cinema history class: invaders from mars (1953)

 The session: "Bring Your Own Movie Month"

Our annual session in which each of us in the class takes a turn sharing a movie of his choice.

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 5: Invaders from Mars (1953)
                (Bob-O's pick)
Directed by William Cameron Menzies

My Impressions Going In:
I'd heard of this movie and knew that it involved Martians invading (I mean, the title kind of gives that way). I also knew it's a classic. But I didn't know much in the way of specifics.

Plot:
Martians have landed, and they're taking over the minds of Earthlings.

Reaction and Other Folderol:

This should have been nothing more than a cheesy little 1950's sci-fi thriller. But it exceeded expectations. It was spooky and scary. And really fun.

The movie had an odd mix of visual styles. The McLean family farmhouse looked like pure Americana. But the other sets, notably the police station seemed to summon German expressionism. It's eerily imposing as young Jimmy talks to the police. And eerily imposing is a good way to describe a lot of the visuals. The walls of the Martians' underground lair, the head Martian's disembodied head...the visuals were amazing.

One thing I didn't like about the film was the ending. It was one of those annoying ambiguous things that was supposed to be artsy. Joe reconciled himself to it by deciding that they had intended the audience to infer a space-time causality loop -- like the time Kelsey Grammar appeared on Star Trek: TNG. But I think that's giving the movie way too much credit. I think they just didn't know how to end it. Fortunately, the European release had a better ending, which I much preferred.

Ratings

Me: 9
Christina: 9.5 or 9.6, depending on which ending

Ethan: 9

Joe: 10
Keith: 9.5 or 9.6, depending on which ending

cinema history class: bone tomahawk (2015)

The session: "Bring Your Own Movie Month"
Our annual session in which each of us in the class takes a turn sharing a movie of his choice.

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 4: Bone Tomahawk (2015)
                (Ethan's pick)
Directed by S. Craig Zahler

My Impressions Going In:
I had neither seen nor heard of this movie before Ethan started talking about bringing it to Keith's. Based on the way he talked about it as being brutally violent and the fact that he loves the Saw movies, I was figuring on unrelenting violence.

Plot:
After three townsfolk (well, two townsfolk and a drifter) are kidnapped, a rescue party goes searching for them

Reaction and Other Folderol:

Based on the buildup from Ethan, I was expecting an evening of unremitting painfully violent imagery. I was pleasantly surprised to be wrong.

That said, BT is extremely violent. The mood is set quickly -- the first scene is of a violent ambush, shown up close and personal. And the whole sequence before the opening credits -- almost a prologue -- sets the tone with its tension and violence. But BT isnt simply one long gorefest. There isn't the feeling, as with the Saw movies, that this is violence for its own sake. The violence here is in service of telling the story. And it's actually used sparingly enough that I, the viewer, had a chance to catch my breath. And, for most of the movie, the suspense and sense of foreboding do a slow build, leading to a rewarding climax.

There were some comments about this movie being overlong. And I guess I can understand. It does clock in at over two hours. So it could have been trimmed without losing any crucial narrative. But I didn't mind the length. The suspense built in such a way that I was never thinking about time. The movie had an almost epic quality, driven by the wide open feel of the desert as portrayed for much of the story.

It's amazing to me that this movie flew under the radar.  

Ratings

Me: 10
Bob-O: 9.8
Christina: 9.85
Dave: 9.5

Joe: 10
Keith: 9.5 

cinema history class: three tv episodes

The session: "Bring Your Own Movie Month"
Our annual session in which each of us in the class takes a turn sharing a movie of his choice.

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 3: three television episodes
                (Joe's pick)

Joe's big thing for Bring Your Own Movie Month is to make a whole program out of the evening. Whereas the rest of us each choose one movie to share, Joe has typically shown a movie along with a related episode or two from the realm of television. This year he left out the movie part and gave us three television episodes joined (he said) by a theme.

In "Werewolf" (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea -- S3E2), a crewman is bitten by a werewolf and becomes infected. In "The Werewolf" (Kolchak: The Nightstalker -- S1E5), Kolchak finds himself on a cruise ship. Instead of interviewing singles as planned, he's chasing down a werewolf. In "Maria" (Alfred Hitchcock Presents -- S7E3), a circus performer buys a monkey who turns out to be more than he expected.

It was clear to me what the connection was between the first two episodes Joe showed us, as they both involved werewolves. The connection to the Alfred Hitchcock episode was a little less clear. It could be that it starred Nita Talbot, who also starred in the Kolchak episode. The other possibility I can think of is that the plot involved a woman in a chimpanzee costume* which, I guess, is sort of like a man turning into a wolf.

Showing TV shows instead of a movie is, by definition, a risk. A movie, unless it's a sequel or an entry in an established franchise, is meant to be enjoyed on its own terms. With TV shows, the dynamic isn't the same; there are characters and context that are already established and not exposited. Which is not to say that TV episodes can't be enjoyed as self-contained units. These three shows were all from before the current age of arc-driven shows. You can't just sit and watch a random season 4 episode of Game of Thrones or Boardwalk Empire unless you have already seen all that leads up to it. By contrast, you can do that with Bewitched or The Six Million Dollar Man. You'll be missing some context, but those latter shows were written and presented for single-episode consumption. And so it was with the shows Joe showed us.

It's kind of hard for me to get into Voyage as a TV show. Perhaps if I had seen it as a kid I'd be into it -- sort of the way I'm into Star Trek** now. Or, maybe not. I saw Lost in Space (which, like Voyage, was an Irwin Allen vehicle) as a kid, and never really took to it. I could enjoy this episode for what it was, but not much more. Kolchak interested me more. As a miod-1970s series with cinema-like presentation, it fit into my comfort zone better. But my favorite of the three was clearly the the Hitchcock episode.

And I think that's because Hitchcock Presents was the most movie-like of the three. Hitchcock was primarily a movie director and that is reflected in his sensibilities. Further, Presents was an anthology show with no connection between episodes. So each episode was more like a mini-movie than a typical TV episode. I enjoyed that one episode to such a degree that I am tempted to buy the series on DVD. Maybe I'd just pay to stream it -- but if I did that, joe would feel a disturbance in the Force.

It was difficult to rate Joe's offerings. Perhaps I should have tried -- Joe even suggested that we could rate each of the three pieces or the whole. or both -- but I declined. Others went there and gave the everything very high marks. Sadly, I can't find the pad of paper on which I wrote the grades. Sorry.

_____________________________

*They keep saying "monkey," but it's clearly a chimpanzee costume
**To be clear, I'm talking about the original series and, I guess the spinoffs through Enterprise.

happy tunesday! jackpot (the marc whinston project)

 

Continuing with the tracks from my album, track number eight is "Jackpot."

For reference, previous entries in this series were:

• about the album as a whole;
• about track 1;
• about track 2;
• about track 3;
• about track 4;
• about track 5;
• about track 6;
• about track 7;

In an album with lots of songs whose themes are variations of "please love me as much as I love you," this isa bit of a departure. It's pure appreciation of love without any expression of fear or doubt. I wrote it for Blair over the course of several years, more than fifteen years ago. I remember many drives between New York and Boston -- Blair's friend, Tall Judy, was still living there -- in which I passed the miles writing this in my head.

Blair didn't like the first iteration, as its message was a little off. I don't remember the lyrics anymore, but I do recall that the message could largely be summed up as "you help me to be a winner; you are my lucky charm." Her criticisms made sense -- the message was not as I had intended. I rewrote it to convey the message that "I am a winner as long as I have you; you are my prize." Neither of those paraphrases is entirely accurate, but they get at the idea. I liked the revised version better. Interestingly, that rewrite is something that likely wouldn't happen today. These days, my songs often get away from me and convey messages that I hadn't intended. But if I like the way a song sounds, I'll keep it even if it doesn;t say what I originally set out to say.

This is not the best-written of my songs, and its structure is a bit odd -- VCVCVBC. But I like it, and that's what matters.

Enjoy.

"Jackpot"
Song by: Marc Whinston
Lead vocal by Toby Wilson
All instruments and backing vocals by Toby Wilson
Arranged and Produced by Toby Wilson for Tobias Wilson Music, Ltd.

cinema history class: phantom of the opera (1943)

The session: "Bring Your Own Movie Month"

Our annual session in which each of us in the class takes a turn sharing a movie of his choice.

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 1: Phantom of the Opera (1943)
                (Dave's pick)
Directed by Arthur Lubin

My Impressions Going In:
I saw this in a theater on Long Island last fall. I've also seen various other versions of Phantom. It's never been one of my favorite stories.

Plot:

The Paris Opera House is haunted, and no one is safe.

Reaction and Other Folderol:

I should note at the outset that I don't Opera. I've had to sit through Operas a few times over the years -- my aunt and uncle dragged me to La Boheme when I visited them in Austin in 1997, and in 2019 Ethan (who loves opera) wanted to experience the Prague Opera House during our vacation in 2019, so I saw a bunch of shows there. I can appreciate the visual spectacle, but I can't stand the music. And I have trouble following the story. So I end up sitting there glancing at my watch as often as I feel I can get away with.

I bring that because, I think, a good part of the charm of this movie is the opera that serves as a kind of show in the background of the show. There are lots of sequences that feature the players of the opera performing. And I can see how, if I were one who appreciates opera, it would help me enjoy the movie.

Claude Rains, visible in this role, is a nuanced, sympathetic phantom. This version has particular plot elements that are absent from the other versions I've seen, but that I enjoy. So it's a very good retelling of the story, but admittedly the story itself is not one of my favorites.

Ratings

Me: 8.5
Bob-O: 9.8
Christina: 9.5
Ethan: 9

Francois: N/R

Joe: 10
Keith: 9.5