Michael May's Blog, page 93
October 11, 2017
Them! (1954)
Who's In It: James Whitmore (Planet of the Apes, The Shawshank Redemption), Edmund Gwenn (Miracle of 34th Street), Joan Weldon (Them!), and James Arness (The Thing from Another World, Gunsmoke). With Daniel Boone and Mr Spock in bit roles.
What It's About: Nuclear testing creates giant ants that threaten to destroy the world.
How It Is: I love '50s scifi movies, especially when they involve alien invasions and giant, mutated animals. Maybe because they speak so deeply to my Cold War Kid's heart, since I grew up in a time when we were terrified of communist invasion and atomic weapons.
But even with a fairly high baseline to star from, Them! is a step or two above the others in the genre. To start with, the performances are strong, which wasn't always the case with the genre. But what I really like is the way the story unfolds through a serious, procedural style. Whitmore is especially great as Sgt Peterson, the main character for most of the movie. He's one of the police officers who discovers the first of the ants' victims and his obsession with learning the truth and then eliminating the threat is what drives the film for a good long while.
Unfortunately, as more and more people get involved, like the scientists played by Gwenn and Weldon or Arness' FBI agent, the less character work the movie is able to do. In fact, by the time Whitmore's character reaches the conclusion of his story arc, it's barely commented on because so much else is going on.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 enormous arthropods
October 10, 2017
Fall ComiCon Report
I forgot to report back about the Twin Cities' Fall ComiCon from last weekend. It was great.
The Midwest Comic Book Association volunteers are always awesome, but we especially appreciated them for this show. Diane and David hadn't confirmed that they were attending as creators, so we were a little nervous about whether there would be room for them. But not only were they planned for by the volunteers, another creator near us had cancelled, so we were allowed to spread out to a couple of tables. That meant that Diane had an entire table for her face painting and that David was able to spread out his monster sketches for people to see more easily. That turned out to be super helpful for him, because he usually only has a quarter of a table and potential customers have to flip through a stack of sketches to see if there's anything they want.
The convention was well attended and people came to spend money. Diane always does well, but folks were also buying David's sketches and copies of the Kill All Monsters Omnibus. In fact, I only have a few left now, which is awesome.
The quarter bin was a big success, too. I got rid of a bunch of comics that were taking up space in my office and we raised about $30 for Hero Initiative. A lot of people refused their change, so that all went to the charity, too. Will definitely be doing that again.
La Belle et la Bête (1946)
Who's In It: Josette Day (pretty much this unless you're way more familiar with French cinema than I am) and Jean Marais (Fantomas, Stealing Beauty)
What It's About: Adapts the classic fairy tale in which a beautiful woman (Day) is held prisoner in the castle of a terrifying beast-man (Marais).
How It Is: I love that Jean Cocteau opens his adaptation with text that reveals his sincere love for the story and refuses to apologize for it. He basically says, "Get on board or don't watch." And then he presents a straightforward version of the story that's imaginatively designed (all those arms and living statuary!) and gorgeously shot. Calling it magical is not hyperbole.
Currently, Cocteau's is my favorite adaptation of the story, at least until I can revisit the George C Scott TV movie that I remember so fondly from childhood. I don't actually expect Scott's to dethrone this one, but I feel a deep need to compare.
Rating: 4 out of 5 noble man-monsters
October 9, 2017
Planetary Union Network | "Pria"
Guess who was a guest on the latest episode of the Planetary Union Network podcast?
Sadly, a last-minute schedule change prevented me from joining that part of the conversation, but it's a really cool interview. Frakes compares directing the Orville cast with directing the cast of Next Generation and talks about the similarities and differences between The Orville and Star Trek: Discovery. He's got a great take on it.
After the interview, I joined Dan and Joe to talk about the Orville episode that Frakes directed: "Pria." Among other things, we discuss Isaac's character development in the episode and the casting of Charlize Theron as the title character.
Jane Eyre (1943)
Who’s In It: Joan Fontaine (Rebecca, Ivanhoe), Orson Welles (Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, The Muppet Movie), Margaret O'Brien (Little Women, The Secret Garden), Agnes Moorehead (Citizen Kane, Bewitched), and a very young Elizabeth Taylor.
What It’s About: After a childhood of abuse, a young woman (Fontaine) hopes for change as governess in a house with a brooding master (Welles) and dark secret.
How It Is: I don't know how I've missed this adaptation for so long, but it was cool to watch so closely after Rebecca, Fontaine's other big gothic romance. She's fantastic in it and Welles is awesome, too. They have chemistry and O'Brien is delightful as Rochester's (Welles) ward Adele. They make a nice family that I hate to see struggle with the weight of Rochester's baggage.
Agnes Moorehead is beautifully cold as Jane's cruel aunt who sends Jane's life into a dangerous spiral. And I get a kick out of 11-year-old Elizabeth Taylor playing the only friend of young Jane, because she and Fontaine would go on to play romantic rivals nine years later in Ivanhoe.
The sets in Jane Eyre are magnificent and there's a ton of mood around the whole thing. It's a really cool production. My only complaint is that it rushes through the story a bit, so some of the emotional punches aren't as powerful as they could be, but it's an excellent introduction to the story. I'm eager to rewatch Cary Fukunaga's 2011 version now and compare.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 cantankerous cavaliers
October 8, 2017
Southern Charm | Studio Craft, Ryman Auditorium, and Fried Chicken
On the latest Southern Charm, Jody and I talk Elvis, the North Carolina craft community, the history of the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, and how to make good fried chicken.
The Seventh Victim (1943)
Who’s In It: Kim Hunter (When Strangers Marry, A Streetcar Named Desire, Planet of the Apes), Jean Brooks (The Leopard Man), and Tom Conway (Tarzan's Secret Treasure, Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie).
What It’s About: A young woman (Hunter) falls in love with her brother-in-law (Conway) while investigating the disappearance of her sister (Brooks).
How It Is: As I expect from Val Lewton movies now, The Seventh Victim is very stylish (I mean, Jean Brooks' bangs alone!) and begins with a cool mystery. Unfortunately, it has more in common with The Leopard Man than Cat People or Isle of the Dead . The mystery is solved too early and after that the film just becomes about the fallout from it. Which, like in The Leopard Man, isn't a bad take in itself. I like that the movie is interested not just in the mystery, but also in the way that it affects its characters. But in this case, if affects Mary (Hunter) by forcing her into a romance with her brother-in-law, Louis (Conway). Not only is that creepy and inappropriate considering that they're both looking for their sister and wife, but at no point do I ever actually believe that either character is really falling for the other one. I don't know if that's lack of chemistry or underwritten characters or both, but it doesn't work.
It's also a big problem that the reality of Jacqueline (Brooks) doesn't equal the build-up. The woman that everyone's looking for in the first half of the movie sounds cool, confident, and a little mysterious. But that's not the reality of the frightened and severely depressed person we meet in the second half. There's a great discussion to be had about the masks we put on to cover our insecurities, but the movie never really goes there. It's too interested in that dumb romance that Jacqueline's in the way of.
I feel like I should at least mention the Satanic cult that the movie's supposed to be about (and that gives the film its name), but it's a lame, toothless group that (except for one, memorable sequence) doesn't have much effect on the main characters. It's as disappointing as the rest of the movie.
Rating: 2 out of 5 poisoned punches
October 7, 2017
The Leopard Man (1943)
Who's In It: Dennis O'Keefe (the original Brewster's Millions and Raw Deal), Margo (Lost Horizon), and Jean Brooks (The Green Hornet Strikes Again!, The Seventh Victim).
What It's About: After a panther escapes from a nightclub act, multiple women are found horribly mutilated. But is it the work of the animal or a human serial killer?
How It Is: I always love the mood and visual style of Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur films. I'm especially a fan of Tourneur with Night of the Demon and Out of the Past being a couple of my all time favorite movies. I'm all over the place on their collaborations though. I love Cat People and like I Walked with a Zombie, but The Leopard Man was very disappointing.
Brooks and O'Keefe play a singer and her manager who are partially responsible for letting the animal escape. They feel some guilt over the situation, so they join the hunt for the animal, but they soon suspect that the escaped beast is just a cover up for a human murderer.
Unfortunately, their investigation is sloppy and once they do discover the actual villain, the motivation for the murderers is barely given any thought. It turns out that the movie is actually more focused on Brooks and O'Keefe and how their experience changes them and shapes their relationship. That's cool, but it's not a replacement for a satisfying mystery, which The Leopard Man doesn't have.
Rating: 2 out of 5 killer cats.
October 6, 2017
Rebecca (1940)
Who's In It: Laurence Olivier (Wuthering Heights, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, Clash of the Titans), Joan Fontaine (Suspicion, Jane Eyre, Ivanhoe), George Sanders (The Picture of Dorian Gray, All About Eve, The Jungle Book), Judith Anderson (Laura, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock), Nigel Bruce (Watson to Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes), Reginald Denny (Madam Satan, the Bulldog Drummond movies from the '30s, Batman: The Movie), C Aubrey Smith (Tarzan the Ape Man, Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back) and Gladys Cooper (The Black Cat, My Fair Lady)
What It's About: A young bride (Fontaine) moves to her husband's (Olivier) estate and contends with the figurative ghost of her predecessor.
How It Is: Another one we just covered on Mystery Movie Night, but I don't mind talking about it again. I love this movie so much.
It's a smart - really smart - gothic romance with some great twists and turns. But even when I know what's coming after having seen it so many times, I always find something new about a character or just the way that Hitchcock's telling the story. And it's so beautifully shot and wonderfully acted by everyone involved.
I go into detail about my favorite cast members in the MMN episode, but I'll say again here that Fontaine and Olivier are awesome together and make me want them to figure things out even while it's clear that they aren't a natural fit for each other and have a lot of work to do. Oliver's charming, but also heartbreaking as he's not dealing well with the trauma of his previous marriage. Fontaine is naive and childlike to a fault. They both have characteristics that the other needs, but neither knows how best to support the other. It's great to see them (and it's mostly Fontaine) work through that.
The best part for me is watching Fontaine's character grow and seeing how that affects her relationship with Maxim (Olivier). The movie doesn't hit me over the head with it, but suggests her maturing in subtle ways and I love to find new clues every time I watch.
Rating: 4.5 out 5 evil ladies' maids
October 5, 2017
Come see me at Fall ComiCon
I'll be at the Twin Cities' Fall ComiCon this weekend with copies of the Kill All Monsters Omnibus, Volume 1 to sell and sign. Or you can bring your already bought copy and I'll be happy to sign that, too. Or just stop and chat. David will be on hand and we can all talk about podcasts or whatever. And Diane will be there too if you want something awesome painted on your face.
I'm gonna try something new for this show, too. I've got a bunch of old comics that I need to get rid of just to free up some office space, so I'll have a genuine quarter bin at my table. Every comic in it will be 25¢ with all proceeds going to Hero Initiative. I'm hoping it'll be a fun, cheap way to get some cool comics and help out some people as well.
