Nights of Cabiria -- 1957

This was an odd little film in regards to structure and whatnot. It followed a woman who, in the first scene, had her purse stolen and was tossed into the river to drown. She was rescued and the first thing she displayed was a bad attitude. Turns out that Cabiria is (never explicitly stated) a prostitute and she hangs with other prostitutes who live in her area of town and not always in a house. Cabiria is not proud of her life, but she is content with what she has. Through these episodes, we learn about her and what she does want out of life.

It took me a while to figure out what was good about this film because it seemed to drag on for awhile without much of anyhting happening, but this film was all about character and developing this girl of Cabiria. This development was never totally clear until the end when we got a repeat performance of the beginning and our heart gets torn out of our chest. Turns out if you're paying attention, you do care about Cabiria and what happens to her.

Not a 100% satisfying ending, but it leaves you thinking about Cabiria, and what she's going to do next.

National Treasure -- 2004 -- PG-13

This follows a guy who discovers that the Declaration of Independance has a map on the back of it, so he steals it to track down this big treasure hidden in the United States somewhere. They use a series of clues and devices to make their way around a bunch of national monuments to find yet more clues to lead them to their destination and it was way wild and fun to watch. Even found a clue on money.

Bottom line: this movie rocked. It flowed logically from point to point. It was a treasure hunting movie, but it side stepped the boobie traps of using boobie traps (i.e. The Goonies). The leads worked and took the characters from point to point. The pay-off at the end? Wow. I guess it was the thrill of watching them do something exciting with everything that's become so familiar to us. That and the very conception of stealing the Declaration of Independence was wild to watch.

Can I say anything disparaging? Well, yeah, we're talking about me here. The only part that was a little weak was the resolution of the character conflict. The good guys got away too easily. It was cerebral along with the rest of the film, but it was too easy. My opinion. Also, this one had the typical weakness of all treasure hunting films in that competing firms always do everything at exactly the same time to increase the conflict. What are the chances of two groups working to steal the Declaration not only on the same night, but at exactly the same time? What are the chances of these same two groups ending up at Independence Hall at exatly the same time? About the same. If any part was the most disappointing, these sheer coincidences were a bit much.

However, if you haven't seen it, it's definitely worth watching. It was still a lot of fun.

A Nightmare on Elm Street -- 1984 -- R

I decided to watch this classic last night while I was working on something else, and having seen it several times, I probably won't be as objective or clueless as I am in many of my other reviews. I enjoy the random nature of this movie series quite a bit.

Nightmare involves a dream stalker able to kill his victims as they sleep. Quite a frightening prospect since that is when we're at our most defenseless. Nancy's friends start dropping off one by one to this guy, and the adults all think she's losing her mind as she pursues this guy in her dreams. 

This plot is quite intricate for a teen horror film involving not only the teens, but the parents play a huge role in the backstory and the creation of Freddy Krueger. Everything works together as a whole to make the story engaging.

Now, the film isn't perfect, but it does a good job of telling the story completely at the varied pace of a horror film. The characters are fleshed out decently enough to care, but not so well as to connect, a major shortcoming in this film. The focus is Nancy and how she relates to those around her, and she gets the meat of the development along with the second hand development of Krueger. 

One of the weaker points in the film is actually the amateur acting of the lead, Heather Langencamp. Though this was Johnny Depp's first film, his acting chops are clearly superior to Langencamp's, and it's obvious why one has a career still, and the other doesn't. She does a passable job as the movie continues onward, but her earlier scenes are just horrible.

Wes Craven did deliver qute the splatter fest with a host of disturbing effects throughout, along with some good, solid suspense. Though this does rank as an early project of Craven's, he knows what he's doing. 

The film does what it was meant to do, and that is deliver another coming of age tale against the backdrop of a horrific monster movie, while further solidifying the "rules" established by ts predecessors of Halloween and Friday the 13th, and so exalted in Craven's later picture Scream. Classic horror and a must watch for anyone into the genre.

Nanny McPhee -- 2005 -- PG

What can I say about this one? We have a group of seven rowdy children who have run off a total of seventeen nannies at the beginning of the film. Their father goes right back to the nanny agency who turns him down flat. Enter Nanny McPhee, a mysterious "government nanny" who has a knack for knocking the children in line.

With seven children, you basically have two characters: Simon, who is the oldest, and the other six who function as essentially a single character in six parts. For a ninety minute film, it did pretty well working with these kids from a character standpoint. The only one to really stand out was Simon, who was a driving force behind the plot and the kids' actions.

While I understand the division of responsibilities, the only oddity I thought there was had to do with an apparent absolute refusal of the father to ask the maid to keep a general eye on the children until he could get another nanny. Sure, it's not her job, but she had a relationship with the kids, they liked her, and her character didn't seem like the one to refuse such a request. One can chalk it up to his being respectful of her position, but at the same time, desperate times...

This is a fun little film that plays the magic card well, and doesn't try to shove it down our throats. It has a lot of subtlety and some good characters that we can relate to, feel sorry for, and feel good for when we get our Hollywood ending.

Nosferatu -- 1979 -- PG

Despite what the critics may think of this remake of the 1922 classic, to call this film an adaptation of Dracula is an insult to Mr. Stoker's work. I have sort of a two fold review to go into here: one is a criticism on how much of Dracula was actually used; the second is how the film plays by itself.

When it comes to an adapatation (which this most surely is due to the use of names and rough characters), this barely uses the story. It spends a huge amount of time getting to the castle -- an even that in the novel happens almost immediately. Mina is no longer Jonathan Harker's fiancee/wife, but not its Lucy. Renfield goes from Harker's boss to the madman (I've noticed several adaptations dropping characters and swapping roles all over the place). No one except Harker is turned into a Vampire. Van Helsing is a sniveling weenie, and no where close to the authority he was in the novel. The black plague doesn't even exist in the novel; or at least not as overtly as it is here. Lucy does most of the final footwork. What remains is Dracula as a vampire, and Jonathan going to his crib to sign a contract for a house in London. Beyond that are pieces of the original plot, but none of the compelling story that Bram Stoker laid down.

As for this film as a presentation, it was boring. Just like that. The pacing was non-existant. A lot of time was devoted to scenery rather than plot or character. Jonathan Harker supposely rode a horse from London to Eastern Romania. I'm sorry, but my geography tells me that a trip like tht on a single horse is highly improbable, not to mention would give his saddle sores beyond reckoning. He later says the trip took 4 weeks. No wonder his horse was tired.

He decides to walk up the mountain and instead of taking the road, he goes cross country, until the coach that refused to take him before just shows up to take him that last few yards to Dracula's California vacation ho-...er...castle, yeah, that's it. That's what it looked like. A castle. Sure.

Now, what did this trip look like on film? I think we spent a good five to ten minutes watching Jonathan travel. He rode his horse for a while, stopped off in the town to get some exposition...er...rations, and then we spend more time watching him walk. He walks down the road, past a river, across some rocks...it was ready for this part to end. Unfortunately, most of the film consisted of long, long, long scenes just like this where we stare at veritably nothing for long periods of time.

Much of the film was silent, likely due to it bein an adaptation, and since I haven't seen the 1922 version (that's what I was hoping to get when I snagged this one), I'm not sure whether this is intentional to copy the earlier version or, he just didn't want to double up too many scenes (since he shot it in English AND German). Whatever it was, it didn't work. Very little of this film was explained, and a lot of stuff happened that I only (barely) followed because I've read Dracula. Without that knowledge, I would be completely lost in this movie.

Jonathan was originally the hero of this story, but after he was bitten, he took a secondary role shifting the lead role to Lucy, of all people. She decided she needed to destroy the black coffins, and so she entered Dracula's house, and sprinkled what I can only presume is a communion wafer on the dirt in ONE coffin, and then left (again, using my prior knowledge of the Dracula novel which didn't actually do this -- they set the house on fire). She runs into this big celebration of people who feel they're going to die anyway, so they're making the most of their time. I was lost in this whole scene until one of them explained it.

As for the star of the Dracula novel, Dr. Abraham Van Helsing...well, he was a wuss. He whined and complained about doing things scientifically, tried to debunk everything Lucy had seen with Dracula, and generally wandered around doing nothing until he staked Dracula in a useless denouement scene before he's arrested. He was no where near the confident powerhouse he is in the novel or in most adaptations.

The climax made a little bit of sense, and it was mostly setup in prior expositional scenes. It wasn't a satifying conclusion by any stretch of the imagination, and played off as kind of dumb. Then, we don't even get satisfaction from Jonathan being restored. No, he remains a vampire, and rides off into the distance across a desert (?!), which the camera fixates on for a good minute or two after he disappears in the distance.

Bottom line, whatever his was supposed to be, it didn't make it. Whatever the critics loved about it, I didn't see it. To me, this was a film that tried to capitalize on a previous film's success. It failed in pacing, in plot, and in character. If this is, as the DVD case suggests, "the definitive version of the Dracula legend as will as one of the most extraordinarily haunting films ever made," then making an extraordinary film must be quite an easy mark to hit, and Bram Stoker is rolling in his grave.

Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror -- 1922

Ok, here's the silent version of that Nosferatu film I wanted to watch when I got the 1979 version that wasn't so good. Now I've seen it, and I guess I've got another one under my belt. Though I understand why people revere this film as a historical icon (first major horror film; though others came before it), when judged on its own merits, it really misses here and there.

The pacing here was better than the newer version, but it still was quite slow is several areas. Some attribute this to being a silent film, but I don't think so. Neither Metropolis nor Intolerance had this issue of super-slowness (ok, I never finished Intolerance, but I watched some of it, and it didn't have pacing problems), so it isn't the silent aspect of the movie that does this, nor is it the film's age (Intolerance is 6 years older). Pacing is a universal medium within storytelling, and this goes back to the stage which is centuries older. And don't throw the suspense card at me either -- this wasn't suspenseful, it was slow.

Ok, anyway. As a Dracula adaptation, loose is a term that fits rather aptly, but really fails to begin to capture or describe how un-adapted the film is from its source. It uses some elements but has enough of its own that the movie is not Dracula by any means at all. It has a Transylvanian vampire in it; that's about it.

Plotwise, it's really strange. We still have the realtor going to Transylvania to sell a house to a count, but it makes the dramatic mistake of shifting the role of the lead from Hutter to his wife right before the end of the film so that she is the one who makes the dramatic decision to save the world as opposed to Hutter himself, who started out as the lead. Renfield's counterpart, Knock, has more of a role here, but still serves as mostly a throwaway character.

Of course, we have the silent-movie-running-chase-scene. It wouldn't be a silent movie without it. Sorry, I had to laugh at this, because nearly every silent film I've ever seen has this scene where someone is chased through the streets by a large mob of people wanting to kill (or apprehend) them. It's like an obligatory addition. Anyway...

From a freakish point of view, they did do a good job with Count Orlock (aka Dracula). His features were very pointed and he looked creepy. I wouldn't want to run into him in a bright alley, much less a darkened one, so he was really the high point of the film, and the aspect that is not only the most memorable, but served to elevate this film to the status it has. His image is the one that stays with you; everyone else is forgetful.

From a character point of view, they did a fair job keeping everyone straight. I knew who everyone was throughout, and though I did have the same problem with the Van Helsing character (Professor Bulwer here) being completely ineffective and "throwawayable", that's more of an adaptation complaint than anything else. He popped in at the end and we really had no idea who he was.

It's a piece of cinematic history which makes it kind of worth viewing to see what all the fuss is about, but as a standalone piece, there are several films of that time period that are far superior.

Napolean Dynamite -- 2004 -- PG

"He's out to prove that he's got nothing to prove." I was warned prior to watching this one that it was a film about nothing, and not being a fan of Seinfeld, I feared going into something about nothing. Sure enough, it was mostly about nothing, but it was also an amusing journey getting nothing.

The basic plot involves a kid named Napolean Dynamite (big surprise) who struggles to get through life (mainly high school) given his wacky surroundings. He runs across a variety of different characters including his business-minded yet trapped in the past uncle, his chat room-obsessed brother, a quiet hispanic kid who wants to be class president, and a girl who runs a glamour studio out of her house to make money for college (to name a few). Scenes showing us the various aspects of these characters are strung together in chronological order showing us how they develop as the story unfolds while showing each character's individual plot. The primary plots Napolean gets a piece of are: the rise and fall of his uncle's door to door sales business(es); the hispanic kid, Pedro, running for class president; Napolean's brother, Kip, carrying on a relationship with a mysterious girl he met in a chat room; a slow-burning fuse of a relationship between Napolean and Deb; and the antics and interactions of Napolean's home life between himself, Kip, and their uncle.

The movie is a comic drama meaning that the plot is driven by the characters and their relationships with each other and their environment. Napolean is the central character connecting all of these things together in a loose fashion, and while the movie is amusing in a variety of moments, it's also a ton of relatively short scenes, which serves to drag the movie's pacing way down. By the time you hit 30 minutes, it feels like a lot longer and you're still wondering where all this is going, and if it's going anywhere at all.

That's really the only real weakness here. The characters are fairly well drawn and consistent. The situations are routinely funny in their content and execution. Everything unfolds very logically, and parts of it are a lot of fun to watch. I think if the scenes were a little less deadpan in their delivery, it might have been a bit more exciting, but this is like watching a movie with Ben Stein's relatives. Occasionally, there is a moment of upbeatness from someone, but not that often.

It works out to be a mixed bag of a movie; one that you want to keep watching to see what happens next while checking your watch to see when ninety minutes are finally up. It is a little different from the norm, but it needed to draw us in a little more so we could handle the pacing a little better.

A Night To Remember -- 1958

Titanic is one of those subjects that people tend to get swept up in, no matter who they are. Most people these days know well the 1997 version of the disaster by James Cameron, but who consider themselves true fans of the disaster (can you be a fan of a disaster?) prefer this film over its modern counterpart. Why? Well, I can give you the reason they'll give, and then what is likely the more accurate reason they'd never admit to.

They will tell you that they prefer this 1958 version of Titanic because it is a pure factual retelling free of the distractions of fictional subplots. It allows you to focus on what really happened without the attachment to several characters who were never there. And indeed, this movie was soon enough after it happened that they were able to get several first hand accounts of that night, so from that perspective, the film worked very well.

The primary, unspoken reason is that this film is considered the "original" version of the story, and it is considered very fashionable to like something that few other people know about. They tend to not only claim preference over this version, but voice hatred over the 1997 version. Really, hatred? It makes them feels smarter and of a higher status to have viewed this version of the events since it gives them a social edge in certain circles.

Here's what I can tell you about this film based on what I've learned over the years about Titanic and what really happened. Both films actually have something worthwhile to offer in telling the story. This film clearly had White Star execs hanging over it the whole time to make sure the story that was told was the one THEY wanted told. It was based on a book that likely was also overseen by the White Star Line to dispell whatever they wanted dispelled about what was done and what wasn't. The major factual differences between the films have to do with stuff that the company did not want the general public to know about, but that survivors claimed had happened.

For instance...the biggest difference: the state of Titanic when she went down. White Star maintained that Titanic went down in one piece. This is what was portrayed in A Night to Remember. However, when the site was finally viewed, they found that Titanic broke in half before she sank. This was consistent with survivors' stories that were stifled by White Star. Also, in this movie, the life boats were nearly full. Not completely, but nearly. In the 97 version, a point was made that they weren't filling the boats anywhere close to capacity.

So how does this work actually work in the opinion of this avid movie watcher? Very, very well. They do stick to the basic facts and make tableaus out of the various people. Some of the stories when Titanic goes down are extremely emotional and heartbreaking, which is the point. It is a disturbing feature to watch and more so when you know that it really happened very much as you see it. If you don't feel like marching over to the California and hitting someone, you weren't paying attention.

There's honestly not much to say about it. It was well done, and clearly had a lot of backing and voices into making a good film out of it. If you enjoy the stories of Titanic, this one is a must see. When the facts are taken into consideration between this film and the 1997 version, you honestly get a very complete picture of what went on that night on 1912.

No Country For Old Men -- 2007 -- R

The Coen brothers. It brings up an image of Blood Simple and Fargo for me; two films that I felt were very, very good. This one won some Oscars, got nominated for a slew of things, and was just touted as the best film ever. I disagree. Here's why.

The short version is that the movie first, expects you to believe a series of events that just don't make sense to me. Are they remotly conceivable? I guess, but really feel like they're done for plot's sake. Then, for the ending, we're taken completely out of the original story to tie up some loose ends in a way that just doesn't make any sense either and I, frankly, get lost in. Details? Naturally. I don't complain without them.

To start with, it's setup all right. A hunter is out shooting a buck when he fires and they scatter. When he tracks them down, he discovers, instead, a dog limping away from something. Naturally and understandaly curious, he turns back to see what happened. It's a slaughter. 

Bodies all over the place around trucks, both left for dead. No survivors...except one who wants water. Our hunter has no water, and looks around to see what else there is. He finds a truck full of drugs, and a dead man under a tree, some distance away. He goes there and finds himself a bag loaded with money...we learn it's two million dollars.

Ok, he takes it...obviously.He goes home with it, and hides the bag under his run down trailer where he lives with his wife. To note, he appears to be Mexican, and she's quite white, so the commentary there about her mother disagreeing with their union is understood easily. Then, we lose our belief. In the middle of the night, he is suddenly guilty over the water guy. He fills up a gallon jug and goes back out there.

Sorry, a truck bed full of drugs and a two million dollar booty doesn't go missed for long, and he should thank his lucky stars he wasn't caught before. Naturally, he's caught now, and barely escapes with his life but without his truck. Now, they can find his house, so he tells his wife to go to mom's, and he runs ith the money.

He hides out in a motel, but we learn that the money has a tracking device in it...however, by watching how that plays out, the tracker apparently only has a range of maybe a quarter to a half a mile at the most. This means that he's gone many miles away, no where near his home, and the bad guy finds him? What?! And then, to top that off, he gets into the wrong hotel room and runs across a bunch of Mexicans with a bunch of guns and he blows them away...but not our hunter. Who the heck are these other guys? It never says.

So our hunter checks into another hotel in a city, but it never occus to him to consider how he might have been located. While dumb luck is the real key here, he has to go to sleep and wake up later to think of there being a tracking device in the money. He finds it in short order, and then notices the room light next door on (since he's in a hotel with adjoining rooms). I would have dropped the tracker in a drawer and skipped out right then. 

Nope. He turns the light back off and sits on the bed waiting for the inevitable, which happens. Our villain somehow got back in range and found him again. After a brief shoot out, our hunter jumps out the window...and runs back into the hotel (okay, that works...I mean, he could hide in a room in the hotel and never be found, right?), but he runs out a back door, apparently visible from the villain's room since he gets shot at (even though the villain was in a room next to the hunters...on the front side of the hotel).

So the hunter flags down a vehicle and hops in, telling the driver to drive...but our bad guy fires again...shooting the driver. Huh? So our hunter drives the vehicle from the passenger side and on a totally clear road, he manages to lose control and slam into a...parked car. Insert shootout here from which both parties survive.

More stuff and a pointless subplot happens until the wife and her mother are supposed to meet up with them...but mom tells a strange Mexican everything causing the bad guy to beat them to the next hotel and blow our hunter away before anyone gets there. D'oh! And the movie's not over yet. Where's the money? No one knows. Where are the aforementioned drugs? No one has said. 

Instead, we get a conversation between the sheriff on the case and his dad. Then the villain visits the dead hunter's wife (who just buried her mom...no mention of how that happened). Nothing is said of what became of her, but we can suspect she was shot (why not?). Then our villain is driving away from that scene down a peaceful street when BAM! He's side slammed by another car, breaking his arm. Why? I don't know!

So in the end, we get a chatter from the sheriff, who is now retired, telling us about a dream he had about his dad. And then it's over. ?! Wait, it's over? Last time I was surprised by a movie suddenly ending was The Godfather Part II, but at least that one made sense. Maybe I missed the point. I don't know, but we had a plot about a bit of money being chased around, and a sheriff kind of tracking it. Then the sheriff gets complacent about the whole thing, and gives up. Our hunter becomes our sentimental focus of the story, and then he's knocked off and forgotten. The money is a focus, but it gets absconded with and is also gone...we know not where.

Granted, the movie has some decent and even unique characters. Maybe one can argue that it's just a tretise on life where anything can happen, and it sucks anyway, but come on...this is a movie! One of my favorite quotes is, "The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." This is based on a novel, which is fiction, as far as I know, but it makes little sense. Maybe devotees of the novel just loved and understand what happened to the wife's mother. For me, I just note we're at a funeral and I'm going, "Who the heck is Agnes?"

I guess this is just another situation like The French Connection where everyone just loved it, and I just didn't get it. For this movie, while it had good characters, the plot was unbelievable, the situations near impossible, the characters' actions served the plot, and I'm sure they were going for clever dialogue in some scenes, but it just came off as gratuitous. So, for me, it didn't work.

Now, I have had occasion to be in the "wrong place" for certain types of movies, and perhaps I was expecting convention where I got weirdness. Maybe I expected one character as the lead where it was about someone completely different. Or maybe it had the Coen name stamped on it, and they got points for that. I don't know. Maybe someday I'll watch it again and catch all the fabulous and wonderful subtleties that won it the Oscars, but at this time, it's a movie that missed the mark in my book.