Baby Snakes
(Frank Zappa, USA, 1979, 166 min.)
Viewed on DVD Third Viewing
Frank Zappa’s film of his 1977 New York Halloween concerts
is riveting when it focuses on the action onstage, but is unfortunately
overcrowded with extraneous material – including irritating mid-song cutaways
to the musicians having tedious backstage conversations. Even the most interesting non-concert
segments, such as Bruce Bickford’s nightmarish claymation interludes, are
poorly integrated into the overall film.
Still, the last hour or so, consisting of mostly uninterrupted concert
footage of one of Zappa’s most ferocious bands, is essential viewing for any
fan of the great guitarist’s music. The
mesmerizing encores of guitar solo vehicles “Muffin Man” and “Black Napkins”
are particular highlights. C+
Con Air (Simon
West, USA, 1997, 115 min.)
Viewed On Demand Second Viewing
This surprisingly fun action blockbuster finds newly
released ex-con Nicholas Cage trapped in a prison transport plane hijacked by its most psychotic passengers.
The film is no less bombastic than other Jerry Bruckheimer productions,
but in this case the filmmakers seem to actually be aware of how ridiculous all
of this is, and they wisely choose to commit to going all the way over the top
without ever stopping to wink at the audience.
The top-notch ensemble case (which includes John Cusack, Steve Buscemi,
Ving Rhames, Dave Chappelle, Colm Meaney, and, most memorably, John Malkovich
as a character named Cyrus the Virus) prove adept at keeping a straight face
through the explosions. B-
The Miracle of
Morgan’s Creek (Preston Sturges, USA, 1944, 98 min.)
Viewed on Itunes First Viewing
Preston Sturges not only managed to sneak all sorts of
innuendo and blasphemy past the production code office in this wild screwball
comedy, but also turned it into the biggest box office hit of 1944. Betty
Hutton stars as a small-town girl who finds herself married and pregnant in the
aftermath of a drunken send-off party for the troops, but with no memory of
which soldier she wed. Eddie Bracken is
the classic Sturges smitten male, who is easily drawn into Hutton’s plan for
him to pose as her husband before her father (William Demarest) finds out about
the pregnancy. As is typical for a
Sturges film, all of the parts are perfectly cast, and he never sells out any
of his characters for easy jokes. The
big laugh-out loud moments don’t arrive until toward the climax, but two of
these scenes rank among the funniest in the Sturges canon: one in which Demarest’s character, who is the
town constable, struggles at length to convince Bracken to escape from a jail
cell, and a montage where famous world leaders overreact to news of Hutton’s
“miraculous” birth of sextuplets. A-
Ruggles of Red Gap
(Leo McCarey, USA, 1935, 90 min.)
Viewed on Turner
Classic Movies Second Viewing
Charles Laughton stars in this warm-hearted comedy about a
refined British butler who is forced to assimilate to American culture after
his Lord (Roland Young) loses his services in a poker game to a nouveau riche
hick couple (Mary Boland and Charlie Ruggles).
Boland hopes that Laughton will help clean up her husband’s redneck
lifestyle, but instead it’s the freedoms and opportunities of the new country
that rub off on the butler. In some ways
this film may mark the birth of the poet in director Leo McCarey, who turns this
silly culture clash scenario into a very sweet love letter to the idea of
America. The justly celebrated scene where Laughton
recites the Gettysburg Address to a crowd of enthralled bar patrons has a
stirring intensity that reveals the deep personal relevance that the speech had
to both McCarrey and his star. A
Suspicion (Alfred
Hitchcock, USA, 1941, 99 min.)
Viewed on Turner
Classic Movies First Viewing
As a general rule I find Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘40s melodramas
to be relatively dull compared to his brilliant suspense works of the ‘50s, and
this potboiler about a woman (Joan Fontaine) worried that her new husband (Cary
Grant) is planning to murder her is no exception. As usual Hitchcock’s skill as a director is
unquestionable, and he finds all sorts of interesting, subtly creepy ways to
position Grant’s character in the frame.
This is Grant’s best performance for Hitchcock, allowing him to both
play to and subvert his charming rogue persona.
But the story doesn’t really work, because the husband is so blatantly
untrustworthy that it’s never believable that Fontaine would fall for him in
the first place, and because Fontaine’s character has no personality beyond
worrying about her husband. The unconvincing
happy ending that producer David O. Selznick tacked on doesn’t help matters
either. Despite its flaws, this is
worthwhile as a showcase for both Grant and Hitchcock, even if the director made
many better films. B-
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