EL ABRAZO DE LA SERPIENTE / EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT (2015)

Fascinating, and phenomenally effective, a culture clash in the Amazon Jungle inspired by the diaries of two European researchers who came to the forest decades apart, helped by the same Native shaman. Columbian writer/director Ciro Guerra structures the film in parallel paths 40 years apart, cutting back & forth without confusion between early and mid-20th century action. The earlier sequences begin as a desperately ill German explorer (and his native guide, rescued from the horrors of rubber plantation work) seek out young shaman Karamakate in hopes of finding a cure. Believing himself the last of his tribe and living in isolation, Karamakate can only offer temporary relief, but agrees to go with them to find a special plant & permanent cure when told that members of his tribe still exist far up the river. Intercut with this journey, another European researcher comes to find the healing plant that may (or may not) have been found 40 years ago. Remarkably, he’s helped by the same shaman, still isolated, now forty years older and with a fragile memory. Two journeys, equally thrilling & mysterious, Tribal in outlook rather than Euro-Centric. Amid the wonder & terror, a pair of encounters across the decades with hidden Christian societies are particular standouts, both harrowing cinematic achievements and conceptually challenging. Eventually, when the medicine is found, Guerra switches from the film’s rapturous WideScreen monochrome*to indulge in a bit of ‘60s psychedelia, a Light Show display that’s a little too 2001: Jupiter and Beyond for its own good, but you’ll be too far gone to take exception. Riveting stuff that puts the kibosh on many a better known film covering similar subjects. Oscar® nominated for Foreign Language pic, rightly so.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Photographers have largely made peace with digital formats, but still swear by old-fashioned chemical processing & celluloid film stock for Black & White. See why here.

STAR TREK BEYOND (2016)

Even those who don’t give a fig about STAR TREK (and siblings), may shake their collective heads at the sheer ordinaryness of this generic, action-packed space adventure. Director Justin Lin, of the FAST AND FURIOUS series, has unsurprisingly made a FAST AND FURIOUS STAR TREK movie. Précis: A distress call from a far off planet sends the Enterprise into a trap, Phase One of a colossal act of planetary revenge & destruction. This should fit nicely into the old Gene Roddenberry STAR TREK formula: Intergalactic physical threat? Check! Menace with a philosophic note? Check! Maybe too much for our crew to handle? Check! But the filmmaking response is scuttled, along with the Enterprise, in an overload of eye-catching, but baffling effects-driven CGI battles that might fit any space epic: STAR TREK: The Video Game. Dramatically, we need some kind of inadequate defensive action from our motley crew before they are forced to take up arms against a doom-laden ticking clock. Off they go on offense with an ad-hoc paradoxical blend of Mr. Spock’s logic & Capt. Kirk’s instinct. And if ship doctor ‘Bones’ gets involved, a dash or two of emotion. The film sings the template, but misses the tune; and the only emotion comes from a pair of dedications in the end credits.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Not sure why, but Korea turned out the best poster. Maybe because after decades of indifference, the series has started catching on overseas just as it slips Stateside.

DOUBLE-BILL: And STAR TREK: DISCOVERY, the latest series, due out soon.

OUR KIND OF TRAITOR (2016)

After something of a hiatus back in the ‘90s, John Le Carré adaptations are once again regular events. But this one, coming on the heels of the well-received NIGHT MANAGER mini-series, got overlooked. And though it’s not hard to see why, Le Carré-heads, willing to make allowances, may be pleasantly surprised. The solid idea tracks a brash Russian cash manipulator (Stellan Skarsgård) based in Morocco and worried that his dealing days are numbered. Trying to flip a last deal into a one-way ticket out for him & his family as defectors, he’s reeling in the usual super-rich Russian oligarch as leverage along with a high-ranking British politician attached to the same venal line of credit. But the only British agent biting is Damien Lewis, currently on the outs at the Home Office. Skarsgård will have to complete the delicate deal ‘on spec,’ without getting any assurances. (And with no idea that Lewis is working without authority.) The big gimmick (and miscue) on the thing, is the needless addition of an innocent married couple (Naomie Harris & Ewan McGregor), tourists who become go-betweens. It’s a MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH formation, naive couple drawn into deadly international conspiracy. But where Hitchcock sold an unlikely situation by having the couple’s son kidnapped, Le Carré has no equivalent mechanism to help us buy into the scheme. Altruism certainly doesn’t cut it. A shame because, in spite of director Susanna White overloaded artifice (she sure is fond of shooting reflections!), the corrupting influence of Russian money could hardly be more timely, and the cast is all you could wish for. Ms. Harris, in particular, is quite the find, and McGregor, looking considerably older, is suddenly a gripping camera subject. Of course, they might have given Harris & McGregor a kid and had it kidnapped . . . nah.

DOUBLE-BILL: With NIGHT MANAGER doing so well, a mini-series remake of THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD is in the works for next year.

WOMAN'S WORLD (1954)

No studio was more attached to the ‘Three Girls’ story arc then 20th/Fox. Add in Bausch & Lomb CinemaScope lenses, and it was a match made in WideScreen composition heaven. This iteration of the formula made three-in-a-row for director Jean Negulesco after HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE/’53 and THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN/’54, but a considerably less distinctive one minus the inadvertent Pop Art proclivities of MILLIONAIRE or the travelogue gush of FOUNTAIN.* Instead, car mogul Clifton Webb brings three top sales reps to New York to find a new General Manager. And it’s not just the men getting a lookover, so too the wives; measure up or muster out. As the title song has it, ‘It’s a woman’s world, but only because . . . it’s his.’ Yikes!* There’s confident Van Heflin & sexually aggressive consort Arlene Dahl; plain-spoken Mid-Western Cornel Wilde & loyal little grey wren June Allyson; or up-from-the-ranks dyspeptic Fred MacMurray & neglected wife Lauren Bacall going thru the motions. Structured in the manner of a whodunit, right down to a dining room denouement, the script leans toward the thuddingly obvious, Allyson & Dahl particularly over-doing things. But with so many character flaws & changing positions to get thru in 90 minutes, shortcuts are understandable; especially when they're passably entertaining. And it’s certainly fun watching Bacall sweep the board in class & presence. Famous for feline good looks, she’d just come back to the screen for MILLIONAIRE after a three year baby-break. Somehow, in the interim, she’d found acting chops and a kind of technique. A pro in the good sense.

DOUBLE-BILL: The ‘serious’ corporate boardroom drama in ‘54 was EXECUTIVE SUITE. No color, no CinemaScope, but a starry cast (including this film’s June Allyson) and the first in an unmatched string of 11 hits in 12 years for scripter Ernest Lehman.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Yes, sexual roles & politics were a different language in the mid-‘50s, but it’s still a shock to see not only how things were, but how much had been lost on this front since the 1930s & ‘40s.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Unlike the restored anamorphic dazzle on DVD for MILLIONAIRE and FOUNTAIN, WORLD comes in a merely acceptable, slightly drab ‘flat’ letterbox VOD edition.

KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS (2016)

This stop-motion animation from the House of Laika moves on from their previous ‘Goth’ mentality to embrace ‘Japonisme’ in a visually lush fable; enchanting when it sticks to the subject of storytelling, less so as it descends into Martial Arts & Monsters. At first, the CGI-assisted puppets & effects hold stylistic unity as we meet a careworn, fearful Mother and her sunny, independent son (a town favorite for his epic storytelling shows). But once the afterlife spirits come down on them, and annihilate the town, the boy begins an orphan’s journey quest of recovery and the film overdoses on technical display. You also start to notice problems in character design, especially in the son’s jaunty personality (very All-American-boy), not helped by forced gags out of a DreamWorks focus group, and poor vocal acting.* Worse, you can see how this should have worked watching the marvelous first act as the kid holds the town in thrall with his origami creations acting out epic tales. Everyone buys into the fantasy of folded paper springing to life, acting out roles, dancing & fluttering to attention thru collective spirit & one boy’s power of suggestion. And a misconception, since instead of celebrating the power of storytelling magic as community will, the story makes this not a shared visualization, but something really happening. What a letdown. Still, the first act remains a treat. The rest, a battle lost; poetry-turned-prose, with the imaginative power of LESS succumbing to the commercial considerations of TOO MUCH.

DOUBLE-BILL: Laika projects tend to impress & enchant before coming up short. For a more rigorous stop-motion æsthetic, try them in CORALINE/09 or PARANORMAN/’12.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *In the leads, Charlize Theron & Matthew McConaughey are so inadequate you think about switching to the film’s original Japanese language track (w/ subtitles), then remember they are the original soundtrack.

INTO THE STORM (2009)

Writer Hugh Whitemore returns with more Winston Churchill in this sequel to his pre-WWII drama THE GATHERING STORM/’02. But like the carbon copy that loses the crisp lines of the original, this second helping lacks definition. There’s a distinct loss in size & style in replacing Albert Finney & Vanessa Redgrave with Brendan Gleeson & Janet McTeer as the Churchills, shrinkage that’s generally mirrored in the physical product. Maybe if Whitemore hadn’t structured the story as flashbacks from war’s end, with an irascible Winston waiting for the 1945 election results as the film dips in & out of the war years. We sacrifice the arc of military strategy and the epic sweep of history for a little bit of election suspense. The film also takes less advantage of locations (smaller budget?), and offers diminished star power in supporting roles. (Though nothing diminished in Bill Paterson’s Clement Atlee, typically superb as this unassuming political threat.) You can see just what's been missing in a brief scene that finds Iain Glen’s King George tricking Churchill into reconsidering his idea to accompany troops on D-Day. But with so many actors trying on Churchill these days (John Lithgow, Gary Oldman, Michael Gambon*), you could also look elsewhere.

DOUBLE-BILL: *Gambon nails it as well as anybody in the reasonably satisfying CHURCHILL’S SECRET/’16.

READ ALL ABOUT IT: Not much in favor these days, but Churchill’s wartime memoirs, beginning with THE GATHERING STORM, remain very readable . . . with many a pat on the back for its author.

EL CLUB / THE CLUB (2015)

Currently repped in theaters with JACKIE/’16 and NERUDA/’16, Pablo Larrain was first noticed (at least internationally) for his delicate balancing act directing the witty anti-Pinochet film NO/’12. But between those three projects, Larrain directed and wrote this award-winning disappointment . . . let’s blame the writing. Shot with continuous hazy diffusion, to reflect the characters’ equally hazy moral sense (oh, symbolism), the script is Larrain’s fantasia on the distressingly real ethical runaround used by the Catholic Church to hide priestly misconduct (pedophilia, baby swaps, golf outings) from secular authority, the press & the public, keeping all the dirty linen in an apostolic hamper. Here, at a little beach community house in Chile, a handful of the semi-defrocked, along with a fallen nun as caretaker, let the days unravel, feel sorry for themselves, grouse, go thru motions of devotion and enthusiastically train a greyhound for local races. But it’s all coming to a stop, or at least to a head, as a mentally-disturbed victim taunts them from the street, and an official Vatican rep threatens to shut the place down. Larrain doles this out in teaspoons, desperate to shock us with revelations we’ve already guessed at (like a lack of contrition), before finding a violent deus ex machina to close the book on this ethical conundrum. But is it an ethical conundrum? The crimes aren’t against the church, but against the community. In the pew or out, below the age of consent, on church grounds or off, pedophiliac buggery is pedophiliac buggery, no?

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: For a look at the troubled modern priesthood, and some rare evenhandedness with the subject, try Nanni Moretti’s THE MASS IS OVER/’85 which may also be his best film.

ROUGHSHOD (1949)

Unusually involving mid-range Western skips the ubiquitous Stranger-Comes-To-Town straitjacket largely by staying out of town. Instead, three prison escapees ambush three men at a campfire, killing them for their horses & a change of clothes. At the same time, a foursome of saloon gals, just kicked out of town, get stuck on the open road when their surrey breaks down. Picked up by a couple of brothers herding horses back to their ranch, it’s a match of convenience at best, and quickly starts to fall apart when two of the girls break off. Dangerous, too, since one of the desperadoes is out for revenge against the elder brother. It sets up some crisscross dramatic goals that play out strongly against the usual romance & confrontations, yet the film never quite hits its potential. Director Mark Robson makes good use of the rocky landscape, but has less success controlling the pace. The film kind of dribbles along. And while John Ireland’s cold-blooded killer & Gloria Grahame’s slightly-used hostess get the job done, pleasant but colorless leading man Robert Sterling gives off little heat. (Where’s Joel McCrea when you need him?*) Somebody could have made more of this one.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *Claude Jarman, the nice kid brother here, worked with McCrea next year in THE OUTRIDERS/’50’ (not seen here). But it’s his other 1949 release, INTRUDER IN THE DUST, reuniting him with director Clarence Brown who discovered him for THE YEARLING/’46, that’s really worth hunting up.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2025/06/intruder-in-dust-1949.html

AJEOSSI / THE MAN FROM NOWHERE (2010)

(Deep breath, please.) Outside a Korean nightclub, police are prepping for a major drug ring bust. But before they can give the green light and start making arrests, the goods are stolen by a club dancer and taken to her apartment in a downscale Seoul neighborhood. That’s where her lonely little girl is skipping school and trying to make friends with the secretive young pawnbroker who works & lives in her building. But she’d better hurry, the rest of those foiled villains are in hot pursuit, desperate to retrieve the sample bar of high-grade heroin. An initial raid at the pawnshop turns deadly . . . for the gangsters. They haven’t a chance against his martial arts skills. So the thugs go for a soft target, kidnaping Mother & Child before letting the pawnshop guy know he can get them back by delivering a message to a second gang, a Japanese outfit trying to weasel in on the deal. It’s a set-up, but while the gangs and police are hunting Mr. Pawnshop down (just who is this guy?!!), it’s revealed that drugs aren’t the only commodity in play. There’s also a nice bit of business going on in live human organ extraction for transplants, with premium prices on little girl offal. Yikes! (Exhale.) Preposterous doings, no doubt; but also, in the hands of writer/director Jeong-beom Lee, preposterously entertaining. Only the second of his three films, he boasts a natural kinetic technique with a clean narrative line that movies with plots half as complicated can’t muster; joined to a tremendous cast of memorably shady creeps, an honorable bad guy for the big-thrill climatic knife fight; reasonable props for hard-working cops; and in Bin Won, our stoic/laconic pawnbroker with a ‘Special Ops’ past, a tragic personal history and alarming good looks to go with the chiseled abs, a natural screen idol. (Why he dropped out of the acting game after this film is the real mystery.) Turn off the right side of your brain and enjoy. (Family Friendly, but not for the kiddies.)