EKO / EKÕ (2025)

Indian director Dinjith Ayyathan had a local hit on this mixed genre film, shot in Malayalam, a language mostly spoken in the South which boasts some verdant mountainous terrain used here for some spectacular views & action sequences.  Spanning decades, the non-linear story construction goes back to WWII and forward to . . . when?  Now?  Just how old is that health-compromised loner supposed to be; living with her attack dogs in a mountaintop cabin with a  hunky helper who’s not what he appears to be.  He’s surely no gentle caregiver, turning into a fighter with Martial Arts chops for an acrobatic battle with the two baddies who’ve been tracking granny.  For those pedigree dogs?  For land rights?  Hard to know under Ayyathan’s incomprehensible style of unmotivated camera movement (panning, circling, spinning in place) used for all occasions, worsened by quick, off-the-beat editing.  Scene by scene, you can tell the bad guys from the good, but even that’s subject to misreading.  (Ayyathan got his start in animation, so perhaps the technique worked better there.)  Or does Malayalam culture regularly flaunt the time/space continuum?  These eyes were lost in translation.  Literally so as the subtitles whiz by too fast to read.

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (2008)

Unnecessary corporate product, director Scott Derrickson’s wholly unmemorable remake of the beloved 1951 Sci-Fi classic misses on all fronts.  (Though it does serve to represent a lot of what we won’t miss about our current Hollywood trends.*)  While still the story of a ‘man’ from Outer Space come to warn Earthlings on the consequences of screwing up the planet (War, Pollution, Self-Destruction), it’s without wonder; philosophy; believable F/X working for rather than instead of plot; quotidian exploration of big city life by a stranger in a strange land; New-Age metal on a spaceship that has no seam (a simple, but wonderful detail in the original); nor the most thrillingly suspenseful PAUSE in film history.  (Imagine anyone quoting lines from this remake seven & a half decades later) and you sure won’t find a cast to equal the one in 1951 or match Bernard Herrmann’s groundbreaking electronically enhanced music score instantly setting scene & tone.  Keanu Reeves sounds right as Alien Cassandra, but he seems to have beamed up to play Mr. Spock.  Or is it the man who fell to Earth?  As the girl in the case (don’t be fooled by her role as expert scientist), Jennifer Connelly has zero chemistry with Reeves, though perhaps on purpose.  At least you don’t want to slap her every time she comes on screen as you do with obnoxious step-son Jaden Smith.  Yikes!  Positive notes?  Well, the film won’t wreck any feelings you hold for the original.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT:  *Naturally, the Robert Wise 1951 beauty, personal bests for Patricia Neal, Michael Rennie, Sam Jaffe and Gort.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Giving credit where credit is due.  Here that's scipter David Scarpa whose most recent are NAPOLEON/’23 and GLADIATOR II/’24, both for Ridley Scott.

THE RAT (1937)

Remembered today, if at all, as the vain, age-denying wife of Walter Huston’s plainspoken businessman in William Wyler’s superb 1936 adaptation of Sinclair Lewis’s DODSWORTH (https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2023/04/dodsworth-1936.html), Ruth Chatterton found her highest acclaim in the role; and, at merely 44, a full stop to her Hollywood career.  Previously known for sex-hungry Pre-Code feminists, she tried England for two final pics before hanging it up as far as film was concerned.*  Here, in spite of that off-putting title, she found something of a return to her daring Pre-Code heyday as a French society lady stringing along an older SugarDaddy to foot the bills while seeking sexual excitement and the thrill of danger in a low-down joint in Montmartre.  She finds it in Anton Walbrook, still new to British film after leaving Nazi Germany, a cat burglar more interested in her pearls than herself.  Always on the verge of getting caught, Walbrook is currently stuck with a pretty young thing, his ward René Ray, daughter of a condemned pal who swore him to watch over her; the platonic pair sharing a garret above the bar/brothel where he’s something of a local hero.  Robbery, rape, defenestration, redemption, they all lead to a notorious court case where each of our principals either lies to protect someone or ruins a reputation with honesty.  A feast of renunciation.  Director Jack Raymond isn’t much known, but with Herbert Wilcox producing from a play by Ivor Novello & Constance Collier, got names like Art Director David Rawnsley, cinematographer Freddie Young, and actors Felix Aylmer & Leo Genn to play a few scenes as counselors-in-court.  Surprisingly good stuff.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: * The same year, Kay Francis, another Warners star dimmed by strict enforcement of the Production Code, got similarly good results with similar elements in CONFESSION/’37. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2015/12/confession-1937.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Note the title card billing that has Chatterton first-billed (on the left), and Walbrook top-billed (on the right).  A first?

KNIFE IN THE WATER / NÓZ W WODZIE (1962)

On his debut feature, Roman Polanski is already a master of elegant malice & menace in a compact three-hander about a day-trip at sea for a married couple and pick-up that goes wrong, but comes out right.  The Polish film industry, still State controlled, but loosening up to accommodate the Polish New Wave, gave Polanski development funds, perhaps unaware this leans more toward Michelangelo Antonioni (L'AVVENTURA/’60;  LA NOTTE/’61), a sort of Existential Shaggy Dog tale.  Driving to their boat, a blasé, slightly put out couple stop (or rather get forcibly stopped) by a solopistic hitchhiker, a college-age jerk who piques their interest.   At worse, he’ll liven things up.  But the boat trip keeps drifting off course, in every possible way as a mano-a--mano pissing contest breaks out between the men after they’re too far out to turn right back.  Then rough games, missing swimmers, missing rescuers, a storm that traps them overnight, lust unbound, a session of pick-up-sticks (!), and a knife for five-finger-filet before it goes overboard.  (The knife in the water.)   All beautifully staged (no easy thing at sea), well acted and neatly structured.  The film more than just advance notice for more than sixty years of film to come.  Listen closely and you’re sure to recognize Polanski doing the dub for the kid.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/DOUBLE-BILL:  If you get the Criterion edition, a second disc collects Polanski’s early shorts.  There's your Double-Bill.  And look on Disc One for an excellent interview from 2002 that reveals Polanski at 69 as a dead ringer for Danny Kaye at 69.

CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED (1964)

The late Baby Boom years of the early ‘60s weren’t only fecund with tots but also with fears of their eventual takeover.  No wonder Creepy Kids genre pics came into fashion as The Greatest Generation started having second thoughts on what they’d wrought.  In the U.K., British M-G-M showed the way with VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED/’60 and this follow-up.  While horror house Hammer Films unofficially made it a trilogy with THESE ARE THE DAMNED/’62 coming in-between.*  All three featuring a new wave of dangerous brats (super alien brats at that) bringing death or disease (or could it be salvation?) to earth.  The films unusually grown-up horror, far removed from the super-charged monster movies aimed at kids.  (The elevated tone beginning perhaps on THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL/’51.)  This one fairly effective, but losing punch in shifting its focus from local in the first film (native blue-eyed blondes from interstellar seed) to international (six global Junior U.N. representatives of various ethnicity appearing with a million years of DNA evolution in their blood).  Structured as a chase, the hunt for the six brilliant boys & girls by military and scientific forces, it’s mostly fun, cleverly worked out to end up at an ancient gothic cathedral* (a real one) where the kids gather to hide out while authorities panic.  Briskly helmed by journeyman director Anton Leader, with strong low-key noirish cinematography from Davis Boulton, who’d just shot Robert Wise’s THE HAUNTING/’63.  Plus a better than usual cast for the genre than was common at the time.  The kids let their glowing eyes do most of the work; none as memorable as the look-a-like crew in VILLAGE.  But it’s always a kick to note just how much Alan Badel looks like Peter Sellers under a comedy restraining order.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *A triple bill if you start with VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED and follow with THESE ARE THE DAMNED.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2010/03/village-of-damned-1960.html  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2011/08/these-are-damned-aka-damned-1963.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *No wonder they wind up in a Cathedral, as all the kids born of ‘virgin' mothers.

BUG (2007)

Easy to see how effectively Tracy Letts’ scary thriller might work on stage.  Even with a cast of five, it functions like a classic ‘Lost Souls’ two-hander.  Or does till Letts swerves into Body Horror in the last act.  Creepy stuff with sadder-if-not-wiser waitress Ashley Judd meeting up for the night with shaky military vet Michael Shannon.  The two something of a match: she’s being stalked by violent ‘ex’ Harry Connick Jr (excellent); he’s stalked by demons in his head.  Her monster corporal/his a manifestation of bug infestation.  Yikes!  Their deteriorating psychological condition visually climaxing in a last act coup de théâtre opening curtain.  All dutifully recreated by director William Friedkin in this low-budget, yet technically immaculate film transfer.  But any effect doomed without the possibility to think Shannon’s bug paranoia might be real.  And Shannon, repeating his stage triumph, is far too obviously paranoid schizophrenic, even with those nasty skin bruises, to let us imagine they ain’t self-inflicted.  Judd also too busy working the sensitively angle.  You see what they’re all trying to get across, but the modest result is predictable.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  CHILD’S PLAY/’72;  SLEUTH/’72 & 07; DEATHTRAP/’82; the list of stage thrillers that went flat on film is a long one.  Though there’s always Alfred Hitchcock’s DIAL M FOR MURDER/’54 (which hardly changed a thing) and George Cukor’s GASLIGHT/’44 (which changed a lot).  Go figure.  (Look up most of these in our SEARCH BOX - upper left corner.)

THE FLYING ACE (1926)

All-Black ‘Race Film,’ the credits tout an ‘Entire Cast Composed of Colored Artists,’ but that’s in front of the camera.  ‘Behind’ is led by White producer/director Richard E. Norman.  And probably the rest of his crew at this ‘Pop-Up’ Florida studio.  Lots of unusual elements here, good ones, starting with it being what we’d now call a dramedy.  Most race films, made for bookings on the Black Film Circuit or as a Special One-Night Screenings in non-race houses, were either comic burlesques, educational, or for social/religious uplift.  This one’s just entertaining, especially once the action gets up to speed in the third act.  (Even more unusual, it’s come down to us in good physical condition.)  Classic cops & robbers stuff, it opens when a handsome young payroll man for the railroad comes to town a day early with $25 thou in cash, and without his usual guards,  Overheard by three shifty locals: a layabout; a corrupt cop; a high-flying bootlegger (literally high-flying, he does his rum-running by plane).  But, after stopping to see the railway station master, the one with the pretty daughter, he and the payroll go missing and the station master is blamed.  Enter the Flying Ace, a World War One hero, back on his old job as chief railroad investigator.  A regular Sherlock Holmes at figuring out crimes, he’s also not afraid to use his fists or his skills in the air when that booze smuggler takes off with the station manager’s daughter and tries to rape her while flying in his two-seater.  Yikes!  And no auto-pilot!  Double Yikes!  Naturally, payroll is saved, station master & courier cleared, now only the daughter must choose between two upstanding men.  This touch of romance cleverly shot by Norman who holds on their legs; a neat bit of mise-en-scène.  And not the only one in here.  One qualifier, the use of the lightest skinned actor in the film as the WWI hero.  Was it noted by Black audiences at the time?  On the other hand, a more welcome idea sees his assistant, played by a War vet amputee, a one-legged wonder who uses his crutch as a weaponized limb.  Bashing bad guys, pedaling his bike, making instant U-turns, and more or less stealing the pic.

LINK:  Here’s the excellent high-def Library of Congress restoration:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSE-WksQwIg 

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Other than a bit of Schubert at the end, the film score has been skillfully arranged from classic film music cues from the late silent era.  Hear them on ’The Pioneers of Movie Music’ on CD and many music streamers.

WAKE UP DEAD MAN (2025)

Third of the Rian Johnson KNIVES OUT murder mysteries; all with Daniel Craig as dapper Deep South free-lance detective Benoit Blanc, now with less accent.  It’s the darkest yet.  Not dark in tone or topic, but in lighting.  Interiors: murky church naves; clubby lamp-lit offices.  Exteriors: dense moody woods; twilight excursions.*  Elsewise, more or less the same Agatha Christie manqué, Johnson even showing us a typed list of literary inspirations for this ‘impossible crime’ knock off.  And if it goes on a little longer than it has to, it’s mostly good fun when a controversial priest gets knocked off mid-mass, and his acolytes are the suspects..  (Never-mind the Pop religious philosophizing.)  A game cast eagerly gnawing the scenery with displays of bravura acting include Josh O’Connor, new young priest under hard-nosed fanatic Father Josh Broslin.  With Glenn Close, spinster church manager; Thomas Haden Church, church property caretaker.  Plus church-going regulars Andrew Scott, Kerry Washington, Jeremy Renner; local Police Chief Mila Kunis, many more.  And you won’t drift off during the extended investigation (the murder is ‘solved’ multiple times), because Johnson appears to have had movie stars of his film going youth in mind for the major characters.  See if you can spot his substitutes for Gene Hackman, Cloris Leachman, Nick Nolte, George Segal², Diahann Carroll and (maybe?) Steve McQueen.  It’s more inetersting than solving the obfuscated, but oddly simple murder.

ATTENTION MUST BEPAID:  *The crepuscular cinematography would look infinitely better on the big screen.  With an arc-lamp projector running actual celluloid film stock.  But even in digital, only KNIVES OUT/’19 had a proper theatrical release, grossing well over 300 mill.  GLASS ONION, with but a token release nudged 20.  And WAKE UP?  Only a brief award qualifying vanity release that totaled one & a half million before it went online.  The NetFlix financial model obviously working for someone, just not the vanishing film going public.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  GLASS ONION’s tag ending teased us with a peek at Hugh Grant as Craig’s significant other, suggesting an obvious sequel with the pair doing a Nick & Nora Charles routine on the next case.  What a missed opportunity!

CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRY (1951)

Published in 1948, South African writer Alan Paton’s novel put apartheid, his country’s policy of strict racial segregation, in the political conversation as few books had.  A near miss in its first theatrical incarnation (the 1950 Kurt Weill/Maxwell Anderson musical LOST IN THE STARS*), then quickly followed by this film.  Later, two more straight adaptations; on tv in 1958/another feature in ‘95, with the musical filmed in ‘74.  None come off, they’re ‘worthy’ and slightly afraid of what they’ve gotten themselves into.  But at least this 1951 attempt, a passion project for director Zoltan Korda, has real South African verisimilitude going for it, which helps counter the stiffness.  Canada Lee, remembered from Alfred Hitchcock’s LIFEBOAT/’44, only made five films, staying mostly on B’way.  (Orson Welles directed him in NATIVE SON.)  Here he’s a rural minister on his first trip to Johannesburg, where people go, but never come back.  His brother, sister and son all lost there one way or another.  Mostly his son, whom he tries to find with help from a 24-yr-old Sidney Poitier, a fellow minister, but savvy to the ways of the city.  (Watching these two, we might be witnessing a passing of the torch.)  But once they do find the son, it’s worse than they could have imagined.  A prominent anti-apartheid progressive murdered, a man whose family lives not far from the minister.   By this point, the film has gained a fair amount of power and passion, somewhat overriding the dirge-like tone Korda holds to.  Paton c-wrote the script, which may explain some of the problems.  But the film still deserves a look, and not only for historical reasons.

LINK:  *Here’s the title track from the original cast album of LOST IN THE STARS.  Anderson with an aching lyric to match Weill’s genius.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygkCMrC5t0Q