cinema history class: bring your own movie month

The session: Bring Your Own Movie Month
In which everyone in the class takes a turn at presenting a movie

The movies:
Dave: The Invisible Man (1933) directed by James Whale
Joe: Dracula and Son (European version) (1976) directed by Edouard Molinaro
Ethan: Possession (1981) directed by Andrzej Zulawski
Me: They Live (1988) directed by John Carpenter
Bob-O: Werewolf of London (1935) directed by Stuart Walker
Joe redux: Dracula and Son (American version) (1976) directed by by Edouard Molinaro
Christina: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) directed by Philip Kaufman

Grades:

Reaction and Other Folderol:

Necessary Warning -- there may be spoilers

For several reasons (that I won't address here), I have decided to stop writing a post for every movie we see at Keith's. Instead, I am going to try writing one post for each session. There are exceptions, but generally each session consists of four movies on a theme. Of course, Bring Your Own Movie Month is a particularly challenging session to make the switch. For starters, of all the sessions in the year it's the least coherent -- because there is now overarching theme to the movies. In addition, with five people in the class (+ Keith's wife, Christina), BYOMM usually consists of six movies. And this year, there were seven weeks. Joe's choice, Dracula and Son, was a French production, with significant differences between the European and American releases. Joe showed us the European version, but a few weeks later Keith showed us the American version so we could compare and contrast.

On the subject of Dracula and Son, that movie holds the distinction of being Christopher Lee's last film portrayal of Dracula. On the whole, the European release is an uneasy blend of comedy and horror. It doesn't fully commit to either one, and suffers for that. That said, it does have some good moments -- both comedic and horror. I also have to give it some credit for the creative element that vampires become human as a result of having sex with a human. I preferred the American version because it comitted more fully to being a comedy. There were three basic differences between the two versions: The dialogue (which was dubbed) was changed to include more jokes, there was a narrator (which was reminiscent of Rocky and Bullwinkle), and it was considerably shorter. Though my feelings weren't shared by everyone in the room, I definitely preferred the funnier approach.

The Invisible Man, which Dave chose is, without qualification, a classic. And classics get to be considered classics for a reason. Most noteworthy are the special effects which were far ahead of the time. Bob-O also went with an old movie, 1935's Werewolf of London. It had good effects, and snappy dialog -- especially between the two landladies. But, a few weeks later it has kind of faded from my memory, which is a bad sign.

Ethan chose Possession, which is a challenging cold war era movie to watch. There is so much left unexplained and it can be very confusing. The word "possession" can have many meanings, and it's a very appropriate title for the film, as it focuses on so many types of possession or possessiveness. There's the relationship between the protagonists Mark and Anna -- Anna wants a divorce, but Mark isn't willing to let her go. The relationships between Anna's lover and both Anna and Mark. There's the fact of Mark being possessed by the spy agency he works for, and fact of Anna being possessed by whatever is that thing growing inside of her. Though it's not a horror movie in the traditional sense of the word, it has many heart-stopping moments. Of course, there are also the WTF moments. The movie left me confused and exhausted.

I brought to the class 1988's They Live, a starring vehicle for professional wrestler, Rowdy Roddy Piper. I chose it because I kind of enjoyed professional wrestling back in the day and I definitely was a fan of Piper. In fact, in college I was a member of "Piper's Vipers," a Roddy Piper fan club on campus. The club didn;t do anything, but we got a lot of coverage in the campus media since all of our members were editors on the campus paper. They Live is, I think, an underappreciated commentary on then-contemporary politics. It actually pairs well with Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which was Christina's choice. I should note that Christina said she originally had another movie in mind, but switched to Invasion because she thought it would be a good complement to They Live. Both movies are ostensibly about space aliens taking over, but use the basic plot as a way to comment on contemporary issues. They Live was a critique of the Reagan era (though Piper, agreeing with Reagan, declined to talk about that aspect when on publicity tours), while Invasion was more about Communism. I tend to sympathize more with the latter than the former, though I think that what makes Invasion so impressive is that anyone of any political stripe can view it through his or her own lens and see it as an allegory against whatever political movement he or she doesn't like. You don't like Trump? You can see the movie as a takedown of MAGA. You don't like current progressive trends? You can similarly view it as a critique of wokeism.

Trailers: