Film Diary 2015 Corsican Brothers and Phantom of the Opera:Unmasking The Masterpiece

August 16 - Part 2
With no sports on I watched the CORSICAN BROTHERS (1941) with my dad on TCM on demand

The story of Siamese twins separated by a doctor on the day the were born. The brothers were then raised by different parents in order to protect them (their family was wiped out by enemies on the day they were born). Twenty years later they come back together and move to take revenge on the man responsible for wiping out their family.

Overly soapy, and to be honest kind of dull, swashbuckler has Douglas Fairbanks Jr in the duel role as the brothers. He's quite good but he's not given a ton of to do. This is played more as a romance than as an action film so things move really slowly.

Its not bad but I was bored to distraction at times.

After the CORSICAN BROTHERS I headed to bed and put on something a little light to unwind to…

PHANTOM OF THE OPERA:UNMASKING THE MASTERPIECE

I kind of “everything you ever wanted to know about the Phantom of the Opera but were afraid to ask” look at the classic story from it’s origin, influence and stay in the theater. Full of great stories, great pictures and “oh yea” moments the film really is everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask.

Actually the film is more than you want to know since the film runs out of steam about halfway through Hugh Panero’s discussion of doing the Phantom on Broadway. What he’s saying is fine, but the intricacies of his explanation comes at the end of an exhausting (in a good way) 105 minutes and I would have zapped through the piece were it not so close to the end.

Say what you will about the film it’s everything a Phantom lover could want to know.

Worth tracking down.

This is my final Film Diary post. Tomorrow we begin our move toward this years New York Film Festival with a week of New releases.

Film Diary 2015: The films of the Quay Brothers

August 16- part 1
Prepping for an interview with the incredible Quay Brothers I sat down with the BFI collection of their films and wandered my way through the films. I watched all of the shorts yet again- this time paying more attention so that I could speak to the brothers intelligently.

Here are the films I watched with some comments

• Nocturna Artificialia (1979)- The Quays “first” film. Its included in collections as an extra away from the other films. I’m not sure why since it’s not a bad film. Interestingly the film is a kind of cheat sheet for the Brother’s following films with riffs, ideas and sequences that showed up in other films.
• The Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer (1984)- the music haunts me, but not one of my favorite films. Made not long after their discovery of Svankmajer doesn’t click with me as a whole despite pieces working very well.
• The Epic of Gilgamesh, or This Unnameable Little Broom (1985) a.k.a. Little Songs of the Chief Officer of Hunar Louse- Not as good as some of their other films. For me the film reminds me too much of the work of other animators, in particular the animators that they admire.
• Street of Crocodiles (1986)- what can I say the entry point for pretty much everyone. I saw ths 30 years ago and was hooked. One of the coolest things I’ve ever seen
• Stille Nacht I: Dramolet (1988)- First of a series of short nightmares. Just wickedly cool.
• Rehearsals For Extinct Anatomies (1988)
• The Comb (From The Museums Of Sleep) (1990)
• Rain Dance (1990) – a short film for Sesame Street- yes some insane person unleashed the Quays on Sesame Street. I must find this person and kiss them. (This is on You Tube)
• De Artificiali Perspectiva, or Anamorphosis (1991)- I love this film. It plays like an animated Peter Greenaway film. Its very much like the films Greenaway is making with his current obsessions on perspective.
• The Calligrapher (1991) – an ident commissioned for the BBC2 television channel, but never broadcast- short film is just really cool
• Stille Nacht II: Are We Still Married? (1991)
• Stille Nacht III: Tales From Vienna Woods (1992)
• Stille Nacht IV: Can't Go Wrong Without You (1993)
• In Absentia (2000)- Very cool film about a woman locked away. It’s the quays literally manipulating and animating light
• Stille Nacht V: Dog Door (2001)
• The Phantom Museum: Random Forays Into the Vaults of Sir Henry Wellcome's Medical Collection (2003)- glorious precursor to the Mutter Museum film.

Zeitgeist Films is releasing a Blu-Ray of the shorts on October 20th. Look for more coverage and my interview with the Quays at that time.

FIlm Diary 2015: HITLER THE UNTOLD STORY

August 15
I picked up a DVD of what I thought was a History Channel documentary on the Third Reich but turned out to be something else instead.

HITLER THE UNTOLD STORY is a six part examination of Hitler and his times. Focusing on the run up to the was war and the war years the film beautifully lays out who Hitler was, what he and his cronies were doing and how the people opposing him reacted to him. The film is told chronologically with the year of all of the events indicated on screen at ll times.

I'm a student of the Second World War and I'm constantly trying to find films and books that are going to tell me things that I didn't know before. UNTOLD STORY is full of little moments, small details  that fill out events and make history and the story not just the same old same old. The inclusion of these small little tidbits add a great deal and lift up a documentary that on the face of it should have nothing new to say.

I think this is a super film and it was a great way to spend six hours

Film Diary 2015 should You Tube Clips be considered movies?

August 14
I spent 3 or 4 hours not sleeping watching You Tube Clips of weird shit. I mean really weird stuff- various short films, conspiracy rants, top five this or top ten that. The hours slid away in five and ten minute increments. I kept going- "one more and I'll go to bed- one more...." and suddenly it was after two.

I kind of felt bad because I wasn't watching some kind of film. Well there were shorts but most of them were sans actual titles and were simply listed as Creepiest Shorts One, or something like that. They weren't the sort of things I could discuss because I couldn't tell you what I was actually seeing.

Even now I still don't know what the hell I watched last night.

Actually as I beat myself up I kind of realized that all of these short clips really are short films, Yea I know "it's obvious" but at the same time most of this stuff - the five creepiest photos of WW2  or worst wrecks in NASCAR history would seem to be news reports but they are mini docs (hence potential Unseen fodder).

Was any of this stuff any good? I have no idea but some of it was scarier than most horror recent films and others were more entertaining than most of what Hollywood has put out.

Ultimately most of the stuff I watched was like the cinematic equivilent of Lay Potato Chips- you can't eat only one.

Here's a random selection of things I had been watching

Cashes that changed NASCAR
Race car crashes with original commentary
A multi-part film on the making of RETURN TO OZ
Urban legends that turned out to be true
17 creepy photographs
Creepy photographs with with disturbing back stories
Studio ADI's film
Recent discoveries that could change history
Scary things kids have said
Lost kids films
Unexplained trail cam photos
MK ULTRA stories: Coraline- this is part of a series
Japanese Urban Legends
Disney film theories

Film Diary 2015: SERPENT'S TONGUE, GRAYHAVEN MANIAC, LURE OF THE CIRCUS, and LUCK OF THE ROARING CAMP

August 13
As I prep for three interviews I watch a few films in the background

SERPENTS TONGUE (2012)
Low budget horror film released through Alpha Video (aka Oldies.com). A repressed young girl finds an ancient amulet that had been in her family for ages. When she putsit on she becomes a sex crazed woman out to kill. Actually she's possessed by a demon. Wildly uneven film swings from looking like a literal home movie to a fine low budget film often within a scene or from scene to scene. The result is that the film never manages to get a consistent tone so the film becomes difficult to watch. Worse are long static sequences where people just stand and talk or walk and talk. There doesn't seem to be a need for several sequence other than to make a certain running time.

GRAYHAVEN MANIAC (2015)
On the Alpha DVD with THE SERPENT'S TONGUE this is real close to being a home movie with the sort of performances you get where actors and actresses are clearly watching the camera or whom ever is behind it. The sound alternates between cinema sound and home movie distortion. My patience for this nonsense was low and after about 25 minutes (about half the film) I turned off the nonsense.

LURE OF THE CIRCUS (1918)
Surviving fragmented feature version of an 18 part serial is interesting if you go in knowing that the continuity is going to be messy at best  as well as knowing that you are going to see some truly spectacular things- the circus footage is of two real life circuses. Wacthing what remains of the film you get the sense that this must have been truly great at one time- but what remains really makes no sense with title cards attempting to fill in a story which is much bigger than the cards can handle. Its a curio for film buff at this point

LUCK OF THE ROARING CAMP (1937)
Oft told tale of a group of miners raising an orphan baby and what happens after the miners strike it rich. Its a creaky melodrama that frequently plays silly. To be honest my interest waned early on and what I was watching while I rewrote notes became something I ignored while searching the web.

Film Diary 2015 : LIVINGSTONE, TIJUANA AFTER MIDNITE I COVER CHINATOWN, THE NIGHT THEY KILLED RASPUTIN

Agust 12 (part 2)
Before bed I pulled out a stack of DVDs and decided to see if I could find any gems- not really.

LIVINGSTONE (1925)
Earnest and boring as all hell biography of Dr Livingstone who was rescued by the explorer Stanley after he was thought lost in the wilds of Africa. He was in fact not lost simply treating his patients in an age well before cellphones and satellite communication. The film covers all of Livingstone's life in a mix of actual African footage and "studio" recreations.  Actually most of the footage appears to have been shot in Africa or on location with documentary shots mixing with recreations. A void this one.

TIJUANA AFTER MIDNIGHT (1954)
Phil Tucker's semi legendary portrait of Tijuana- which is really just an endless parade of strippers and bad comedians. Its the sort of thing that shows why burlesque went into a deep coma for a very long time. Its almost unwatchable for any one with pulse.

I COVER CHINATOWN (1936)
The first film by Orson Welles favorite director, after himself, Norman Foster concerns a young woman who goes to San Francisco to stay for a while with her sister-unaware that the sister had been killed by her husband a jewel thief and crook running a jewelry shop in Chinatown as a cover. The film is a must see for anyone who love the city since several key sequences were filmed on location- the opening tour of the city and the concluding chase- not to mention numerous insert shots show the city as it was 85 years ago- a very different place than it is today. As crime comedy drama the film is an okay time killer with some of the edge taken off the film via several sequences that run on too long. Enjoyable but as a film unto itself kind of like many other comedy/romance/crime/mysteries of the time.

THE NIGHT THEY KILLED RASPUTIN (1960)
Fictionalized account of the rise and fall of Rasputin in the royal court of Russia. Pot boiling drama is more concerned with the exploitative elements of the story rather than the actual history. Definitely not high art but it is entertaining. Of note in that the man tasked with killing Rasputin is Drew Barrymore's father who recieves a larger screen credit then he probably deserves

Film Diary 2015:Rewatching Godzilla (2014)

August 12
Plans to watch a DVD sent me for review fell through when the DVD was found to be cracked literally in half. I then turned on cable and started watching the recent GODZILLA remake. Since I've had numerous arguments concerning it I decided to hunker down and really watch it since I first saw it in theaters last years.

Watching GODZILLA for a second time- I mean sitting down and really watching it a second time as opposed to bouncing through the DVD to the battle scenes or popping in to the cable screenings- I find that the film more than holds up and is just as good as I thought it was when I originally saw it.

The arguments against the film have centered in two areas- the first being that we don’t see enough of Godzilla or the mutos. On some level that’s true. We don’t really get good looks at either until the film’s finale- and for me that’s fine. Since the film is focused on the human story and not the monsters how we see or what we see is what people would see. The film opens up at the end only because it kind of has to, partially for dramatic reasons – we need the payoff but also we need the scope to truly grasp what is happening.

The other reason people hate the film is that the film is focused not on the big stars but on two seemingly minor characters, Brian Cranston’s son and daughter in law. Many are upset that the characters are a tad bland. I agree that the characters are bland but at the same time they are a tad more real than many other characters in similar movies. I like that the film messes with our expectations as to who the film is about. I like that it kills off two of the big names Cranston and Binoche thus making it clear that no one is safe.

What I like about the choice of characters is that by focusing on the Cranston’s son we are given an into being able to follow the action as it transpires. Because of who he is we are given a reason to go to Japan at the start and to be in San Francisco at the end. We are given an emotional attachment to the soldiers in the thick of battle instead of them just being nameless and faceless. We have a stake in what happens. Had the film, as many people argued, been focused on the big picture say Ken Wantanabe and David Strathain and the military operation any asides to the grunts would have been asides. It would have taken away from the greater story.

Watching the film again for the first time in a long time it’s clear as beautifully designed the film is . I love how the epic shots are counterpointed by smaller moments. I love how the film never loses sight of the either the big picture nor the small one. It’s an epic summer film that works both big and small.

Is the film perfect. No. As I said the leads can be bland, and the film can be too focused on moving things along- but at the same time I would argue that the for the first time since the original Godzilla film we have a giant monster movie that is more than just a giant monster movie. (The directors earlier MONSTERS should also be included in that)

GODZILLA is a truly great film and I’m pretty sure in five years- after we’ve looked back and see the film for what it is and not what we want it to be it will be a hailed as the classic I think it is.

Film Diary 2015: The forgettable ROPE AROUND THE NECK and the lost gem WHITE PLAGUE

August 11
Another day sick in bed had me watching You Tube videos all afternoon. Top Ten movie lists and creepy and unexplained videos filled the daylight hours. I feel bad but in some ways I’m glad it wasn’t cat videos.

Before bed I watched two films from Sinister Cinema

ROPE AROUND THE NECK is an abbreviated version of a euro crime thriller that wasn’t very good. I say its abbreviated because the Sinister print ran 75 minutes while IMDB listed a running time of 105 minutes. Frankly I would have jumped out a window if this was any longer than it was. Actually the brief running time was the only reason I made it to the end of the film. (Alec- if I wasn’t doing a film diary this film never would have been mentioned)

The plot of the film has a man plot to kill his wife but then finds out his mistress has been killed- or something. I say something because the whole thing is needlessly messy as friends and lovers of the various people are brought in. It’s lots of talk for very little pay off. I was bored silly almost from the start.

Take a pass on this one and if you have the film use the DVD as a coaster.

THE WHITE PLAGUE (aka Skeleton on Horseback) is based on a Karl Capeck play. It was written for the screen and directed by Hugo Haas who left his native Czechoslovakia for Hollywood when the Nazi’s came. Considering he was making films such as this it was a wise choice since the sentiments of this film would have gotten him shot,

The film I set in a country that is a dead ringer for Nazi Germany. The dictator is mobilizing for war and nothing is to stop them. However the country, and indeed much of the world is being ravaged by a disease called the white plague since it starts as white blotches which rapidly give way to the body decaying while the person is still alive. A doctor working in one of the poorer neighborhoods of the capital talks his way into getting a job in the most prestigious clinic in the country. He is certain that he can cure the plague- and he does- but he is restricted by the government as to who he can cure. He takes it further by insisting that he will cure no one until the country ends its march toward war. It then becomes a political standoff as the forces of war and the forces of peace wait to see if mankind will fall into the abyss.

A gripping polemic with a decided and bitter look at mankind, war and the control of medicine this is a film that surprised the hell out of me. I couldn’t believe that a country on the verge of being devoured by Nazi Germany would have produced a film such as this, but then again I’m looking back with 20/20 hindsight. Obviously the films warning that any country marching toward war and conquest will sow its own demise is none too subtle, but at the same time as the barely hopeful conclusion makes clear we will probably never do the right thing until it’s much too late. The end of the film is a bleak little pill and normally I’d argue about it just being there to prove a point- but at the same time it fits the film like a glove.

This is a really good film. It’s the sort of film that one could very well use as the basis of a masters or doctoral thesis. A must see for any number of reasons-it’s a heady science fiction film, its great political polemic, it’s a historical artifact that gives a clue as to what a soon to be conquered nation was thinking.

Thank you to Sinister for throwing this out to a wider audience

Film Diary 2015 Overnight Sherlock Holmes show

August 11
I had taken yesterday off from work because I felt like crap. I slept for most of the day taking time out only to watch the Kenhin film (reviewed the last two days) and a bit of the Mets/Rockies game. Heading to bed after the baseball game I fumbled through a couple of DVDs trying to find something to watch to fall asleep to but YONGARY, a disc of Mr Wong films with Boris Karloff and some Mr Moto's with Peter Lorre all failed to do the trick so I popped in a bargain disc of four Sherlock Holmes films with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce- I may not have fallen asleep but it did relax me.

My sleep habits are such that as long as my mind isn't racing or there isn't a great deal of noise outside I'll just sleep in the dark. If the mind is racing or I need to relax or there is noise I'll put on a movie or three to play through the night. I actually have a large case of log playing DVDs for such occasions

The films on the Holmes DVD are THE WOMAN IN GREEN, TERROR BY NIGHT, DRESSED TO KILL and SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE SECRET WEAPON. I also have the films in the semi-recent restoration set with the audio commentaries and extras, but I picked up this disc since it plays for four and half hours without breaks.

I'm a huge fan of the series and they have been a constant companion since I can remember. Once years ago when The Movie Channel ran all 14 films in the series in one day I stayed up over24 ours recording them and cutting out the between film nonsense. At this point they are all old friends and they have largely blurred together.

WOMAN IN GREEN has Holmes tracking a series of murders that lead back to a beautiful woman who is working for Professor Moriarty.  Its a grand blackmail scheme that sees Holmes life put into peril on several occasions. Growing up this was a favorite of mine as far as a kid. I think because I had a crush on Hillary Brooke from the Abbot and Costello Show. Now I find it good film in the series but nothing special.

TERROR BY NIGHT is held by many people to be one of the best in the series. I think its a super little film that does what it does and gets off. The film has Holmes,Watson and Lestrade trying to protect the Star of Rhodesia  diamond while on a speeding train. Once the owner is murdered it becomes a race to find the killer and the jewel before the train stops and the killer can flee. One of the best in the series this film just goes.

DRESSED TO KILL is the final film in the series. It has Holmes and Watson trying to work out how a series of murders tie into some cheap musical boxes coming out of a prison workshop. Its revealed that the tunes hold the secret to the location of the printing plates for pound notes. One of the best in the series if for no other reason than you remember the various bits of the film- say Holmes going to someone he sent up for help with the differences in the tunes. I really like this film a great deal.

SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE SECRET WEAPON is the fourth film in the series and the second after they jumped from Fox to Universal. The film concerns the efforts of the Nazi's to steal a new bombsite and it's inventor. To me this is one of the meh films of the series as most of the wartime films are. The films are so intent on being patriotic they aren't much fun as mysteries and are actually more espionage films- which is not what you'd expect from Holmes and Watson.  Actually even the audiences of the times and especially the soldiers fighting in WW2 didn't care for the films much and they wrote to Universal asking that the films go back to being mysteries since that would help them forget the war for a while. Worth a look because all the Homes films are worth seeing but one of the lesser films.

Film Diary 2015: Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends (2014)

After watching the previous film in the series KYOTO INFERNO (reviewed yesterday) I took a few minutes to gather  up myself, get some snacks and then I popped in the last film in the series.

Picking up where the previous film ended- with Kenshin having been carried off a beach, the film races forward as Shishio makes his plans known to the world as he blackmails the government into putting a price on Kenshin's head. They are to find him and then publicly execute him or else he will bring down the government by revealing all their dirty secrets. The trick is they will have to find Kenshin who had been found by his old sword master and who still has trick or two to teach him.

If you haven't seen either of the previous films (or if you don't know the manga or anime) don't even bother with this film. As action packed and deeply moving it all is, the film requires that you know who all of the characters are before you start with the film. Since this is just the second half of a five hour movie it makes no effort to explain who anyone is. This film doesn't make any pretense that it was made for people who haven't seen what has gone before- it simply goes.

This film is both amazing and exhausting (and a tad infuriating). The action sequences are are even more incredible then the last film. The battles between Kenshin and his enemies are just kinetic delights of the highest order. Its an absolute blast watching all of the fights go down. The final fight between Shishio, Kenshin and some others is just jaw droppingly awesome in the truest sense of the word. You have never seen fights like this. They are so thrilling that by the time the film ends all of the plot twists and motion have worn you out. I was ready for a nap when it was all over.

As I said about the last film- together these films make up one of the finest action films you'll likely ever to see.

As for the infuriating part- there are simply too many characters and too much plot for both this film and the previous film to support them all. Too much is not always a good thing and as the THE LEGEND ENDS comes to it's end you realize that the filmmakers have thrown too much at us over the previous four plus hours that simply is not going to be dealt with or explained. Where are some of the villains we had seen previously? I don't know. And while the film only really succumbs to Mondocurry's test* for if a manga/anime live action film works on it's term at the very end, the two films remain one of the best viewing experiences of 2015.

You must track them down.

(*-Mondocurry's manga/anime test was devised when he reviewed ASSASSINATION CLASSROOM at Fantasia. He had argued that the reason manga/anime adaptions tend not to work when made into live action films is that they never transcend their origins. The films remain primarily of interest to fans of the source because:
1: They are made with the fan base in mind and don't explain enough for the non-fan to get it
2. The films remain episodic in structure and don't become one unified tale.
If a manga/anime film is to work you have to be able to walk off the street and be able to follow it. Additionally the film has to feel like its one story not a series of chapters with fade out every couple of minutes.)

Film Diary 2015 Long Ships/Morgan the Pirate

August 8
 Movie watching on this Saturday was just killing time in the afternoon waiting to be picked up for dinner and a concert. Its one of those times when you realize you don't have time to what you need to so instead you just sit and watch TV. I put in the Movies! TV Network which is second to TCM in my mind simply because they run commercials.

THE LONG SHIPS is a Hollywood historical adventure that is largely a WTF film.Its one of those films where you wonder what they were thinking when they made it.

Very loosely based on a popular Swedish novel the film has a group of vikings going on a hunt for a giant bell called the Mother of Voices off the coast of Africa. Also looking for the bell is Sidney Poitier as a Moorish king The collision of cultures proves not to be good or anyone.

Poitier supposedly dislikes the  film a great deal. Its a feeling I can completely understand since it comes off as a completely crazy story. I'm very curious how the story plays out in the source novel since here you never really believe a minute of it. On the other hand on the pure popcorn, I don't want to think a rational thought scale the film is a great deal of fun with a couple of set pieces- the giant razor blade death machine and the efforts to get the bell off the mountain where it stands being rather exciting.

After THE LONG SHIPS they ran MORGAN THE PIRATE one of the numerous Steve Reeves movies where he wasn't Hercules. Actually Reeves only made two Hercules movies and a few more  sword and sandals films, the rest other types of film.

MORGAN THE PIRATE is a film you'll swear you've seen before simply because you've seen a ton of other films that are exactly like it. I've seen at least four other films this year with the same plot (a couple of which I reviewed).  Here Morgan is an Englishman who was captured and made a slave by the Spanish in the Americas. Bought by a rich young noble woman he ends up on a galley when his affair with the woman is discovered. He over powers his captures becomes a pirate and ends up  capturing his lady love not long before he attacks her home city.

If you've seen one variation of the plot you'll be able to write the whole thing in your sleep. Utterly entertaining and undemanding it's a pure popcorn film. Its not high art but very well done. Its not anything I would have reviewed- or if I did it would have been cued several months from now.

Film Diary 2015 DENVER AND RIO GRANDE (1952)

August 6
(For the two of you wondering there is no entry for August 5 because the only film I saw was FANTASTIC FOUR. It was at a press screening and when I got home I ended up writing until 2 am to get a review up in a timely fashion.)

Viewing on August Sixth was a bit haphazard. I ended the night with a screener of HARBINGER DOWN (Review here) which I absolutely loved and which came out on DVD a few days ago. Most of the evening was spent bouncing around the various cable stations watching pieces of movies and TV shows. Eventually my dad and I settled down on the 1952 western DENVER AND RIO GRANDE.

The film is the fictionalized story of the building of the railway and is based on the conflict the railway had with the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe over several rights of way that turned bloody. It mixes actual people with fictional characters to create a rousing film.

The plot of the film has Edmund O’Brien surveying the path through the mountains for the title railway. Running afoul of the competing railway’s surveyors lead by Sterling Hayden One of O’Brien’s men is shot in the back by Hayden, but the situation was such that O’Brien thinks he may have done it.

When a court injunction arrives ordering work to cease O’Brien and his men continue to work. But Sterling Hayden has a spy in O’Brien’s camp and he uses the information to cause havoc via sabotage, robbery and murder.

This is an exciting film full of intrigue and action. There are several action set pieces that are just fantastic, chief among them is the extended race to get the head of the railway to Denver, shot on the actual locations the film looks amazing. And on top of everything the whole set piece has the actual crash of two period engines that had been designated for the scrap heap. It’s a moment that is really cool and has a weight that a modern CGI sequence can’t match.

While the film isn’t perfect-the love/hate relationship between O’Brien and the young woman who turns out to be the spy is much too contrived- the film is ultimately a grand adventure. It’s a film that is such a good time that when it finished I started to see if I could add it yo my collection

Film Diary Post:Island of the Lost (1921)

August 4- Film as Filler Part 2

As the installation of Windows dragged on and I had to just sit wait for it to do it’s magic I put on ISLAND OF THE LOST a recently rediscovered German version of the Island of Dr Moreau. The film is included as an extra on the Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau Blu-ray.

The plot has a man reading in a paper that a bottle has washed up on shore with a message that seems to be from his long lost wife. She had disappeared years before while in London and was never heard from again. He’s unhappy since he’s about to be remarried but feels he must do something. Heading off in his submarine with a friend, a quack doctor who advertises he has made synthetic people, he goes to see what has become of his ex. Once there he runs into a Dr McClelland who is up to no good.

A seemingly unending 66 minutes long the film is largely an outdated comedy. That’s a polite way of saying it’s not funny. Even allowing for the racist jokes, the humor here is just not funny. Why would a doctor have fake patients? It makes no sense. Then once the characters get to the so called desert island the film just fails to function as the actors wander around the wilderness, a Chinese doctor bemoans wanting opium and the beat men show up in the final 20 minutes. None of it makes any sense.

Its so disposable I started to watch the Windows Set up screen and was more excited when the percentage of completion went up.

If you ever wanted to know a film that I would never have mentioned on Unseen this is it. Had I not been doing this a s journal-esque entries this would never have been a blip.

Film Diary Post 2015: DEAR MURDER (1949)

August 4- Movies as filler (Part 1)

Today I saw two films which were chosen purely to help pass the time while I set up the new laptop and upgraded it to Windows 10. The idea was to pick something that I could watch or listen to as background.

DEAR MURDERER
A wicked little thriller that shocked the crap out of me with it’s truly dark shift in tone.

The simplest of plot synopsis would be that a husband discovers his wife is having an affair and murders her lover- but it’s not that simple, she has more than one. Complications arise and despite the frequent witty retorts between the various characters things turn rather dark

Playing more like a modern stab a murder mysteries and neo-noir the film this film moves in nicely unexpected ways. There is no doubt who the killer is the film’s opening 20 minutes or so is the husband conversing with and killing his victim. It’s a darkly colored scene that hooks you because you’ll really want to see where it’s going to go and whether the killer will get caught. From there the film follows the trail as the body is found and the police begin the investigation. It’s the ripples that the investigation set in motion that are the intriguing part. Of particular interest is how the wife navigates the events. Where she goes and how is not what you’d suspect.

This is truly a hidden gem. It’s one of those great little mystery/crime films that makes you sit up and realize that you really haven’t seen it all before.

(The second film will be up tomorrow)

Film Diary 2015: Stanford Prison Experiment

August 3
With a change in line up the NY Mets have started to play well and my dad and I are getting lost in the games. We’ve been long suffering fans so we’re enjoying this current run of good fortune. The upshot is that any films I watch for fun are being scheduled either before bed or when the game isn’t on.

I did catch a couple of shorts on line LOVE BITES a cute 3 minute film about a praying mantis in love and a re-watch of LOGORAMA an Oscar winner where various logos come to life.

The one feature was STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT which was for free on the IFC in Theaters service. I had a couple of long discussions about the film with Lesley Coffin who had done some interviews relating to the film, so I was curious about the film.

The film is a portrait of the title prison experiment which had Stanford University researchers randomly dividing up a group of men into prisoners and guards. They were to behave as if they were in a real prison situation. Things got so out of control that the experiment had to be cut short .

I’m mixed on the film. It’s an interesting portrait of the experiment however the film never really feels real. It feels more like the re-enactments that you get in the increasingly lazy documentaries on Discovery Channel shows. It never feels like it’s real or even a movie. It feels like dress up day at the young actors home. The unreality takes the edge off it all…it’s not a bad film, it’s just not great.

Film Diary 2015:Convicts Code (1939)

This is the first of the diary pieces I’m filling Unseen with until the New York Film Festival comes. The point of the pieces is to give you a view into the random nature of my film watching. Over the next three weeks I'm going to show you what I watched each day in a similar period in August. I'm going to list every film, good bad or indifferent, discuss them and why and how I watched them. A good number of these films would never have ever gotten a mention at Unseen, while others would have. Strangely this experiment was also one of the quietest times in my film watching all year.

August 2
With my old laptop dead and new one still in the box I’m forced to return to my DVD library for something to watch. I still have one Fantasia film left to watch (ASSASSINATION CLASSROOM) and a couple of upcoming releases (don’t ask I don’t know) but they are via screening links and I can’t access them.

I decided to pull one of the big Alpha video cases off the floor and pick something at random. The film before bed is CONVICTS CODE a 1930’s B film.

The plot of the film has an ex-football star getting out of prison. He had been framed for a bank robbery and sent away for 10 years. Getting paroled early for good behavior. Once out he gets work working for the big wig, who secretly had set him up. Doing various jobs for his boss our hero ends up falling in love with the boss’s sister. All the while he is also trying to run down the witnesses who sent him to prison.

A solid little film this is a perfect little time passer. Not overly taxing the film moves around the familiar pieces with a deft hand as if the work of a master magician. If the film has few surprises it saves one for the end when as the film races to the climax it looks like the film is going to end in a decidedly down beat manner-the films the law must be obeyed being followed to the end-but there is a a twist which in a weird way actually makes sense.

I enjoyed the films 66 minutes. Will I watch it again? Probably not but it’s a film I can heartily recommend to anyone who runs across it.