Like I said, not much this week. Between doing work on Yellow and getting to the fifth boss in A Link To The Past (the bug-catching net? Are you kidding me?), there hasn’t been a lot of time for movies. That should change, though; I’m done wth Yellow for the time being and I got library movies to get through.
Oh, and rescue Zelda.
*sigh*
The Lady Eve (1941, Preston Sturges) (v) 89
Contrary to what Peter Bogdanovich says, this Sturges really isn’t that funny. But what it’s missing in laughs is made up for in sheer romance. Barbara Stanwyck paralyzes Henry Fonda just before going in for the kill, but a funny thing happens: she falls in love. Actually, it’s kind of a sad thing, and that’s what set this film apart from other romances – the melancholy, a kind of side effect from Stanwyck’s con artist life, that seeps into the film, curdling any sentimentality. I don't think I've seen Stanwyck be less than amazing, and she's probably at the top of her game here; she's totally hypnotic.
To Have and Have Not (1944, Howard Hawks) (v) 55
Innocuous, and while better than the similar Key Largo (far as I know; I turned that film off after a half-hour), I expect better from Hawks. Also, I like Walter Brennan, and I like horseradish; but I don’t slather horseradish on my food, ya dig?
A Chinese Ghost Story (1987, Sui-Tung Ching) (v) 51
Second viewing, or maybe third, and there’s a clue to this movie’s problem. Lots of jumping around, lots of arm-waving and magic spells and tentacles and Evil Dead-style shenanigans (all of which is nudged on by the restless editing), but otherwise, kinda like eating a tub of Cool Whip. There’s a good bit with the protagonist hiding in a bath to avoid a powerful demon that can smell humans, and the bearded ghostbusting monk guy is cool, but that’s about it. Made me wanna play Feng Shui, though, so that’s something.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003, Jonathan Mostow) (v) 35
Strike One: the schtickiness (the male stripper, the inflatable boobs, the psychiatrist from the second film), which I find unwelcome in my apocalpytic SF thrillers. When Cameron (tries to) make a joke, it has the sincerity of a high-school nerd trying to fit in with the guys; the jokes in this script are just dumb pandering. (I won’t blame Mostow, since I don’t remember any humor in J.T. Walsh,You Are Missed or OU812.) Strike Two: the CGI, which turns the Terminators into a pair of warring Wile E. Coyotes. The big car chase, the centerpiece, is just godawful in this regard. Remember when action directors could spend their budget money to stage tense car chases with real vehicles and real stunts? That was awesome. Strike Three: the betrayal of Cameron’s message -- you know, No Future But What We Make -- for the sake of sequels (i.e., money). Game over. Hit the showers.
Have you ever tried N64 Zelda or even GameCube Zelda? The N64 game (with Epona, a dancing cactus and Pikachu masks) is truly captivating (I beat it twice) and the GC Zelda (which lets you take other characters' pictures!) is a treat. Oddly, people have some nasty things to say about GC Zelda - the ocean travelling is annoying - but that's like saying that "The Wrong Man" is lesser Hitchcock.
Posted by: Matt at June 28, 2004 11:53 AMIn fact, the N64 Zelda was the first (and until now, only) Zelda game I'd ever played. However, I owned it at a time when I lived with a bunch of hardcore gaming guys, and so I ended up doing what I did a lot at that time: I watched other people play it. (The original Final Fantasy Tactics was oddly riveting from my bystander's POV, and the Resident Evils are always scary.) Once (if) I finish Link to the Past, I may well take another crack at the N64 Zelda. I hadn't realized, until I started playing the SNES version, just how ingrained a lot of the Zelda motifs are; throwing chickens and breaking jars seemed like a weird choice to me in the N64 version, but now I see it's a long-standing tradition.
Posted by: Kza at June 28, 2004 12:44 PM