The Resident

I don't often watch Hilary Swank movies.  It's not that I dislike her --- although two Oscars seems a bit much, in my opinion --- it's just that she stars in a lot of crap.  I have similar feelings about Jeffrey Dean Morgan; I like the guy just fine, but he's not in many things I want to watch.  No, what drew me into The Resident was the fact that this was a Hammer Films production featuring Christopher Lee.  Plus, I just reviewed The Apartment, and I found the pairing amusing.  I haven't seen many classic Hammer movies, but I was completely unaware that they had resurrected the brand recently and made a few noteworthy pics (that I haven't seen yet).  Christopher Lee, a two-time Best Actress, a solid character actor, and a classic movie brand --- what could go wrong?

"That depends...how much do you love rape?"

Juliet (Hilary Swank) is a New York City emergency room doctor in need of a new home.  She receives a call from someone, telling her that there is an apartment for rent.  When she arrives, she finds an enormous place in an older building that is nearly perfect: great wood floors, about three acres of floorspace, and a ridiculous view of the city.  The downside is that the train passes pretty close to the building and things have a tendency to vibrate off of shelves.  The price is shockingly cheap (by NYC standards), so Juliet takes the place.

"I like the plastic on the walls.  It makes it easier to clean blood off!"

Her landlord is Max (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), whose only job appears to be renovating the building; Max and his grandfather, August (Christopher Lee), are the building's only other tenants.  Juliet loves her new place, but the creaks and moans of the building play tricks on her, making her think that she is not alone.  Nevertheless, things appear to be getting better for her.  She even randomly encounters Max socially and the two hit it off; in other words, the pair quickly start getting naked together.

Now stop.  Rewind.  The film backs up to give the viewer an alternate point of view on the story thus far.  It turns out that the friendly Max has been stalking Juliet for some time and she played right into his hands.  Remember those moments Juliet thought she wasn't alone?  That's because she wasn't.  Two-way mirrors, peepholes and secret passages abound in her apartment, and you can be sure that behind every creepy noise in the place, Max is hiding and breathing heavily.

Aww!  Look at that puppy dog face!  You are forgiven for everything, Max!

At this point, the film can take a few directions.  The first would be for the pair to start dating and either become a lovely couple, or his creepy nature would turn this into a taut thriller, where Juliet only gradually realizes how dangerous Max is --- and he's sleeping right next to her!  Alternately, Juliet could put a stop to their naked time before the grinding starts and Max could go into full-on horror movie villain mode.  The Resident opts for the second, easier, route.

How's the acting in The Resident?  I suppose that depends on how forgiving you are.  I wouldn't say that Hilary Swank was good, but she played her role capably.  Is it her fault that her character is almost fatally stupid?  I don't think so, but it would have been nice for her paranoid character to call the police, even once.  I will say, however, that I was surprised that she had some brief getting-out-of-the-tub nudity; that's just about the cheapest excuse for nudity you will come across in a film, and I wasn't expecting it from her in a horror flick.  I'm not complaining, I'm just saying.  Jeffrey Dean Morgan was certainly creepy for a good portion of this film, so I guess he was somewhat successful.  Toward the end of the movie, he exchanged creepiness for sub-par horror slasher villainy, and he wasn't very good at that.  I would say that he was solid for the first half of the film, but when the plot returned from its flashback, his performance went downhill quickly.  Christopher Lee felt out of place in this movie, somehow; I like seeing him act, but hearing his strong voice coming out of his frail body made me a little sad.

Little known fact: Christopher Lee is Noah

Lee Pace didn't have much do do.  He played Juliet's unfaithful ex, and his part was fairly unremarkable.  He got beat up like a chump twice and went grocery shopping.

Not necessarily in that order

Aunjanue Ellis is the only supporting character that isn't terribly important in the overall plot.  She urges Juliet to date Max and talks trash about Lee Pace.  On the one hand, I guess her character can be seen as someone encouraging Juliet, but everything she supports (take the apartment, date Max, etc.) is really, really bad advice.

The Resident was Antti Jokinen's first (and so far, only) feature film director credit.  That's probably for the best.  I will give Jokinen some credit; I thought the first thirty minutes were surprisingly solid, although the story felt familiar.  I also like that the "surprise" of Max being a creep was not held back as a major plot twist, because...well, it was pretty damn obvious.  His fancier camera work was handled clumsily, making scenes that should have been ambiguous (is she alone, or isn't she?) pretty cut-and-dried.  I didn't like the choice to rewind the plot to show us how awful Max is, but I suppose it was better than him having a shrine to Juliet in his closet.  My main problem with how Jokinen directed this movie was that he was inconsistent.  I would have been fine with this film if he had maintained the suspense from the first act.  The second act, during the rewind, took all the mystery from the story.  The third act just sucked, as Max went from creepy to evil with less buildup than the 12th kill in a Jason movie.  I don't think Jokinen did a terrible job directing this film, but he certainly didn't make this story better with his direction.

Example: he frequently told his actors to look perturbed, not scared

Unfortunately, Jokinen was also responsible for the major weakness of The Resident: the writing.  He co-wrote this screenplay with a guy who was involved in the third Underworld movie, so the talent pool for this screenplay was not particularly deep.  Still, this story is pure crap.  Ignoring the cliche of the nice guy who is secretly disturbed, there really isn't any other logical suspect when Juliet gets paranoid that she is being watched.  So, that means Juliet is either paranoid or her landlord is spying on her; given the title, that seems like a poorly constructed mystery.  What really pushed this movie over the edge from drudgery to utter crap was how the writers showed that Max was disturbed.  Max's primary way to get close to Juliet was by drugging her and touching her while she was asleep.  Licking her hands was creepy enough, but raping her while she was unconscious was more gross than shocking.

That's so...erotic?

If you're going to make rape a plot point, that should not be the effect.  I also did not need to see multiple scenes where Max masturbated while in Juliet's apartment.  They throw in some stuff where Christopher Lee implies that Max's parents were disturbed, too, but it doesn't go anywhere.  I think they overplayed their hand with Max, making his transition from peeper to murderer/rapist too abrupt.

It's surprisingly well-lit when Max chooses to creep

I would have been much happier if Max was just creepy and maybe building up toward rape, when he panics and kills someone and, from there, we see him get more desperate and his actions more drastic.  There's just no build to this plot whatsoever.  Instead of being suspenseful or scary, it is boring, over-familiar and uncomfortable.  I should be rooting for either the killer or the heroine here, but neither is particularly likable.  I had difficulty understanding why I wasn't sympathetic toward Juliet for a little while.  Then, I realized that she was an idiot.  She oversleeps after her evening wine bottle was drugged; instead of drinking less, she blames it on her apartment.  Yes, that makes perfect sense.  On the bright side, the movie did end with a nail gun-related death, so there's that.

Hugo

Included in Brian's Best and Worst of 2011

Almost a year ago, I was leaving a movie theater when somebody handed me a flyer for a free early screening of Hugo; apparently, the title wasn't grabbing enough people, because he made sure to point out that it was Martin Scorsese's first 3D movie.  Obviously, as someone who enjoys the occasional film, I was very excited to see this movie and see how audience feedback would alter the final product.  I went through the proper steps to reserve a spot for me and the Mrs., but on the day of the screening, the location for the film was moved about 40+ miles from a convenient Chicago suburb to Chicago proper during rush hour traffic.  Since reaching the convenient neighborhood location was going to be a close call, this change of venues made it an impossibility.  What does this have to do with anything?  Aside from supporting claims that AMC Theaters is made of jerkfaces, very little.

Hugo's secret screening title: Reverse Flava Flav - the Movie, Boyeeee

Hugo follows the life and times of Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield), an orphan in 1930s Paris.  Hugo lives an invisible life inside a train station, where he maintains all the clocks in the building and sleeps in the walls.  How did he get there?  Just about anywhere is better than the Paris orphanage, apparently.  Since nobody knows he exists, Hugo isn't paid for his labors, which means that he has to scavenge and steal to get along.  If he gets caught, or is even suspected of a crime or of being an orphan, the station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen) will lock him up and send him to the orphanage.

"Be on the lookout for gingers without pupils"

Aside from sustenance, Hugo is also collecting parts to repair a clockwork automaton that Hugo and his late father (Jude Law) found.  Working on the device had been a bonding experience for the two, and Hugo has the unreasonable expectation that the automaton, when fixed, will transmit a message to Hugo from his father.  How he came to that conclusion, I don't know.  But, hey, it's not like Hugo's ever built an automaton that didn't transmit messages from beyond the grave, so I can't totally fault his logic.

Why would you create a robotic pygmy?  Unless...the children are giants...!

To get the parts for the automaton, Hugo pays particular attention to a toy shop in the train station, run by Georges (Ben Kingsley).  Being a grouch, but not an idiot, Georges has noticed the quiet boy loitering near his stand and has made a connection to parts that have gone missing.  Georges threatens to turn Hugo in to the station inspector, unless he works off his presumed debt at the shop.  When he's not working at the shop, Hugo befriends Georges' orphaned goddaughter, Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz); she introduces Hugo to the world of books and he introduces her to the world of cinema.  Ultimately, we all know the automaton has to be finished, but the final piece and the automaton's message take the film in a direction you might not expect.  Unless you read a plot synopsis or the book, I mean.

Hugo is a noticeable stylistic departure for director Martin Scorsese for many reasons, but I'm specifically referring to it not being propelled by a particular actor's performance.  The two leads are some of the better child actors around right now, but they don't steal the show.

They still look smug, though

Asa Butterfield is believable in both his childishness and his stubborn determination; I was also impressed by how well he managed the demanding emotional scenes.   Chloë Grace Moretz continues her surprisingly respectable filmography here (she hasn't been in anything too embarrassing for her age, except Big Momma's House 2), although I was slightly irritated by her voice in this film.  I don't know if it was an accent or an affectation, but she was good aside from that.  The supporting cast is noteworthy, although few got the chance to shine.  Ben Kingsley, as the top-billed actor, was predictably good; Kingsley doesn't always act in good movies, but pairing him with a great director makes for good stuff.  I like seeing characters balance prickishness and warmth, and that's what Kingsley delivered here.  I was far less impressed with Sacha Baron Cohen; I get that this is a children's movie and not a Scorsese gangster pick, but I felt that Cohen's physical comedy was clumsy and...well, unfunny.  I was okay with the rest of the supporting cast, though.  Helen McCrory may be far too young to play Kingsley's wife, but her makeup was tastefully done. 

You look about 70, your wife is about 40...nice job, man

Ray Winstone, an excellent film ne'er-do-well, was suitably nasty as an uncaring alcoholic.  Jude Law was charming and loving as Hugo's father.  Christopher Lee shows up to be friendly (in a creepy way).  Meanwhile, Emily Mortimer filled out the station inspector's subplot and Harry Potter alums Frances de la Tour and Richard Griffiths had their own romantic subplot.

The thing about Hugo that struck me as odd was how inconsequential the hero was to so many parts of the plot.  When the film began I thought it was obvious that he would try to help de la Tour and Griffiths overcome their dog-related problems and find love.  At the very least, I thought he would have a hand in the station inspector falling in love, which would inevitably lead to the inspector giving him a free pass when Hugo was inevitably caught.  It might have been a tad predictable, but that never hurt Amelie, did it?  And yet, none of that actually happened in Hugo.  The main character takes no action in these subplots, and they do not appear to affect him in any way that fits the film's theme.  So why are they included?  I don't have that answer.

Sadly, it doesn't require a heart-shaped key

Of course, it is not just the subplots that have little to do with Hugo and his quest to reconnect with his dead father.  The main plot veers off from a touching --- if ill-advised --- quest of a young boy trying to (essentially) make the impossible happen (reconstruct the automaton) so something even less possible (his father communicating to him from beyond) could happen and winds up finishing with a touching story about the importance of film preservation.  As someone who enjoys many films made before my birth, I understand and appreciate film preservation; I would pay through the nose for a good copy of His Girl Friday and have been contemplating upgrading my awful copy of Charade for its Criterion Collection version.  That does not mean that this is necessarily the right venue for a treatise on film preservation. 

But who am I to refuse that adorable mustache?

Despite my reservations, Hugo is a very well-directed and -acted film.  Big surprise, right?  Hugo gained some attention for being Martin Scorsese's first 3D film, so I suppose I should examine how well he did in this new/1950s format.  The short answer is "good."  There are not a lot of movies that make good use of 3D.  For every Avatar, there are at least six Clash of the Titans.  Thankfully, this is a movie that uses 3D for depth, rather than for machetes stabbing the audience.  The 3D isn't essential, but it looks good and makes some of the clock scenes far more interesting than they would have been otherwise.  Outside of the 3D, Scorsese did a great job.  It has been a long time since he has made a risky movie (in my opinion, I would say Kundun was his last big risk), but adapting a children's book was fairly ballsy for a man known more for elevating Joe Pesci than his last family-friendly outing, the music video for Michael Jackson's "Bad."


Am I the only one who forgot about the keyboard solo in this song?  I love call-and-response as much as the next guy, but  how does Wesley Snipes not shoot MJ in the face here?  Still, it is a pleasure to see a master director at work.  He manages to blend conventional premises with the source material and winds up with a story that is surprisingly surprising and not nearly as conventional as it initially seems.  Most importantly, though, Scorsese succeeds in his ultimate mission; I have to admit that, after seeing this film, I went home and quickly researched Georges Méliès (who directed an astonishing 555 movie shorts in less than twenty years) and was suitably impressed by what I saw.  If that is not the ultimate goal of Hugo, I don't know what is.

Is Hugo a great film, worthy of comparison to Scorsese's best work?  Definitely not.  It absolutely is, though, adorable and heart-warming.  This is a nostalgic movie, disguised as something that kids might want to see, and it is disguised well.  Is Hugo manipulative?  Oh, lord, yes.  Thankfully, it doesn't leave you feeling dirty, like Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.  It is not a whole lot better than that film, though, for similar reasons.  It barely made it into my top ten of last year, but it is still worth watching, especially if you have a fondness for older films.  This may not make you want to watch silent movies, but it is at least as effective as The Artist.

My first exposure to Georges Méliès was this music video from Smashing Pumpkins.  I don't know what made Billy Corgan choose this as a theme for his video, but it is still pretty cool.

The Wicker Man (1973)

Sergent Howie (Edward Woodward, who without the "ward" becomes a terrible director), a police officer from mainland Scotland, has received an anonymous letter urging him to investigate the disappearance of young Rowan Morrison from her home on the remote Scottish island of Summerisle.  Howie flies a seaplane to the island and begins to poke around, but finds himself stonewalled at every turn.  The locals feign ignorance of the girl, her mother doesn't acknowledge Rowan's existence; all Howie gets for his efforts is frustration.

Not a clue

Even more frustrating for the strict Christian Howie is the fact that the island's people are obviously pagan.  As he wanders about town, he finds schoolchildren singing songs about sex, schoolgirls reciting the importance of the phallus in their culture, and a group of couples openly "doing it" outdoors.  When Howie eventually meets with Lord Summerilse (Christopher Lee), he declares that Rowan was most likely murdered as a sacrifice to the island's pagan gods.  That's pretty nasty if he's right, but there is something even more sinister happening on Summerisle.

Do these people look like they have something to hide?

That plot doesn't sound like much of a horror movie, does it?  The Wicker Man is an odd hybrid of genres (suspense/thriller, musical, and horror) that sound like they shouldn't gel properly, but are surprisingly effective when combined.  This won't knock Willy Wonka from the top of your "favorite musicals" list (it is on top, right?), but the folk stylings of the soundtrack provide some interesting moments that supplement the plot.

Example: Britt Ekland beating a wall and slapping her ass in the nude to music

As for the other elements, the film handles them in turn.  The horror does not become apparent until the very end, but the suspense is effective at a slow boil.

The acting in The Wicker Man is pretty solid, but most of the cast is forced by the plot to remain fairly impassive.  Edward Woodward was fine in the lead.  It's one thing to play a cop as Sgt. Killjoy, interrupting festivities and generally trying to play the part of a disapproving father figure, but Woodward was also able to lace his performance with an increasing degree of desperation.  Sometimes, it's the little additions that make all the difference.  Christopher Lee plays Woodward's opposite with relish, charisma, and the male equivalent of a bouffant. 

I generally like Lee for being such a good villain --- his voice alone is usually enough to make him watchable --- but this is definitely one of my favorite performances by him.  Lee isn't in much of the movie, but his presence makes all the difference.  Plus, he prances around while dressed as an ugly woman.  Bonus!  The only other noteworthy actors are a bevy of busty women.  Britt Ekland stands out the most, as she is given the most screen time as Sgt. Howie's would-be seducer and has a prominent nude scene (although the full-body shots were a body double, since Ekland had recently become pregnant).  Ekland is halfway decent here, but her talent still lies primarily with her body.  Diane Cilento was definitely the best actress in the film as the schoolteacher.  Hers is not a very large role, but she gets a little extra time as one of the characters that tries to explain the island's religion to Howie; she comes across as clever and earnest, although obviously hiding something.  Horror veteran Ingrid Pitt also has a small role as a sexy librarian.  She doesn't do much in her bit role, but I liked her.  Maybe it was the hair.

Pitt, about to record a message with her droid

This was director Robin Hardy's first effort behind the camera, and it would be his only directing credit for more than fifteen years.  I don't know why --- I thought he did a very good job.  The version I watched was the theatrical one, which is nine minutes shorter than the difficult to find special edition, but I still enjoyed the film and his direction.  The movie takes place mostly during the daytime, which is unusual for any horror or thriller movie.  Something sinister is obviously going on, but it is not hiding in the shadows, but in plain sight.  It was an interesting choice to include so many songs in the film, but they are handled pretty well; most of the songs provide interesting insights into the culture on the island.  There are a few stinkers in the soundtrack, but it is, for the most part, likable enough.  The best work Hardy does is with the pacing of the film.  He builds up the tension slowly, and it only feels like a horror movie when the mystery is revealed and the ending becomes apparent.  It's hard to make a good mystery and it's even more difficult to make a good horror movie --- Hardy did both at the same time, while avoiding just about every genre cliche in the book.

The terrible truth: Lee needs more hair product

The Wicker Man is definitely a bizarre film, though.  The tone is very atypical and there are more than a few moments that lean dangerously close to camp.  Luckily, the suspense is assembled effectively enough to keep most people from laughing at the more ridiculous scenes.

Oddly not humorous, in context

As much as I admire this film for being so different, that also makes it an acquired taste.  I bought this DVD about three years ago, and had never gotten around to watching it a second time.  Sure, I like the film, but it is so damn odd that I never felt like it fit my mood at any given time.  That's all that keeps me from giving it a truly fantastic rating --- a personal idiosyncrasy on my part.  Oh, and cosplay is weird.

Here's the Sneaker Pimps covering the song that Britt Ekland obviously sung and definitely did not have her voice dubbed over during.

Dracula A.D. 1972

I realized something this month: I have never seen anything from Hammer Films.  That's not particularly shocking for most people to admit to, but that means that I have never seen Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in their (arguably) most iconic film roles.  Apparently, I am only pretending to enjoy horror movies.  But which Dracula film to choose?  I went with Dracula A.D. 1972.  Cushing and Lee co-starred in so many Dracula films together, and I knew that the first five shared the same continuity.  With about twenty seconds of research on the ol' interweb, I discovered that A.D. 1972 was a fresh start, continuity-wise.  Plus, it was streaming on Netflix, which made it an easy choice.

The film opens at the climax of a battle between Count Dracula (Christopher Lee) and his nemesis, Lawrence Van Helsing (Peter Cushing), atop a runaway horse carriage.  The carriage crashes and both a hurt badly; Van Helsing's last act is to impale the wounded Dracula with a wooden wheel spoke in lieu of a stake.

Well...that's humiliating

Both men die, but Dracula turns to dust.  Shortly after Dracula *sigh* bites the dust, a creepy dude with not at all fake sideburns (Christopher Neame) arrives, scoops up some Dracula dust into a vial and takes Draccy's gaudy ring.  I assume it was the Count's class ring from Transylvania High.  A short time later, the dust of Dracula is buried nearby Van Helsing's grave in Chelsea.  Fast-forward a hundred years.  As the movie poster indicates, the time is "Now," as long as "Now" is 1972.  Things are swinging in Chelsea, as this crazy party indicates:

Dancing on a table?  Now I've seen everything!

Jessica Van Helsing (Stephanie Beacham) is part of a groovy scene that loves to have fun and stick it to the man in ways that are largely legal.  Part of the group --- not "gang," as Jessica points out to her square granddad --- is Johnny Alucard (Neame), who looks suspiciously like Mr. Fake Sideburns from 1872, possibly because it is the same actor.  With a name like Smuckers Alucard in a Dracula movie, it's a cinch that this moderately creepy twenty-something is up to no good.  Why is that, you might ask?  I'll let a cast member from the fabulous Troll 2 give you a hint:


Yes, "Alucard" is Dracula spelled backwards.  It's kind of odd that it appears to be his family name, but whatever.  It's not like he's trying to raise Dracula from the dead and has randomly befriended a descendant of Dracula's greatest enemy, right?  Riiiiight?!?  Well, crap.  Johnny has picked Jessica and her fellow spoiled socialite youngsters because they're stupid enough to be looking for thrills; Johnny persuades them to partake in a black magic ceremony to raise Dracula from the grave.  

Alternate video for Tears for Fears' "Shout"

That's when people start popping up dead and drained of blood, which leads the police to ask occult expert Lorrimer Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) for help.  It doesn't take long for Van Helsing to realize that Dracula has returned and poor Jessica is at risk.

Most of the time, the first thing I notice about a movie is its acting.  With Dracula A.D. 1972, I noticed the tone.  This movie is campy as shit.  Part of it is the omnipresent soundtrack, composed by a former Manfred Mann member, and part of it is the band that plays in the first scene, but it is all wrong.  This soundtrack was dated before it even hit theaters.  The dialogue in the movie is the scariest part of the film, if only because someone was paid to write it.  The strangest thing about this movie is that it focuses on Jessica Van Helsing and Johnny Alucard, not Professor Van Helsing and Dracula.  This is a very youth-driven film, obviously aimed at a young, "hep" audience, and the way they chose to appeal to this audience was to make this into a goofy (but not comedic) Dracula movie.

The acting is hit-and-miss here.  Christopher Lee was great as Dracula, even though he has very little screen time.  He is able to seem dark and evil and majestic, even with some awful dialogue surrounding him.

You'd think Dracula would have perfect teeth, but no

Similarly, Peter Cushing was very good as Van Helsing and he was also tragically underused.  Instead, the film focuses on Stephanie Beacham.  She's not much of an actress, but she certainly is busty.  Indeed, there are several scenes where only her breasts are within the camera shot; that's especially odd, given that there is no nudity in this picture.  She's not a great actress, but she does what she is supposed to do; she has a terrible haircut and perky boobs, and sometimes she reads lines of dialogue.

She-mullet!

I did enjoy Christopher Neame as Alucard, but it was a campy sort of like.  He was a little weird and obviously sinister, but he was a decent villain for a film with such a campy tone.  The rest of the cast was painfully bad and not worth acknowledging on an individual basis.  As for the direction, Alan Gibson managed to tell a convoluted but comprehensible story, but that doesn't save it from being sub-par.

Or occasionally very lame

So, what makes Dracula A.D. 1972 so bad?  Where to start?  I've already mentioned the comically outdated soundtrack and dialogue, but it bears repeating --- they suck.  There isn't much logic to the story, either.  Dracula's ashes were buried in (or maybe just outside of) a churchyard, but Alucard still had a vial of them left over?  Why did Dracula make such a big deal about turning Jessica into a vampire?  Wouldn't it have made more sense for him to go after the living Van Helsing with knowledge of the occult?  If those were the only problems, I would be fine with the movie, but there's plenty more.  Alucard's name is absolutely ridiculous.  It's like a Russian sleeper agent taking the last name of "Tsinummoc."  And you're telling me that the presumed third generation of Dracula loyalists doesn't recognize the name Van Helsing?  That's dumb.  Speaking of Alucard, he is beaten in a fight by Peter "I'm very old" Cushing, even though he (Alucard) resorted to fighting with a knife. 

That is unimpressive in so many ways.  I was a little confused by the idea of vampires being extra-sensitive to drowning, but that might be a Hammer Films thing, so I won't pick on it here.  The biggest sin in this movie is the relatively minor roles played by Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.  Both were very good whenever they were on screen, but they were relegated to the wings for the majority of the film, Lee especially.  When you've got that much bad and you skimp out on what's good, you end up with a bad movie.  I will say, though, that Cushing and Lee were good enough to make me eventually look into their earlier Hammer films.

Season of the Witch

I was going to pass over Season of the Witch --- mostly because it looked horrid --- but I saw Chris Gore's quick review of it and my interest was piqued by the words "zombie monks."  Admittedly, that is not a phrase that is often accompanied by "the Academy Award-winning performance of," but Nicolas Cage fighting zombie monks should have been hilarious.  Not hilarious enough, as it turns out.

When, exactly, is Witching Season?  Right after duck season?  Actually, the Season of the Witch takes place during the Crusades of the mid-1300s.  Behmen (Nicolas Cage) and Felson (Ron Perlman) are bad-ass knights that love to slaughter heretics.  We know this because the two basically tell the camera in so many words.  You'll have to take their word for it, since the large action sequences aren't very convincing.

I find it hard to believe that anyone reached age 60 in the Crusades, much less a knight

After killing in the name of (DA-DA!  DUM!) God for many years, Behmen and Felson decided to quit the team after they invaded a castle and found themselves slaughtering defenseless women and children.  The resident war-priest guy argued that there's no crying in baseball the Crusades, but nobody kept the pair from walking slowly off into the sunset.  The end.  Ha!  If only!  Behmen and Felson walk back to Behmen's hometown in Germany, only to find the area stricken with dead and bloated plague bodies.

Co-starring Christopher Lee's plague corpse!

Knowing that Crusades-quitters are outlaws, the pair enter the nearest city with the intent of buying horses to take them to Felson's hometown; ever-careful to not be identified, Behmen wears a mask over his face (which doesn't attract attention at all) and Felson wears a hood (except when he doesn't).  Despite these precautions, the men are identified as Crusades-quitters when Behmen allows a clumsy child to handle the only thing in his possession that would identify him as a Crusades-quitter. 

"Okay, maybe I should have thought that one through."

The pair get locked up in a dungeon and await their inevitable hanging for treason.  Or is it inevitable?  The town has captured a young girl that they claim is a witch.  Obviously, a witch being in the same place the plague is means that the witch cursed the land.  Just as obviously, the witch needs to be immediately killed taken to a remote colony of monks, who will put her on trial for witchcraft.  The town is a little short on brave men that can travel across the dangerous German landscape unscathed, so Behmen and Felson get a chance to clear their names.  Of course, it's not that simple.  Witchcrafted wolves and dangerous bridges stand in their way, but Behmen, Felson, the supposed witch, and a few others are off to monkland!

"I've reason to believe we both will be received in Monkland"

Sounds like an acting tour de force, eh?  Yeah, well...this was never going to be a great film, so I went into this with low expectations.  Ron Perlman was decently likable.  Robert Sheehan was kind of annoying as the d'Artagnon of the witch-escorting-party, but he's not so bad that you'll remember his performance the next day.  Claire Foy had a terrible character to play, but she still wasn't very good.  On the plus side, she is about the only person in the cast who looked dirty enough to be in the 14th century.

Surprisingly clean hair, though

Stephen Graham was mediocre in a small supporting role and Stephen Campell Moore was similarly bland as the witch-escort's resident priest.  I was kind of disappointed by their performances, because I have enjoyed them in bit parts in the past; I guess I was hoping that some British charm would help make this movie more entertaining. 

Stephen Campbell Moore witnessing Nicolas Cage overacting for the first time

But that was not to be.  This movie stars Nicolas Cage, and far from his best work.  I have seen Cage do good work in the past, and I have seen him be flamboyantly (and entertainingly) silly.  This is the other Nicolas Cage, the one who thinks he's in a serious movie.  It's not that he's terrible.  I thought he matched the tone of the film just fine; that's only a problem when the movie's tone is shitty.  I've seen him act worse, but Season of the Witch really could have used a less subdued and more ridiculously overacting Nic Cage.

"You want me to overact more?"  I know, I know.

The fact of the matter is that Season of the Witch is about as fun to watch as watching plague blister pus dry.  Why is that?  Director Dominic Sena is no stranger to stupid movies, but at least he usually has the sense to be completely goofy or have Halle Berry take her top off to distract audiences.  This movie is just dull.  The battle scenes in the beginning were tepid, the horror angle never really pays off, and there is no suspense.  This isn't the most incompetent directing job I have ever seen, but it is an impressive blend of disappointing special effects, a lousy script, cheesy acting and boring plot.

...And then there are the frequent story and visual parallels between Season of the Witch and Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal.  If absolutely nothing else, I will say that Sena was bold to invite comparison between this mess and a classic film.  "Bold" isn't always a smart choice, though.  Witch takes a lot of cosmetic similarities --- two men return from the Crudades (disillusioned) to a plague-ridden homeland, the men form a traveling group in the woods, there is a potentially wrongly accused witch being transported through the woods in a wooden cage, etc. --- and tries to twist its premise into an action/fantasy film.  It could have worked (somewhat) with a better script or better special effects, but the constant reminders of a better film just make Season of the Witch seem that much worse.  On the other hand, it was pretty freaking hilarious to see just how heavy-handed the parallels were.

There is something worth noting about this film, but I have to warn you...SPOILER ALERT: Season of the Witch has no witches in it.  Ha!  HA!  That's almost funny enough to make up for the rest of the film.  That's right, the supposed witch is really a demon.  What a twist!  And that's worse because...um...well, it's the first time demons are mentioned in the story, so...I'm not sure.  The witchy-demon does animate monk corpses to fight our heroes, which is awesome in theory.  In practice, the special effects and lack of suspense or horror ruined that seemingly foolproof plot element.  Oh, well.  While that is remarkably stupid, it's not enough to make up for the rest of the movie.  It is good enough for one star, though, and I did enjoy one of the death scenes and I laughed whenever it compared itself to The Seventh Seal.  It's not much, but you take what you can get from witches.

Here's a live recording from Liars, from their witch-themed album, They Were Wrong, So We Drowned.

The Man With the Golden Gun

There aren't many movies that are confident enough to open with a sequence that flaunts a character's superfluous third nipple.  Aside from possibly Total Recall (for obvious paper mache reasons), The Man With the Golden Gun is in a non-pornographic class of its own.  This is the ninth overall film in the James Bond franchise, but only the second with Roger Moore as the titular hero.  That's not to say that Moore was young --- he was 47 when this was released --- but he was still finding his voice for the character.  Hey, Moore...here's a hint: be awesome!

British secret agent James Bond (Roger Moore) is called into his superior's office one day and is taken off his current case.  What was he working on?  A solution to the energy crisis.  Well.  Thank goodness we took care of that way back in 1974, so we don't have to deal with it today, eh?  Bond has been taken off the case because a golden bullet was mailed to MI6 with his agent number: 007.  This is a big deal because only one man in the whole world is known to use gold bullets, and that is the international assassin known as Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee).  Nobody knows what he looks like, where he lives, or what job he will do next.  All that is known is that he has a third nipple and is one of the most dangerous men alive with a gun in his hand.  Naturally, Bond decides to track down this Scaramanga.  While this does end up being a fairly globe-trotting event, at its core, The Man With the Golden Gun is about James Bond facing off against one particularly challenging foe.  Who will win in a duel to the death, Bond or the titular character?  Okay, there's not a whole lot of suspense, given that there have been another dozen Bond movies after this one, but it's still an interesting idea.

"Now...look at the camera, and say 'Charlie's Angels!'"

I don't know your personal feelings about the many actors who have played James Bond, but I have always felt that Roger Moore did a good job, despite playing the role in the ridiculous 70s.  Moore's performance in this film is quite a bit rougher than I am used to seeing in a Bond movie.  He lies to a child, slaps a woman around for information, and mentally tortures one of the two Bond girls in the movie.  I'm okay with a secret agent with a license to kill being kind of a dick, but there were a few moments where Moore was less suave and more mean, which didn't really fit the tone of the movie.  Christopher Lee, though, was pretty entertaining.  Lee makes a great villain in any film, but he managed to take a pretty stupid character --- he wants to challenge James "Always Wins" Bond with a gun made of gold, one of the less practical metals for weapons --- and make him very cool.  His character has his own island, a midget butler, and a gun that disassembles into a zippo, but Lee never less the silliness of the character affect his performance.  He is serious, competitive, and cold.

Since this is a James Bond movie, it has a pretty substantial supporting cast.  The regular MI6 people show up --- Desmond Llewelyn (Q), Bernard Lee (M), and Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny) --- and they do their typical tour of duty.  The Bond girls in this film are Maud Adams as Scaramanga's girlfriend and Britt Ekland as Mary Goodnight, Bond's assistant in Asia.  Adams is okay, showing a surprising amount of depth (sometimes she looks upset, or even uncomfortable!) for a Bond girl.

Rubbing a gun all over your lover's face: not as sexy as it sounds.

The true Bond girl in this film, though, is Ekland.  She's surprisingly naive for a character that is interested in Bond, but Ekland plays that naivety quite naturally, if only because she has mastered the vacant stare.  And, while pretty ladies are always nice to watch, this wouldn't be a Bond movie without a memorable henchman for Scaramanga.  That role is filled admirably by his midget/dwarf/vertically-smooshed manservant, Nick Nack (Herve Villechaize).  While not physically imposing in the least, Nick Nack's role in things is bizarre enough to keep you interested.  The only other supporting cast member worth mentioning is the unfortunate inclusion of Clifton James as Sheriff J.W. Pepper, who was in Live and Let Die.  Pepper is one of those characters that is supposed to be comic relief, and yet makes no jokes at all in the film.  He just Foghorn Leghorns his way through some atrocious dialogue and manages to not get struck by any stray bullets in the movie.

Roger Moore with his leading ladies.

This was Guy Hamilton's fourth and final time directing a Bond movie, and his second with Moore in the lead.  As much as I like the overall idea of a villain being so bad-ass as to court a duel with a secret agent, I didn't particularly care for Hamilton's direction here.  I thought he gave Moore too rough of an edge at times, the plot was pretty slow for a Bond movie, and his attempts at capturing humor on film were just pitiful.

The sound effect for this shot was a slide whistle.  Seriously.

The inclusion of J.W. Pepper was completely unnecessary and had no payoff.  The scene where Bond almost chokes on a belly ornament (and then alludes to crapping it out later) makes Bond look like an amateur.  And the post-climax action scene was Bond vs. the midget.  What the hell, man?  This is bush league stuff, not bad-assery in any form!

Oh, and Bond gets protected by schoolgirls, too.

That's not to say that the film is without merit, of course.  Even when he's being a little extra rough, Roger Moore is a charmer.  That doesn't explain how he gets away with the infamous Goodnight closet scene, though.  That's the scene where Bond is preparing to romance Goodnight, but shoves her into a closet when Scaramanga's girl comes a-calling; he sexes up the bad girl, leaving Goodnight to listen in the closet.  And he still managed to romance her later in the film!  Christopher Lee was the best Bond villain in years, even if his character wasn't terribly logical.  I remembered this as one of the better Bonds, but it's really not.  Sure, Moore's solid, Lee is good, and Villechaize is short, but there's an awful lot about this movie that just doesn't work:

• When Bond asks who would want to pay Scaramanga's $1 million fee to kill him, M suggests "humiliated tailors."  Huh?
• Scaramanga's home has two walls covered with mounted insects behind glass.  It's never mentioned, but it's a weird detail.
• Where did the guitar go in the James Bond theme?  They replaced it with horns!
• An international custom weapons dealer allows Bond to turn his own display merchandise against him.  Is this his first day, or something?
• How did this movie get a PG rating?  There is the requisite naked silhouette girl in the opening credits, a topless (with long hair) waitress, the naked Chew Mee in a swimming pool, and Maud Adams naked behind shower glass.
• Bond only sleeps with two women in the film.  One of them has sex with him as a form of payment.

This is a very unique Bond movie, though.  No other film has such a clear-cut course of action for Bond, and that change of pace adds variety to the series as a whole.  Of course, with the obvious climax set up in the opening scenes, there isn't a whole lot to excite you as you wait for the finale.  Yes, Bond does some kung-fu and goes on a **sigh** crappy boat chase, but that's nowhere near enough.  This movie has no twists or turns, and no suspense.  Christopher Lee's performance is all that keeps this movie from being subpar.