying (both physically and emotionally) throughout the movie. The plot revolves around how these characters come together and pull apart, and ultimately how they destroy each other. Individual scenes are riveting, but the movie as a whole is a hard view, because the stories are so depressing and the editing is convoluted. Sometimes this style of movie making works, but sometimes it just makes the movie difficult to understand. Why the director decided on such a disynchronous telling of such a compelling story, is beyond me. Although the movie makes sense by the end, it is a wrenching experience to get to the end of the film.
Logan's Run , one of my favorite Sci-fi movies from the 1970's, stars Michael York, Richard Jordan, Jenny Agutter, Peter Ustinov, and even Farrah Fawcett has a small part. I was surprised by how much of this film I had forgotten. The story is a little hokey, but I really enjoyed seeing it again, especially Peter Ustinov's character. He did a lot with the screen time, and it is clear why he was such an acclaimed actor. The costuming was classic 1970's jiggle-vision. The director's vision of the year 2274 includes braless women in toga-like outfits made of Qiana and the men wore their clingy Qiana outfits in a style that brings to mind Robin Hood. Logan’s Run tells the story of a futuristic Utopia that is created in a domed city that is built after some unnamed disaster makes it impossible for the people to live in the open. Because the people live in a dome, the population must be controlled, so anyone over the age of 30 must die. The plot borrows from A Brave New World, Lost Horizon, and 1984, but the film is still interesting and a fun watch.
Control Room is a documentary that delves into the responsibility of the media in the context of politics and war. The film makers focus on the Arab news agency, Al Jazeera and it compares and contrasts the perspective of the Al Jazeera staff with that of American journalists and it also uses some footage of Rumsfeld accusing Al Jazeera of being deceptive in their coverage of the war, which given the deception that Rumsfeld perpetrated on the American people to get the war started is supremely rich.
All of the Al Jazeera correspondents and producers come across intelligent and interesting, but I think the Sudanese journalist, Hassan Ibrahim, was the most fascinating because of his ironic take on the situation. He repeatedly says that he has faith in the American Constitution and the American people to do the right thing, which made me a little ashamed, because I have lost much of my faith in the Constitution and in the American people when it comes to doing what is right and just. Ibrahim also has an infectious sense of humor (or maybe it's a sense of irony) that make his exchanges with Lieutenant Josh Rushing (the U.S. Army Central Command Press Officer) humorous as well as enlightening. Seeing the two men express opposing views of the war in an intelligent and logical debate has a profound impact. Their ability to try to see things from each other's point of view makes me believe that an administration with a greater emphasis on diplomacy might have been able to achieve an outcome that would have avoided the deaths of so many of our young men.
