The session: "Bring Your Own Movie Month" As in past years, we each take turns bring a movie and presenting it.
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.
Week 5 (Bobbo): Devil Doll (1964) Directed by Lindsay Shonteff
My Level of Prior Knowledge Never heard of it.
Plot: A sinister ventriloquist uses his eerily lifelike dummy and hypnotic powers to manipulate a wealthy heiress. Meanwhile, a reporter uncovers the ventriloquist's dark secret.
Reaction and Other Folderol: The Doll immediately reminded me of an episode of Twilight Zone that involved a ventriloquists' dummy come to life. That set my expectation for the direction this film would take. Of course, my expectations were wrong -- in fact, they wdere a complete inversion. Which is fine, since the story itself held up pretty well.
This had a very small-time feel, though it did a very good job of building tension and making the viewer guess. In fact, if you you ignore the nudity, it would have done well has a long Twilight Zone episode.
The session: "Bring Your Own Movie Month" As in past years, we each take turns bring a movie and presenting it.
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.
Week 4 (Ethan): The Trial (1962) Directed by Ronald Neame
My Level of Prior Knowledge I'd seen this once before, a year or two ago. So I was reasonably familiar with it.
Plot: A mild-mannered bank clerk is arrested on charges that are never revealed to him (or to the audience), and finds himself trapped in a nightmarish and insane legal system.
Reaction and Other Folderol:. The Trial is full of stunningly nightmarish imagery. At times it's intensely claustrophobic, while at other times it's expansive. It's dark and it's light. The dialogue is verbose and concise. The whole thing is an exercise in contradictions, and itkeeps the viewer on his heals, confused and discombobulated. I'd say that the protagonist, Josef K, is living a Kafka-esque nightmare, except that the movie is based on a Kafka novel. I'd say it's Orwellian, except that that seems trite given the Kafka connection. But it is dizzying, confusing and surreal.
The one problem with this film is director, Orson Welles himself. There are times that it drags, as Welle's couldn't seem to remove extraneous footage. I'm told that that was a thing with him -- that he was too enamored of his own dialogue that his films were too long. And this one could have been 15 minutes or a half hour shorter. Still, however, a really good intense film.
The session: "Bring Your Own Movie Month" As in past years, we each take turns bring a movie and presenting it.
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.
Week 3 (Me): The Poseidon Adventure (1972) Directed by Ronald Neame
My Level of Prior Knowledge I was already very familiar with this movie -- as I should be, given that I chose it for Bring Your Own Movie Month
Plot: After their cruise ship capsizes, a small group of passengers struggle stay ahead of the rising water and survive long enough to
Reaction and Other Folderol:. I generally have a difficult time choosing a movie for Bring Your Own Movie Month (BYOMM). I have a mental list of possible movies, though it's always changing. And I annoy Keith with texts and emails asking "what about XXX." This year, Poseidon was on my short list of several dozen possibilities. And, truth be told, it would not have been my final choice if not for the fact that its star, Gene Hackman, died in February. He was one of the greats of his generation, but he didn't do a lot of horror or sci-fi movies. But he did do Poseidon.
The first half of the 1970s was kind of a golden age for disaster films, and those were the horror movies that I was into as a kid. I nagged my mom to take me to see Earthquake, which gave me nightmares. I nagged her to take me to see Jaws, which gave me nightmares. Same with Tidal Wave. I still haven't seen The Towering Inferno, but that's another matter. Anyway, I didn't see The Poseidon Adventure when it came out -- I was just a little too young. But over the years I saw it in bits and pieces on TV, and I liked what I saw. I don't remember when I first saw it in its entirety, but it is a longtime favorite.
One of the cool things about BYOMM is that I sometimes come away with new insights about old favorites. That comes about in part because I get to hear everyone else's thoughts about the movie, but also because I am looking at the movie with a more critical eye. One thing I noticed this time is the way Poseidon seems to be draw some inspiration from the Bible. Gene Hackman's character, a rebellious pastor, is a Moses-like figure. He leads his little entourage away from the water, through the ship and toward their rescue. But, like Moses, he never gets to enter the promised land -- dying before they cross over. And it almost seems that his death is the price of his rebellious nature. I also realized for the first time how great this film is as a character study. Something else I had never thought about until Ethan mentioned it is the fact that the rising sea water is a stand-in for a menacing animal that might be the antagonist in a forest-set movie wherein people are trying to find their way to safety.
Now I just have to figure out what to bring for BYOMM next year.
