White Christmas

From the very first frame, a color palate of red, green, and white (with eventually a consistent dash of blue) set the audience for certain amount of holiday cheer. Seriously, there is some well-done color here. Most films directed by Michael Curtiz that you might think of off the top your head--Casablanca, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Angels with Dirty Faces, Mildred Pierce--have cinematography that is sharp and dark. But sometimes, like in The Adventures of Robin Hood, there is such bright color, and here, the cinematography of Loyal Griggs made with Vista Vision and Technicolor loudly visualizes the awesome costumes by Edith Head. There are few other films I can think of that have this kind of color. This reason alone might be good enough to watch the 1954 holiday film White Christmas.

There is a pretty good cast in this Christmas classic, perhaps more memorable than the cast of the film that more or less was its spiritual predecessor: Holiday Inn. Both feature Bing Crosby in the lead at one point singing the immortal song "White Christmas," as well as a hotel trying unique ways to get guests for the holidays (or in this case, just the big one in December). The comic relief of Fred Astaire is instead provided effectively by Danny Kaye, and there's more comedy from Mary Wickes, playing the hotel's feisty housekeeper. But this is a movie that tries to tug emotionally not simply with humor. Case in point is the movie's opening scene, where it gets its famous song out of the way pretty quickly. It's 1944 in Europe as American army men are taking a Christmas break watching a vaudeville show by Crosby and Kaye's characters. After a more upbeat number, Crosby sings "White Christmas," the song that won an Oscar for Holiday Inn. The men are moved. From a personal perspective, being away from home in the desert heart of Islam in a country where Christmas is illegal, as I have for the past five years, has really made the song, a favorite of mine, far more poignant. However, my complaints have no merit when one thinks of the reality of wartime soldiers in any country being away from home during a time meant for celebrating being home with one's family. The film only requires Crosby's exceptional voice and the soldiers sadly staring at the ground to provide a really effective opening. From there, though, it's not exactly the most memorable of classic holiday films, but it's an enjoyable one nevertheless.

Crosby and Kaye become Wallace and Davis, post-war hits, topping radio and awing their audiences. But despite their success, Crosby is miserable, unhappy, and lonely, according to Kaye, or at least "happy for the wrong reasons." They are in a business where the women they meet are young and ambitious, so Wallace (Crosby) is not opposed to the idea of settling down necessarily but is more or less convinced that he won't find the love of his life anytime soon. Davis (Kaye), however, is adamant that they try. The two go to see a sister act, and (despite genuinely looking for talent) they meet the Haynes sisters (Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen), and there is immediate chemistry, though less so with Betty (Clooney) and Wallace. Betty thinks Wallace is cynical for believing that everyone has an angle in virtually every decision they make. This disagreement is a major impetus for trouble between the two later in the film.

I mentioned that the rest of the film isn't exactly memorable, and it's true. What will likely stick out in your mind after watching it is the following: the quasi-drag number Wallace and Davis provide, a moment where the two really seem to be having a riotously fun time; the practically angelic dance between Vera-Ellen and Kaye in which they virtually fly over water; the musical number "Snow" the four of them sing on the train, which is basically the only non-"White Christmas" song that could stick in your head; and finally, the really endearing performance by Dean Jagger, who plays the army general Wallace and Davis fought under and who owns the hotel the four leads end up in. The Vermont hotel is struggling to get guests in, especially with the lack of snow in December. He's poured just about everything into the hotel, and yet business is slow. Wallace and Davis are determined to help him out by bringing in a number of terrific musical performances to his hotel to attract customers. Here, the movie is similar to Singin' in the Rain whereby the numbers have no relevance in advancing the plot but are still quite fun to watch. And also, Jagger's performance as the fatherly retired general is the one performance that really will send shivers down your spine.

Vera-Ellen in particular is marvelous to watch dance, and it becomes obvious that the other three--even Kaye--cannot keep up with her. The dancer John Brascia may not have any lines, but he is the only one who can come close to match her dancing skills, and keep an eye out for the handsome George Chakiris making a brief pre-stardom appearance as one of the dancers in an act with Clooney. Vera-Ellen's great dancing is matched by the wonderful singing of Clooney, the charisma of Kaye, and the voice of Crosby. Most folks don't particularly like the sound of their own voice when they hear it, but how could this possibly be for Crosby with that nearly perfect bass-baritone voice of his?

Still, there's almost nothing worth remembering in the third act beyond the final fifteen minutes when it suddenly becomes a Christmas movie, though Clooney's "Love, You Didn't Do Right By Me" scene is iconic, or at least it should be. Is White Christmas the best Christmas movie? No. Is it better than Holiday Inn? No. Is it satisfactory for the holiday season. Absolutely.

Merry Christmas.
  

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Star Wars: The Force Awakens

There has been an awakening...have you felt it? Those words, terrifyingly spoken by a character we know now to be Snoke, were the introductory lines we heard right after Thanksgiving 2014 in the first of three terrific trailers for the first Star Wars film in a decade (not including the not-so-well-received animated film from 2008) and the one featuring most of the original stars since 1983. Fans have indeed felt it: Episode VII made more than $14 million dollars alone in its first day of release, and it will undoubtedly be the film of the year in that sense. But does it deservedly rank as the single greatest Star Wars film ever, as Rotten Tomatoes claims? That's a bit more complicated.

By now many fans know that producer Kathleen Kennedy, George Lucas' hand-picked choice to lead Lucasfilm in the post-Lucas era, convinced J. J Abrams, the man who helped reboot the Star Trek franchise and who initially turned down the chance to direct The Force Awakens, to direct it when she asked him, "Who is Luke Skywalker?" Luke (Mark Hamill) does appear, as does his sister Leia (Carrie Fisher), but of the three original stars, Han Solo (Harrison Ford) appears the most (and receives top billing), but even he takes a bit of a back seat to the three newer protagonists: Rey, Finn, and Poe Dameron. So the makers deserve enormous credit for bringing back the original three plus, Anthony Daniels as C-3PO and Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca, but also credibility for assembling an incredible list of some of the most talented newer actors: John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Daisy Ridley (in her film debut as Rey, the lead), Lupita Nyong'o, Gwendoline Christie, Domhnall Gleeson, Adam Driver, and Andy Serkis. Filling out the acting list is Swedish legend Max von Sydow and Abrams' frequent collaborator Simon Pegg. Even if The Force Awakens were a bad movie, it would be worth seeing it simply to see all these actors.

The Force Awakens takes place decades after the Empire fell in The Return of the Jedi. Out of the Empire's ashes comes the First Order, an authoritarian government in conflict with the Republic and its only Jedi, Luke Skywalker. Skywalker, however, goes into a bit of a depression after a particularly tragic failure and goes into a self-imposed exile. Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) is sent on a mission to retrieve part of a map to Skywalker but is hunted by the First Order's Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), a Darth Vader "fan-boy", and General Hux (Dumhnall Gleeson), two sort of sibling rivals for the love and attention of the mysterious Dark Side leader Snoke (Andy Serkis). In a powerful opening sequence, Stormtrooper FN-2187 (played by John Boyega and renamed Finn) goes into a Saving Private Ryan-style state of shock and has had enough of the First Order's violence. After Kyle Ren captures Poe in an attempt to retrieve the map to hunt down Skywalker, Finn breaks out with Poe and escapes to the desert planet Jakku, where they become separated. Poe's droid BB-8 survives the hunt and finds Rey (Daisy Ridley), a talented scavenger, and eventually Finn, and then the three of them become hunted by the First Order. They escape in the only "piece of junk" ship they can find: the Millennium Falcoln. But it's original owners (you know who) want it back, and sure enough they are successful. As you can see, while this movie contains maybe a bit too many parallels to the original trilogy, it's a complex but not too crowded and complicated story line and an exciting one.  

The author of a Lucas biography, Dale Pollock, is just about the only person who has read the outlines for all nine of Lucas' original stories and has said that this trilogy is the best. But as Vanity Fair reported earlier this year, Disney (the new owner of Lucasfilm) and Kennedy decided to go in a different direction. It would be interesting to see just how different Lucas' version and the final version are, but my hunch is that going back to the genesis of these stories, our original heroes were always meant to be supporting roles in this trilogy. Hamill even hinted at this in an interview with Gene Siskel back in the 80s promoting The Return of the Jedi.

There are a lot of grand moments here. The reunion of Han and Leia, separated and not particularly interested in each other anymore, is a powerful and touching moment, one of the best in the film. But there was one scene in particular that made me fairly angry. It's a scene that is executed with enough gravitas and emotion to be an impressive one, but it's one that left me disturbed and puzzled. That's sort of the basic element of this movie: it's so well-crafted that it's difficult to dislike, but it's not a masterpiece. To use Star Wars vernacular, Abrams has learned much, but he is not a Jedi yet. The Force Awakens may not look as breathtakingly fresh as those first films from 1977-1983, but it still looks like much more painstaking effort was put into it than the films from 1999-2005 were. Still, while The Force Awakens is far superior to The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones, I couldn't help but like Revenge of the Sith better, though I suspect I'm in the minority. But here's one aspect that I think most folks will agree with me: the villains here are not nearly as interesting as Star Wars villains of the past. A Star Wars movie is sometimes as strong as its villains, and whereas the films of old featured Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine, Grand Moff Tarkin, Boba Fett, Jabba the Hutt, Darth Maul, and Count Dooku, the strongest villain here (Kylo Ren) is essentially Vader-light, with his only truly impressive moments being his frightening temper tantrums. The Palpatine-like character is Snoke, in another motion-capture performance by Serkis (who appeared in similarly filmed roles in The Lord of the Rings, King Kong, The Adventures of Tintin, and the Planet of the Apes films). (Serkis' company, The Imaginarium Studios, which focuses on motion-capture film making, has provided consultation for Godzilla, The Avengers: Age of Ultron, and The Force Awakens.) But despite how impressive the technology has looked in some of the movies mentioned, Serkis gives Snoke a menacing voice but a visual that looks dated and not consistent with the tenacity of the rest of the film. While Snoke looks silly, the rest of the film has a look of determination. Abrams and team deliver on their promise to feature more sets, practical effects, make-up design, and puppetry, using what seems to be a limited amount of computer-generated imagery. What CGI that does appear is mostly well-done by Industrial Light & Magic.    

But all in all, there were only three moments in this film that made me completely thrilled: the first time we see Han and Chewie, the first time we see Leia, and the first time we see Luke. Some moments, though, are actually funny, with Boyega, Isaac, and Ford providing most of the humor. Finn enthusiastically hopes to storm the enemy's base with no plan. When confronted by Solo on this lack of preparation, Finn excitedly tells him that they will use the Force. Solo is not impressed. "That's not how the Force works," he grumpily tells him. C-3PO (with a red arm for some reason) and R2D2 appear, but BB-8 does more than a fine job standing in as the new it-droid; he even gives Finn a thumbs up, certifying audiences' love for him with his puppy-dog eyes and WALL-E characteristics. The droid was created by Disney Research to be a practical part of interacting with the actors, and he is part of the unique combination of characters new and old, a combination that got just the right amount. And this movie is a sign that perhaps the times are a-changin', because The Force Awakens is a Star Wars movie with a feminist bent: it's the first time we see a woman fight with a lightsaber, Princess Leia is now General Leia, and there's even a lady Stormtrooper (Captain Phasma, played by Game of Thrones star Gwendoline Christie).

I'm shifting back and forth between criticism and praise, so let me be clear: This is a good movie. Abrams' team (especially the production designers Rick Carter and Darren Gilford, costume designer Michael Kaplan, and creature-shop head Neal Scanlan) have created a Star Wars movie that more or less looks like what a Star Wars movie should look like, shunning the excessive CGI of a decade ago.

But is this the best Star Wars movie ever? No. Is it even the third of fourth best? No to that as well. But by my count, there will be a total of about 20 Star Wars movies (three trilogies plus three stand-alone films to be released within several years, as well as about six spin-offs and specials, including the infamous Holiday Special), so fifth best out of about 20, I assume, ain't bad. Ultimately, if you like Star Wars, you will like The Force Awakens, and I am confident that the next two will be entertaining escapism as well. The Force is strong with this one.        

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Tangerine

Sean Baker has directed a film with an iPhone, a movie that starts with two transgender L.A. prostitutes sharing a doughnut on Christmas Eve. "Merry Christmas, bitch!" is one of the first lines spoken by one of the prostitutes, someone who has just been released from prison. Let's just say that your right-wing uncle would probably be more interested in seeing Spectre and talking about it during yesterday's Thanksgiving dinner, but this new movie by Baker and his team is a superior movie. The movie is called Tangerine (not to be confused with the Estonian-Georgian war production Tangerines from last year, which also is a recommendable film), and there have been increasing calls for it to be nominated at next year's Academy Awards after making its debut at Sundance this winter. (Baker and the two main trans actresses were all nominated for Independent Spirit awards earlier this month.)

These two sex workers, Alexandra (Mya Taylor) and Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez), begin their chat with a revelation that Sin-Dee's boyfriend and pimp Chester (James Ransone) has been cheating on her with a "real fish" (you might need to visit Urban Dictionary if you need help understanding that term). Alexandra tries to calm Sin-Dee down; it's "all about our hustle," she tells her, "and nothing else." Sin-Dee, however, is furious, and begins her day-long Christmas Eve hunt for Chester's "real fish." The story takes us in Act II on three different routes, as Alexandra has had enough of the drama Sin-Dee is partaking in, and the two temporarily go on their separate ways. A third major character makes his way into the story: Razmik (Karren Karagulian), an Armenian immigrant taxi driver, and at first it's not clear how his story is related--he may be Chester, for all we know. Razmik is a family man and appears to be competent at his job, chitchatting with a lady whose dog has just died or making sure a Cherokee man terribly drunk is okay. It eventually becomes evident that Razmik takes time away from his work to cruise; he picks up a (cisgender) worker, and Razmik suddenly is disappointed at what he finds down under. Eventually, though, he gets his release when he meets Alexandra, who calls him a "sight for sore eyes," and they have a quickie while going through a car washer. When Ramik learns that Sin-Dee is back, he gets an immediate crush--the difference in his demeanor when he's at home having Christmas dinner with his family and when he's on the lookout for Sin-Dee is obvious yet subtle.

Taylor and Rodriguez are untrained actors, but they both act better than most of the other (trained) actors involved. Baker has said in interviews that using only phones and not film cameras helped both of them avoid nervousness. Taylor in particular really shines. On the street she is a tough negotiator, and when a transaction goes wrong, she tells her shady customer, "You forgot I have a dick, too." A fight breaks out. What would the inspiration this kind of unique story be? I don't know, but it is engaging nevertheless.

There is an eclectic array of music in the movie, with immediate shifts from classical to hip hop and "Toyland" from the Laurel and Hardy movie Babes in Toyland throughout. The result is that it's practically a musical. Most viewers will probably tell you that (while it may take a while), it's difficult to believe that this is a full-length feature film shot entirely on smartphones. Part of the reason why it looks so good is because of its post-production work; the polluted hues of L.A. are augmented to give the movie a professional look. Boom mics and other audio technology were also used, which probably was the only thing on the street that gave it away that an actual movie was being shot.

Sin-Dee's actions become hard to watch and difficult to justify as she aggressively and violently tracks down Chester's supposed new girlfriend (one of his cisgender prostitutes, played by Mickey O'Hagan); her actions toward Dinah, the new girlfriend, are scenes that become increasingly disturbing, more so due to the fact that those who witness it do nothing to stop it. When it's not disturbing or revealing or funny or dramatic, Tangerine can probably best be described as surreal. Your conservative uncle might lecture you about our "lack of morals" in a movie depicting prostitution, drugs, and such, but Tangerine is a film with an incredibly diverse cast featuring a story about people, some of whom do bad things, but real people (in scenes that are admittedly sometimes hard to buy). Spectre, on the other hand, is a movie celebrating a mass-murdering quasi-rapist. So really, who should be the one doing the explaining? "Tangerine" might be considered unique for the average moviegoer, but it's one you should see: an enjoyable, well-crafted film, all shot on an iPhone.

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7 Days of Halloween: The Hound of the Baskervilles

Mr. Burns of The Simpsons has a simple command to "release the hounds," and it could have its origin in The Hound of the Baskervilles, the 1959 adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's third Sherlock Holmes novel, directed by Terence Fischer, which starts with an aristocrat sending loose his fiendish hounds to attack other human beings. From there, the movie is an aristocratic back-and-forth whodunit featuring a diabolical hound of hell, summoned to forever haunt the Baskervilles family, and of course, it features the most famous English detective in history trying to figure out who--or what--is really causing all this mayhem.

Hugo Baskervilles (David Oxley), a cruel aristocrat, was the Gaston before there was Gaston. This guy is horrifyingly cruel to his servants, one of whom he nearly kills and another (the first servant's daughter) he stabs in the heart, just before he appears to be destroyed by some kind of terrible beast. Fast forward to the early 20th century, where Dr. Mortimer (Francis de Wolff) is reading to Detective Holmes (Peter Cushing) and Dr. Watson (Andre Morell) the spooky legend of the curse, but being men of science, Holmes and Watson are naturally skeptical. They do, however, agree to investigate. It's here where we meet the last of the Baskervilles, Sir Henry, played by the late, great Sir Christopher Lee, who is made up to be more handsome and a lot less grotesque than his previous outings with his friend Cushing at Hammer; his nice suits replace the rotting flesh and attire of Frankenstein's creature.

Because Henry's uncle, Sir Charles, has been killed mysteriously, Sir Henry is summoned from Johannesburg to run Baskervilles Hall in England. He, like his uncle, suffers from a heart problem, and when a tarantula is found in Henry's boot--a tarantula that could easily kill a man with a heart condition, Holmes tells us--Holmes suspects that foul play is involved. What adds to all these characters' angst is that a criminal has escaped from a nearby prison and could be the one engaging in all this mischief. But it could also be Henry's mysterious and angry-looking neighbor (played by Ewen Solon) and/or his Spanish daughter (Marla Lindi). Or it could be Dr. Mortimer, who has received a considerable sum of money from the will of Sir Charles, or it could even be Sir Henry himself who killed his uncle. One way or another, Mr. Holmes does not believe that there is any sort of supernatural "hound of hell" on the loose haunting about, ready to avenge what happened centuries before.

Lee became critical of how gruesome and disturbing horror films have become in recent years, and I can't imagine this adaptation of Doyle's famous story being scary to basically anyone, even in 1959. But that's not the intent, is it? Despite having never read the original novel or seen any of the other numerous adaptations (I have a DVD of the Basil Rathbone version but have never watched it), it's my understanding that this is not a horror story (but maybe I'm wrong). Why should it be scary, despite all the mist and howling our characters periodically hear? Still, as one of them mentions, "there is more evil around us here than I have ever encountered before."

The acting here is decent; Lee portrays Henry as a sympathetic figure, especially considering how helpless he is. Cushing is a joy to watch, as usual. Miles Malleson shows up in a fairly humorous comic relief part as the local bishop (and who, I think, we're at one point supposed to all suspect as being behind all this trouble). Cecil, the Spanish girl, is a somewhat interesting character bitter about being in England but intimately drawn to Henry. There's a hint of class warfare metaphors sprinkled throughout this film, and it really comes into focus during the scenes featuring these two. The reveal at the conclusion is a bit odd and slightly disappointing, but it is a thrilling climax nonetheless. It's better than The Curse of Frankenstein or Horror of Dracula. The Hound of Baskervilles is not perfect--"elementary" might be an appropriate adjective--but it's good fun and very much recommendable.      

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7 Days of Halloween: The Descent

I once went spelunking in rural Pennsylvania when I was in Boy Scouts. I feel very fortunate that the experience was nothing like "The Descent." In my experience, like that of virtually every human in recent human history who has gone caving, the scariest thing is when your guide tells you to turn off your helmet light so that you can see just how dreadfully dark it is under the earth. I might have been as pale as the grotesque creatures featured in "The Descent," the 2006 horror movie directed by Neil Marshall about a spelunking trip gone wrong, but I'm fairly certain there were none of them when I went caving, and if there were, they certainly left us alone.

Forgive me for the digression, but "The Descent" made me think of the recent discovery of homo neladi in a cave in South Africa, and how it has not provided an answer as to how those skeletal remains got there in that secluded cave area. Some think they were deliberately put there as burial grounds, some think they became accidentally trapped there, some think they were deliberately trapped there. Either way, it would be frightening to be trapped there with no way out and such primitive, if any, technology. Just imagine adding dozens of bat people who only make their way to the surface to hunt. That's the situation six British women find themselves in.

The six of them meet in North Carolina for their epic trip. Their leader, Juno (Natalie Mendoza), explains the symptoms they could experience while being down there: claustrophobia, hallucinations, and the like. (It does make one wonder why people do this sort of thing in the first place.) Predictably, the women become trapped and find themselves in the wrong cave. Being lost in the woods, like in "The Blair Witch Project," is scary enough. I can't possibly imagine being lost in a cave. Juno reveals to them that she left the guide book in the car, and they argue and shout for a while. They find caving equipment from a hundred years ago and ancient, possibly pre-history, paintings. Fascinating to see, perhaps, but something else is wrong: not only are they lost, but they are being hunted. Something is clearly down there; some kind of humanoids that make odd echolocation noises to hunt for their food. They are some kind of creatures who've evolved to live in the dark caves. In a movie sense, they're like a hybrid of vampire, zombie, and general monster, biting the neck, eating the body, and hiding in the dark. There's a pit of graves that only further reveals the reality that they are in terrible danger. Like in many other horror movies, they become separated; it becomes fight-or-flight to the extreme.

The caves are a convincing set design at Pinewood Studios by Simon Bowles that make you wonder if they actually filmed it in a cave or not, and there are thunderous trumpets provided by David Julyan's score that heighten the intensity of the scenes. Sam McCurdy's cinematography is also spot-on; occasionally, we are able to see what the characters see in the dark through their hand-held camera, and these are the spookiest moments. Obviously, the makeup effects by Paul Hyett of the creatures are terrific. And there's lots--lots--of blood, an almost "Carrie"-like amount. Despite all these great elements, it doesn't equal a great movie.

The biggest flaw is this: Caves are scary. Being in the dark is scary. Being hunted is scary. Being hunted by those things (whatever they are) is scary. But if your movie, with all those elements, is not scary enough that you need to insert nightmare sequences and characters accidentally bumping into each other, bats and birds flying out, and other formulaic parts, you've done something wrong. Nightmare sequences in horror movies, in my opinion, are usually cheap. They feel almost as if someone has mandated their insertion simply to fill a scare quota. So, too, it is here. The main character, Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) experienced an awful tragedy a year before while white-water rafting when her husband and young child were killed in a car accident. This is a scary enough scenario that nightmare sequences are unnecessary.

That doesn't mean I didn't like "The Descent." I did, and I recommend it. I actually thought it would be far scarier. It oddly brought back memories of my Boy Scout days, but it also made me think that I probably would never go spelunking again. It's a wonder if "The Descent" did for caving what "Psycho" did for showers.  

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7 Days of Halloween: Nosferatu

The first time I saw "Nosferatu," the first adaptation of Bram Stoker's "Dracula," was in high school, and regrettably, it was a DVD of the 1998 "remastering" with an introduction from David Carradine and a soundtrack provided by the metal band Type-O Negative. However, this newest version, released in 2006, is a fine compilation of various surviving German and Czech copies of F.W. Murnau's adaptation, the most famous "Dracula" you might not have heard of. And if you do find yourself hunting for "Nosferatu" this Halloween, go for the 2006 version and listen to James Bernard's score instead of Type-O Negative.

Taking place in 1838, Nosferatu is, as we're told, a word that sounds "like the deathbird calling your name at midnight." The story is meant to be a retelling of a supposed "Great Death" in Wisborg. We meet Hutter, a young lawyer played by Gustav von Vangenheim. (While the overacting universal in virtually all films of the Silent Era is certainly prevalent here, Von Vangenheim is probably the worst offender in this movie.) Hutter is madly in love with his young wife, Ellen (Greta Shroeder), but he must be separated from her for awhile as he attends to a trip into the "land of phantoms" to secure a building purchase of a mysterious count named Orlok (Max Schreck). His trip there will provide the modern-day viewer with views of beautiful German architecture, nature, and a trip down film history lane, as he or she will see an example of pre-color coloring using chemical reactions to create a blue hue for nighttime and sepia for indoors.

Hutter on his travels laughs off the locals' warnings about werewolves in the forests, vampires, and "bad feelings." He journeys on until he reaches Orlok's estate. Here there's another technological antique: Murnau used fast-motion, which was probably quite the novelty in 1922, to show us the entrance of Orlok's hearse. (Francis Ford Coppola understood the neat effect but made it more appealing to an audience in 1992; for the same scene in his adaptation, he simply used slow-motion.) Hutter may be a pretty forgettable character, but Schreck's portrayal of Orlok is probably almost as iconic in cinema as Bela Lugolsi's Dracula. If you don't believe, observe the character of Petyr in the recent comedy-horror mockumentary "What We Do in the Shadows." Instead of the sensual eroticism of Lugosi, Christopher Lee, or Frank Langella, Orlok is a frightening figure of long fingers and ghoulish, exaggerated features: grotesque, large ears and obvious animal-like front teeth. Upon first seeing a picture of Hutter's wife, he remarks how nice her neck looks.

The cinematography of "Nosferatu" by Gunther Krampf and Fritz Arno Wagner may not be as oft-mentioned as that of other Expressionism landmarks like "Metropolis" or "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," but it still influences filmmakers today, as is evidenced by last year's Australian horror film, "The Babadook." "Nosferatu" certainly is not terrifying by today's standards nearly a century later, but it does possess the required traits of spooky tales of wonder: coffins filled with rats, ghostly quiet sea shots, and the fear of disease. Orlok soon makes his way to Wisborg and begins feasting. Unlike the vampire of Stoker's novel, those the vampire bites do not turn into vampires themselves; they simply die (even though we never get an explanation as to why Hutter, who initially thinks he's been bitten by mosquitoes, doesn't).

After the epidemic scenes in the ship, basically right after Orlok rises from the coffin, the movie starts to bore in Act IV and especially so in Act V, where, unlike the previous acts, not much happens. Orlok basically goes on the hunt for Ellen; here we see the famous shadow up the stairs moment. He finds her and is about to feed. What happens next basically concludes the film in an anticlimactic ending, where the only conclusion one could have is that you better hope that vampires aren't fans of wearing watches. Still, "Nosferatu" is pretty much required viewing for film buffs and historians.    

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7 Days of Halloween: 28 Weeks Later

From the very first attack, there seems to be about a thousand things happening simultaneously. But just as with the first film ("28 Days Later"), "28 Weeks Later" dispenses with one complication of these kinds of horror films: these monsters can run, and they are a hell of a lot meaner than any other zombie in any other film or show. And not only that, but they keep the zombie tradition that is ubiquitous in these films: anyone--your partner, your parents, your children--can be infected and turn on you. This might truly be the most horrifying aspect of this horror subgenre.

As the title suggests, it has been 28 weeks since the massive epidemic known as the rage virus decimated England. Most of the infected have died from starvation, and an American-led NATO force is brought in to return the survivors, temporarily house them, and keep them safe. Here we meet a variety of characters: Robert Carlyle, one of those rare actors who has a screen persona and presence that is so remarkable yet ordinary, is a family man who is separated from his children but still has his wife. The two of them are with a group of survivors in the beginning of the movie, and they are quickly attacked and most are infected. He escapes and leaves his wife behind. The ethics and morality of his decision--and whether or not there was something he could actually do to save her--I'm sure are on the minds of viewers as they watch the film. Because of the various changes the father goes through, Carlyle likely was quite enticed at the thought of playing him. He's reunited with his children (Imogen Poots and Mackintosh Muggleton), who were in Spain at the time of the outbreak. Among the other cast members are part of the American forces: Rose Byrne is a medical officer, Harold Perrineau is a helicopter pilot, Jeremy Renner (a year before his Oscar-nominated performance in "The Hurt Locker") is a sniper, and Idris Elba is a hawkish general willing to do anything to contain the situation.

Teenagers aren't always the most responsible people in the world, but it's hard to believe that the teenage daughter would take her younger brother back to their home away from the protected zone (and without notifying their father) simply to find some of their nostalgia items. But that they do. I won't reveal what happens next, but it's pretty much a nasty domino effect, all because of their field trip.

This film will probably satisfy horror fans but it safely relies on the usual tricks. There are nightmares, things that go bump in the night, strobe lights, gore, and a lot of blood. It's far grosser than I remember the first one being, so much so that I had to turn away several times. This is a film that is in love with the color red--it's in practically every scene. In addition to the copious amounts of blood, the emergency lights are red, the boy's hoodie is red, and the Americans order a Code Red to destroy the infected. At times it seems like it's the only hue in the entire palate.

One of the reasons, I suspect, that so many people are turned off from horror movies is how bleek a picture these movies paint of the world. They frequently play to our fears not simply of the dark, of aliens, of ghosts, monsters (real and imaginary) but also our fear of germs, infections, the apocalypse, turmoil, and biochemical warfare, among others. "28 Weeks Later" marries the two, though sometimes when watching the film (which I'm convinced will one day have a sequel), one wonders how necessary some of the imagery is. It's more ambitious than its predecessor and just as dark, but it also becomes a bit boring half-way through despite remaining migraine-inducing. It's a truly gruesome film, at times inconceivable yet spooky nevertheless.

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7 Days of Halloween: Scream

From the beginning of the iconic opening scene featuring Drew Barrymore, "Scream" makes it unconventionally known that it is the Hollywood horror movie so well aware of the tropes of the genre that it doesn't mind totally embracing them. Barrymore appears briefly as a young high school student ready to watch a scary movie one evening when she receives a bizarre call from what could sound like a deeply perverted man. She remains calm and tells him he has the wrong number. "It happens; take it easy," she says before hanging up. The man calls back. "You should never say 'who's there?'" he teases. "Don't you watch scary movies?" He even references "Nightmare on Elm Street," one of director Wes Craven's most recognized horror films before he directed "Scream" in 1996. "The Exorcist," "Basic Instinct," "Psycho" and others are mentioned by characters throughout the movie; this might be the most self-aware film of all time. Craven even makes a practically Hitchcockian cameo by appearing in a split-second cameo as a school janitor, dressed remarkably similar to Freddy Krueger.

It's a spooky intro, even a bit disturbing, but it's not horrifying. But it is bold in its declaration that it's not only willing to show young teenagers get sliced up, but it's even not afraid to show what audience members likely thought would be the main character killed so quickly. Anybody can die at any moment in this movie, even if they're young. As SoHo's lyrics claim in the conclusion song, "Whisper to a Scream," "We are, we are, we are but your children finding away around indecision. We are, we are, we are rather helpless."

Other high schoolers are introduced in this Kevin Williamson-penned story, originally titled "Scary Movie" before wisely being renamed by the Weinsteins. If the audience didn't know who these young stars were in 1996, they probably do by know: Neve Campbell (as the main protagonist), Rose McGowan, Jamie Kennedy, Matthew Lillard, David Arquette. To add more star power, television stars Courtney Cox and Henry Winkler also appear in characters the polar opposite of what they're most famous for. (Instead of being the super cool greaser of youth, Winkler here is a harsh principal who is way too comfortable pointing a pair of scissors at juveniles' faces.) Roger L. Jackson provides the voice of Ghostface, the nickname for the audience of the villain, throughout the four films. Skeet Ulrich is Sidney's (Campbell) boyfriend, and one gets the impression that Craven did everything he could to make him look just like Johnny Depp in "Nightmare on Elm Street," the movie that launched Depp's career.

Craven, who passed away this past September, was criticized in the past for his depiction of violence. When asked about this by Terri Gross in 1980, he discussed not only witnessing the carnage in Vietnam on a nightly basis in front of his TV screen as being sort of a muse for him, but also him shooting a rat as a young boy for fun. "And it took a lot of killing to kill that rat," he said, "and it continued screaming for a long time. I'll tell you, when I was done I was totally drained. I was totally shocked by what--not only what I had done for amusement, but how fiercely that thing struggled to stay alive. And that moment never left me. You know, I never again hunted, never killed. But I remembered how hard just a rat struggled to be alive. And somehow I was able to transfer that to, you know, the thought of any human being--anything, how fiercely we all hang onto life." This is certainly true for the Barrymore character, as she does everything to hang on to life, trying to call out for her parents, returning home, but unable to produce any kind of audible cry. It's nice to know that even if Williamson created a fun slasher whodunit with a bit of dark humor in it, Craven was fluent in the terrible reality of violence and its impact on ourselves.

It's nice that this is a unique horror film that is self-aware, but throughout the movie there's one movie reference after another: "Carrie," "The Silence of the Lambs," and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." In essence, "Scream" is a little too self-aware. Every character has an opinion on these movies and their flaws; there's even a character named Randy (Kennedy) who's so in love with horror movies that he stops the watching of "Halloween" to explain to them that just in case this mysterious slasher shows up, there are certain "rules" to follow. He says, "You can never have sex"; this brings a chorus of boos from his audience. Next, never drink or do drugs. Finally, "never, ever, under any circumstances, say 'I'll be right back.'" Stu (Lillard), the untamed bro, mentions that he's going to grab another beer and asks if Randy wants one; Randy replies yes. "I'll be right back!" is Stu's obnoxious reply, and all the youngsters start howling away.

Campbell basically set herself up to be the scream queen successor to Jamie Lee Curtis, and she does a fine job. Most of the other actors don't do much, but in this type of movie, not much is required of them other than to scream (no pun intended) and look really, really scared.

"Scream" may have its flaws, but it's certainly an engaging whodunit with a twist every five minutes. Everyone's a suspect--even Sidney's father--and in almost 20 years since its release, it's aged pretty well for the most part. I personally get disturbed watching people being sliced up by their fellow human beings, especially when it's young people. And at least now, it's not particularly scary. I do recall seeing "Scream 3" when I was thirteen years old in the cinema and being terrified by it (without having seen either of the first two), but with "Scream," I simply mostly had fun. Like this year's "Trainwreck," it mocks its genre's tropes while warmly embracing them.

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7 Days of Halloween: Star Trek ("Wolf in the Fold")

There's no starship but instead a room that can only be described as a brothel or a strip club featuring yet another scantily clad female, providing another example of how "Star Trek" in some ways was one of television's most sexist shows. Captain Kirk (William Shatner), Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley), and Montgomery Scott (James Doohan) find themselves in a "completely hedonistic society," as Bones claims. But have no fear--it's a fine, foggy night, according to Mr. Scott, and that is an understatement. There actually isn't just fog but a Hammer-like excess of fog, then a scream. Kirk and Bones run to the scene outside the bar and find only Scotty, who had left earlier with the lady, in a terribly panicked state with a knife that has stabbed her a dozen times. Scott cannot remember what happened. The only thing we know for certain is what Bones, as expected, tells his captain, as he does often does in this show: "She's dead, Jim."

This is the introduction to one of the least appreciated episodes of the original "Star Trek" series from the 1960s. "Wolf in the Fold" was written by Robert Bloch, who is most famous for writing Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho"; he also wrote the teleplay for "Catspaw," another horror-inspired episode of the second season of "Star Trek" (and a far weaker episode than "Wolf in the Fold"). It might be considered odd that "Star Trek" took such a departure, but such departures would become somewhat precedent. Despite being a science fiction franchise, some episodes (most famously, perhaps, being "The Trouble With Trebbels") were quite funny, and the films could be compared to westerns ("The Wrath of Khan"), comedy ("The Voyage Home"), political allegories ("The Undiscovered Country"), action (2009's "Star Trek"), and horror ("First Contact").

Kirk, McCoy, and Scott find themselves on the planet Argelius II when the crime happens. John Fiedler (recognizable to today's audiences probably primarily as the voice of Piglet in the "Winnie the Pooh" series and as a juror in "12 Angry Men") appears as an administrator from a neighboring planet (the Argelians are so peaceful that they have never had a need for a police forces), and he serves (at times in harmony and at times in conflict) with Kirk as the principal detective in what soon becomes a great detective story. Soon, the situation deteriorates, as a lieutenant from the Enterprise beamed down to add to the investigation is also killed, and again Scotty is the suspect. The prefect decides to have his wife, a descendant of ancient priestesses, conduct a ritual to find the source of these murders. She grows louder and louder in her cries during the ritual, describing an over-powering, great, monstrous, terrible evil that possesses a potent hatred of women. The lights vanish, and there's another scream. The lights come back on; she's dead, and guess who's holding her dead body?

The episode becomes more and more thrilling and suspenseful, like a great murder mystery, one that these days might be called "old-fashioned." Kirk convinces the Argelians to take everyone back to the ship, where the ship's computers should be able to detect who the murderer really is. Now, our murder mystery horror has become a great courtroom scene, as Kirk questions Scotty and the other suspects. Scotty tells his version of the third murder, that something was in his way as he tried to make his way toward the priestess. Someone? Kirk asks. No. Something.    

Alright, now this is where the article will engage in some spoilers, so if you like "Star Trek," and if you like a good, old-fashioned murder mystery, I encourage you to stop reading and watch the episode. Here we go: Kirk, Spock, and the others believe that the evil spirit the priestess mentioned is none of than a favorite subject of Bloch's: Jack the Ripper. Now we're back in the horror genre, as the evil spirit jumps from being to being, taking over parts of the ship; the spirit feeds on fear, and it will do what it can to frighten the ship's members. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy quickly devise a plan to combat it; one part involves Spock feeding the haunted ship the full amount of Pi to essentially keep it busy, and the other part involves McCoy drugging everyone up. If the evil spirit enters a tranquilized body, McCoy assures his captain that the only danger to the rest of them is that it "might take up knitting" (another example of Bloch's humor).

A note on the sexism: this episode is notorious for it. Jeff Bond writes, "If you're planning on introducing your feminist girlfriend to 'Star Trek,' 'Wolf in the Fold' might not be the best starter episode." Spock makes a shocking remark that "women are more easily and more deeply terrified, generating more sheer horror than the male of the species." I agree with Bond completely, but would only add that if you're dating a feminist, it might not be a good idea to watch "Star Trek" at all with her. Not only do virtually none of the episodes or films pass the Bechdel Test, but James Kirk treats women no better than James Bond does. In another episode in season two, "By Any Other Name," the crew team up to trick superior humanoid conquerors into getting angry (the humanoids' Achilles' Heal). McCoy gives one of them "vitamin supplements" to make him irritable, Spock riles up another in a game of chess, Scotty gets another one terribly drunk, and Kirk, as expected, seduces the final one. Much has been written on Nichelle Nichols' groundbreaking role as Uhuru, but she often was not given much to do other than to inform Kirk of incoming transmissions. "Star Trek" has its flaws, and one of them is its portrayal of women. If you like "Star Trek," you'll have to accept that.

That major flaw aside, "Wolf in the Fold" is, as mentioned, a fun, funny, and surprisingly thrilling and cryptic episode, and a nice one to watch this Halloween season.  

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7 Days of Halloween: Carnival of Souls

"Carnival of Souls" is a horror film with the same production DNA as "The Naked Kiss" from 1964, which was released two years after this Herk Harvey eerie independent horror film. Eerie is a word I worried I would use often in this review, and I can't be blamed: an eerie vibe is constituted throughout the entire film. The opening sequence features a car crash off a bridge and the search for survivors as Gene Moore's constant carnival music from an organ plays in the background. Eerie indeed, but good? I'm not so sure.

"They may never find that car," a man mutters shortly after the accident. Two once-rowdy boys are misleading the police about the cause of the accident; they insist they had nothing to do with it, though we've seen how untrue this really is. Suddenly a woman stumbles about completely shell shocked, but her female companions are nowhere to be found. From here there's no in between; the very next scene involves our survivor, Mary (played by Candace Hilligoss) driving through the night.

"Carnival of Souls" is not the first horror film to be created on a low budget, but it is one that was more or less successful in creating some thrills with such limited money. Last month, on an episode of NPR's "Planet Money" (titled "The Scariest Thing in Hollywood"), the show discussed the somewhat recent phenomenon of funding low-budget horror films (like "Paranormal Activity" and "Insidious") and making huge profits. It's a fairly economical way of looking at movie-making. Director, producer, and writer Herk Harvey, who also appears as the haunting ghoul identified in the credits as "The Man" (I prefer "the Man Who Smiles"), probably did not view "Carnival of Souls" this way, but he could be seen as the godfather of this modern day horror trend, as many American horror films were seen more as silly fun than scarefests back in the 1960s.

If you haven't been to any abandoned and/or haunted park, believe me, they are undeniably spectral, or at least the one that I visited five years ago was. After touring the wonderfully green tea fields of sunny Boseong, I met up with a pal in sunny Busan, the coastal port city in the southern part of South Korea, where we stayed at a youth hostel and woke up to have fish head soup for breakfast before going our separate ways. I took a ferry to the nearby Geoje Island, where I spent the sunny afternoon touring a former camp that housed prisoners during the Korean War. The sun, though, slowly vanished as I made up my way to the forbidden Okpo Land, a low-key abandoned amusement park on the hill where two young girls were killed in the 1990s. The owner disappeared, and the park shut down overnight. I went there in 2010; apparently, a year later, the park was demolished.

Okpo Land might be unsettling, but it has nothing on the utterly abnormal and dilapidated look of the park or carnival Mary sees often in town. The law has forbidden anyone from entering it. The minister at the church where she plays the organ agrees to take her to see it but advises her from entering it. Park or no park, Mary begins to see strange things, like the man who periodically pops up with a grin that could give the Joker a run for his money. A doctor tells her it's all in her head, and so logically this persuades her to go to the maybe-haunted-maybe-not pavilion. As she goes on her own self-guided tour, objects in the park start moving on their own. (Seeing all these faces and flying objects take a long time to really have any effect on Mary.) She later somehow becomes possessed and starts playing a demonic-sounding tune on her organ, summoning the spirits.

The scary stuff here to me is not the shadows or even the Man Who Smiles; it's instead the same elements that have been the scariest parts of movies since the beginning: characters who see things and they're not sure if it's mental illness or not. One way or the other, Mary's peers aren't providing much help. Sometimes no one can see or hear her, and at one point she (in the film's creepiest scene) enters a bus filled with these ghouls, all trying to get her.

This is a movie that hasn't dated as well as "Night of the Living Dead," released six years later, but that doesn't mean its production is bad, per se. But the poor acting and lame screenplay undoubtedly hurt "Carnival of Souls." It's a film that likely was petrifying in 1962, and I think I would have enjoyed it very much back then. Now, not so much. Certainly it has effective makeup and sound effects, and the score augments the thrill. I can appreciate it for what it was back then, but I can also say that you'd be more entertained watching "Night of the Living Dead."
 

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The Best Beach Boys Songs

Having recently written a top Beatles list and with the summer release of "Love and Mercy," a biographical film of Brian Wilson, I was inspired to follow up with my take on the best Beach Boys music.

"Love and Mercy" is the directorial debut of Bill Pohlad, who produced "Brokeback Mountain," "Into the Wild," and "12 Years A Slave." The film stars Paul Dano as Wilson in the mid-1960s as Wilson began using drugs and brought the Beach Boys away from their conventional California surfing music and more towards psychedelic tunes using a variety of unique methods. The end result was the album "Pet Sounds," which "Rolling Stone" magazine claims in the second greatest album of all time, second only to the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." The film flips back and forth from the Dano scenes as he struggles more and more with mental health problems to the mid-1980s, where Wilson is played by John Cusack and under the intense and unethical control of Dr. Eugene Landy, played by Paul Giamatti.

Most of the songs in "Pet Sounds" are among the best of the Beach Boys, and in my opinion, they are as follows:

50. That's Why God Made the Radio
49. Student Demonstration Time
48. Surfin'
47. Sail On, Sailor
46. Do You Remember?
45. The Surfer Moon
44. Carl's Big Chance
43. I Just Wasn't Made for These Times
42. I Can Hear Music
41. Hang On to Your Ego
40. And Then I Kissed Her
39. Disney Girls (1957)
38. Let's Go Away for a While
37. Friends
36. Forever
35. Darlin'
34. 409
33. That's Not Me
32. Be True to Your School
31. Feel Flows
30. The Long Promised Road
29. Wild Honey
28. Little Honda
27. Little Deuce Coupe
26. Cabinessence
25. Shut Down
24. I Know There's an Answer
23. Dance, Dance, Dance
22. Catch a Wave
21. Don't Worry, Baby
20. Kokomo
19. You Still Believe In Me
18. Do You Wanna Dance?
17. I'm Waiting For the Day
16. Surfer Girl
15. Heroes and Villains
14. Do It Again
13. Help Me, Rhonda
12. Surfin' Safari
11. I Get Around
10. Surfin USA
9. Fun, Fun, Fun
8. In My Room
7. Surf's Up
6. Baraba Ann
5. California Girls
4. Sloop John B
3. Good Vibrations
2. Wouldn't It Be Nice
1. God Only Knows

Honorable Mention: Pet Sounds, Getcha Back, All Summer Long, Our Prayer, Gee, You're So Good to Me

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Mission: Impossible -- Rogue Nation

I can remember watching the first "Mission: Impossible" film when I was nine years old all those years ago. In 1996, when that first film was released, Tom Cruise had been one of Hollywood's hottest stars for about a decade, and (the Peter Graves controversy aside) he effortlessly helped established a new American action franchise. The franchise has, for better or worse, survived and is now in its fifth installment, and the newest one, despite its stupid title ("Rogue Nation"), is actually the best one since that first film in 1996.

As a producer of these past five films, Cruise is a much more vital player in the process than practically any other modern-day Hollywood star. His long list of successful hits include "Top Gun," "Born on the Fourth of July," "Rain Man," "Jerry McGuire," "Magnolia," and "Minority Report," but these "Mission: Impossible" films seem to be a truly immense passion for him. He has almost single-handedly picked the director for each of the five films, an eclectic collection consisting of legendary director Brian DePalma, action auteur John Woo, "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" director J.J. Abrams, Pixar animator and director Brad Bird, and Christopher McQuarrie, the Oscar-winning screenwriter who wrote "The Usual Suspects." What other Hollywood star would not only willingly hang off the world's tallest building but top that stunt by opening the newest film hanging out of an airplane as it takes off and ascends into the air? I wouldn't be too surprised if his next act would be to follow in Felix Baumgartner's footsteps and dive from the stratosphere.

Note: These films go too far with all this stunt stuff. "Mission: Impossible II" stuntman Mark Joseph Connolly suffered from permanent pain due to accidents during the filming, and "Mission: Impossible III" stuntman Steven Scott Wheatley sued the production for burns he sustained on the set that covered 60 percent of his body. Perhaps that's why Cruise has done most or all of his own stunts with the latest two.

Cruise's Ethan Hunt is willing to hang on to a plane because he's trying to steal missiles on board from a terrorist organization called the Syndicate. This element of the film is its worst, as the plot not only features a hackneyed adversary for our hero and his friends, but it also seems to lazily embrace practically every spy movie trope there is, including a silly name for the bad guys. But this to some extent also actually pushes the movie to its zenith. In an age where Indiana Jones seems to have retired, America's only answer to the Bond films is "Mission: Impossible." Here, Hunt dresses up in a tuxedo, goes to the Vienna Opera, and fights henchmen twice his size. This cat-and-mouse backstage duel as the music of Giacomo Puccini rings loudly is the movie's true highlight.

Unfortunately, immediately after is where the film gets in over its head as our characters jump from Austria to Morocco, where there's some sort of highly improbable (or, shall we say, impossible) underwater obstacle. Then a car chase, featuring a few humorous moments (particularly from Simon Pegg, returning as Benji), follows, and eventually things improve again.

Hunt is helped and sometimes hindered by British agent Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) whose allegiances are unclear. Hunt at least knows for certain that she's trusted by the Syndicate's leader Solomon Lane (Sean Harris). Harris plays Lane (who on paper is as bland as any cartoon villain) with a bit of ingenuity; he twitches about, never grinning as he salivates over world domination. Lane claims he's not a terrorist. I can't remember why he believes this, and I'm really not sure I care. The content of what he says is not the least bit interesting, but how he says it surely is.

What complicates Hunt's mission is the backroom bureaucracy. Alec Baldwin appears as Alan Hunley, the Director of the CIA, and he's had enough of the lack of protocol of the IMF team, led by William Brandt (Jeremy Renner). The two argue back and forth in front of a closed-door Senate hearing, but Hunley gets his way, and the IMF is to be disbanded, even as Hunt is still overseas hunting the Syndicate. Who cares, right? Plot boring, action good. But beneath the banality is a hint of realpolitik. The MI6 director (played by Simon McBurney) tells Faust that there's no such thing as allies, only common interests. That very much is the case in this story.

Tom Cruise came across very much in a negative light in HBO's Scientology documentary "Going Clear" earlier this year. The public, though, seems to love him more often than they hate him. They will in all likely see the sixth installment, which Cruise recently signed on for, and I'm sure they very much look forward to seeing what stunning stunt he will do next.

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The Greatest Beatles Songs

I've been thinking a lot of the Beatles lately. I'm currently reading an old copy of Hunter Davies' authorized biography of the group just before their breakup, Ringo Starr turned 75 a few months ago, and I glanced through Elvis Costello's article in Rolling Stones magazine this past summer.

And so, I got inspired to listen to all the iconic music of the legendary rock group, and here is my very own list of their greatest songs:

50. Twist and Shout
49. I've Got a Feeling
48. I'm Looking Through You
47. Eleanor Rigby
46. Happiness Is a Warm Gun
45. Penny Lane
44. You've Got to Hide Your Love Away
43. Golden Slumbers
42. The Ballad of John and Yoko
41. She Loves You
40. Helter Skelter
39. Getting Better
38. Girl
37. A Hard Day's Night
36. Get Back
35. Drive My Car
34. I'll Follow the Sun
33. Can't Buy Me Love
32. All My Loving
31. Baby, You're a Rich Man
30. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
29. Carry That Weight
28. Love Me Do
27. Please Please Me
26. Birthday
25. A Day in the Life
24. Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds
23. Strawberry Fields Forever
22. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Hearts
21. Blackbird
20. Back in the USSR
19. When I'm 64
18. Dear Prudence
17. Nowhere Man
16. Michelle
15. Revolution
14. Norwegian Wood
13. Yesterday
12. Octopus's Garden
11. Something
10. I've Just Seen a Face
9. With a Little Help from My Friends
8. Here Comes the Sun
7. Let It Be
6. In My Life
5. I Saw Her Standing There
4. Come Together
3. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
2. All You Need Is Love
1. Hey Jude

Runner-ups: Magical Mystery Tour, And I Love Her, Across the Universe, The End, Two of Us, You Never Give Your Money, Ticket to Ride, Taxman, Yellow Submarine, Hello Goodbye, I Should Have Known, Hold Me Tight, Don't Pass Me By, Real Love, All Together Now, Hey Bulldog

Do you agree? What's your favorite Beatles song?

You can read my review of the 1970 Beatles documentary "Let It Be" here.

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White People

"For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth...And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground."

That's from the Bible's Isaiah, and it's mentioned in the conclusion of Errin Whack's thought-provoking and analytical review of Harper Lee's "Go Set a Watchman," the controversial sequel to her beloved "To Kill a Mockingbird," in which we have all learned that Atticus Finch apparently is a not the progressive civil rights champion as Gregory Peck played him in 1962, but a devout racist in the mold of George Wallace. Lee's novel has received fairly mixed reviews, and the negative ones seem to really focus on the revelation of Atticus' real beliefs and actions on race. Atticus, Lee wants us to believe, is a graven image of a god broken unto the ground of reality, and he probably benefited from white privilege.

White privilege has benefited most whites in this country--racist or not--and the topic is the subject of Pulitzer-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas' contentious documentary for MTV in the mist of troubling race-related events: the Black Lives Matter interruptions of campaign events, killings in Baltimore unseen in 43 years months after the riots related to the death of Michael Brown, and the firing and indictment of University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing, who, if not for the mandatory body cam revealing the truth of the murder of Samuel DuBoise, would still be a cop, and DuBoise's family would have no way to prove that their son was innocent. This is a troubling time in America, especially with regards to race relations. We're told by authority figures on the news and by our family members around the table that rioters are "thugs" while forgetting that riots are what actually pushed society to change, for as Martin Luther King said, "riot is the language of the unheard." America is a nation crumbling under the vicious malice of gun violence, which has killed more Americans since 1968 than the entire amount of Americans killed in every single American war going back to the Revolutionary War (combined); blacks are twice as likely to be killed in gun violence as whites. And the optimists tell us that at least the Millenials will rescue this nation from the hideous reality of modern-day racism. It's fair to say that Dylann Roof, the young man (for lack of a better word) who entered a predominantly black church in South Carolina and shot and killed nine black people, probably did more than anyone to remind us that we Millenials aren't helping. The most recent research finds that Millenials may be less racist than generations before them, but only by about 1-3 percent. Michael Denzel Smith's fascinating article this past March informs us that this isn't necessarily Millenials' fault. Millenials, he believes, are taught from those in older generations to be fluent in the language of so-called colorblindness ("I don't see color") but illiterate in the language of anti-racism. Racism is a system. The government is racist, the law is racist, the education system is racist. We are made to believe that Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 eradicated segregation in schools. The sad reality, as just about any teacher would tell you, is that segregation in schools still very much exists, but now it's simply de facto.

A Canadian recently told me that diversity is not a strength of the United States but a weakness. I don't agree with him, but there has to be a better way of ensuring equality and justice for all in our society. (Incidentally, this Canadian is one of the very few white individuals I know who has experienced--albeit indirectly--racism against him, when he was in South Korea, and an elderly Korean man approached him and his Korean girlfriend and spat on her face.) My formative experiences do not provide me with many examples of being around people of color. The place where I grew up, according to the 2010 census, is 93 percent white. My university has over 17,000 whites but only about 2,000 blacks, and if not for me visiting my mother's urban school, I probably never would have seen a person of color growing up. To say my family didn't have it's fair share of Atticus Finches would be untrue; the night before I left for Korea, my grandmother, whom I adore, warned me that I "better not marry a chink."

I have taught in three different nations outside of the U.S., and in each one I was often the only one who looked like me. I didn't really feel awkward in any of them, I think. Was it because of white privilege? White privilege is a topic that seems to provoke so much rage among white people, and I'm not sure why. I can only think that a young white college student featured in "White People" was correct when she said that most straight white men in this country these days feel like something is being taken away from them. I'm not sure why. Thomas Jefferson had slaves and Andrew Jackson killed Indians, and we won't even remove them from our money!

"White People" is not as eye-opening as Jane Elliott's famous "brown eyes/blue eyes" lessons for her elementary school students, and it's not a documentary that will live forever. But for these difficult times, it's a necessary watch, particularly for young people. Virtually everyone interviewed is a university student, and they seem to agree with Vargas. Vargas first meets Dakota, a Southern gay, white student who chose to go to a predominantly black university. He has dinner with his white friends and black friends, who meet for the first time at the dinner. One of his white friends uses the word "ghetto" in a lackadaisical manner, which almost immediately causes one of Dakota's black friends to break down and cry. I was reminded of when I worked as a waiter at university; we were serving sorority girls at their annual end-of-the-year awards dinner. One superlative was "most ghetto"; I turned my head to my supervisor, a young black woman, whose mouth was hanging open with shock and anger. Words matter, and this is one of the reasons why I think political correctness still has, for the most part, a valid place in our society and its vernacular.

Vargas goes to an Indian reservation, where all the students are Indians and their teachers are almost all white (which is not uncommon in the U.S.). One teacher mentions how he did not give permission for one of his students to leave class to use the restroom. The student's response was to joke: "You stole our land and you won't even let us go to the bathroom," he tells him. Joking aside, the white teachers are concerned. There are obvious lingering resentments about the treatment of Indians by whites over the years, but it made me think of how us white people tend to dismiss the past as past. While I've never taught in an Indian reservation, this part of the documentary reminded me of my student teaching experience in a predominantly white school in which I asked my students if the Cleveland Indians Chief Wahoo image was racist; they profoundly said no.      

Ultimately, the United States is a country that, for some reason, has a problem not only with race, but with talking about it. Vargas meets an 18-year-old woman who tells him of her experience being denied scholarship based on her skin color. The scholarship issue is almost always brought up by those who claim that whites experience discrimination on a similar level to non-whites. But facts are stubborn things: The distribution of private scholarship funding by race as recently as 2007-2008, according to Mark Kantrowitz's analysis, was 65 percent white, 12 percent black, and 8 percent Latino. When confronted with a counterpoint, the young lady originally feels like she is being attacked, but eventually comes around to Vargas' data. This documentary, it seems, would be a great starting point for a discussion with young high school students, and I only wish it had been made before I student taught all those years ago. But ultimately, more is needed than simply an MTV documentary. A conversation is a great first step, but actions speak louder.

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Mad Max: Fury Road

1979 seemed like such a peaceful time. In that universe, Australia didn't seem so hot and sandy, and Max wasn't all that mad. Things have changed so much. In the fourth installment of the "Mad Max" franchise, "Fury Road," Max is indeed very mad, and things are very chaotic. George Miller returns Mad Max to the screen after a thirty-year hiatus. Miller had quite the challenge in revitalizing his famous character: 9/11, Mel Gibson's controversies, and the death of Heath Ledger all stalled the release of a fourth "Mad Max" film. I have to tip my hat to Miller. I was completely bored by his first "Mad Max" film, released in 1979. I'm willing to acknowledge its importance and influence, especially in the action/sci-fi genre, but that doesn't erase my boredom from it. I didn't think that the sequel, "The Road Warrior," was much better. I did, though, enjoy the third film, "Beyond Thunderdome," which I feel is about tied with "Fury Road." These two are good but not great films, in my mind.

The two most recent films in the saga are vastly different. "Beyond Thunderdome" has a fairy tale-like feel, as if Max is the leader of the Lost Boys (and girls). Here in "Fury Road," Max is haunted by illusions of dead people, including children, who believe he could have saved them but failed. Max is a haunted man, and at the beginning of the film he is kidnapped by henchmen to be used as a blood donor for road warriors. The leader of the citadel where Max is taken to is a frightening figure named Immortan Joe. Joe is a complete despot, and he sends his band out to fetch some oil. The team is led by a one-armed lady named Furiosa (played by Charlize Theron), but things go awry when she takes a detour. Joe discovers that Furiosa has taken his five beautiful young wives, one of whom is pregnant with his child, in an attempt to escape to a land of (literally) greener pastures. From here, the movie is a non-stop chase scene, featuring some of the most impressive stunts and visual effects in recent memory. The only problem is that Miller and his team once and a while show little subtlety when more is needed. One scene in particular takes place in a sandstorm and is completely unnecessary; brace yourself for a massive headache. But still, Miller and his team have done a good job with their loaded budget. I firmly believe that there should be a category for stunts at the Academy Awards, and if there were one, "Fury Road" would certainly be nominated and probably would win. The stunt coordinator, Guy Norris, apparently commanded over 150 stunt performers. As for the visual effects, Miller has claimed that 90 percent of the effects were practical ones. Compare that to the dreadful "Avengers: Age of Ultron," in which the performances prance around in front of a green screen while fighting an enemy who's not really there.

In "Fury Road," however, the villain makes quite a show. Hugh Keays-Byrne appeared in the original "Mad Max" as the antagonist. He does here, too, but in a much more frightening performance. His role in the first film was pretty minimalist, and his most recognizable feature probably remains that giant blond maim. Here, he plays a different character, Immortan Joe, and the role is unlike virtually any previous villain we've ever seen. He's pasty white with darkness completely surrounding his eyes; he apparently needs some kind of breathing machine, which is decorated with the teeth of a demonic skull. He has complete control over the people, and showers them only briefly with water for them to fight over. Keays-Byrne does a fine job portraying this tyrant. Nicholas Hoult is one of Joe's warriors who is so much a believer of Joe's propaganda that he's willing to die and ascend to Valhalla. If you know your Norse mythology or at least watch "Vikings," you'll know that the warriors of Scandinavia believed that the toughest and most righteous fighters gained access to Valhalla. Hoult's character, Nux, really wants to die in a glorious battle, but he becomes disillusioned with it all. Hoult is pretty good here, intense and fiery, almost humorously so, and has again demonstrated his ability to play almost any kind of character. It's so radically different from his performances in "About a Boy," "A Single Man," "Warm Bodies," and the "X-Men" movies that he's becoming a young Lon Chaney.

As for the other actors, I was less impressed. The performance of Hardy as Max is something that I had mixed feelings about. By now, Max is so destroyed that I imagine his suffering inspired Hardy to grunt and talk in a manner that likely was frying his vocal chords and probably left his larynx in a lot of pain by the end of the day. Hardy's choices have also revealed a wish to do just about anything, whether it's playing a villain (in "The Dark Knight Rises") or doing essentially a one-man show ("Locke") or appearing in grittier films ("Lawless" and "Warrior"). But it seems it's always his vocal decisions that turn me off of his acting. Similarly, Furiosa is an interesting character, but Theron gives a pretty uninspired performance. But again, it's Mr. Miller and his production team who deserve a lot of credit for helping to tame the love affair the movies have had with CGI. That being said, this doesn't mean that I really think there should be another "Mad Max" movie. 1979-2015 is a pretty long run. Leave Max be.

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The Best Scene in "Casablanca" Involves a Song, But It's Not "As Time Goes By"

I would bet that the scene audiences like most in "Casablanca" is the scene involving the singing of "As Time Goes By." It's a scene many adore and cherish, justifiably so; the American Film Institute even ranked it second in their list of the best songs in American films, second only to "Over the Rainbow." As much as I like that scene, I think there's a better scene in the film involving a song. The scene I'm referring to involves "Le Marseillaise." If you have forgotten about the scene, here's basically the gist of it, as well as my thoughts on why the scene is so wonderful:

Just before the scene begins, Rick (Humphrey Bogart) is revealed to be a "rank sentimentalist" when he helps a young man win loads of money (by cheating in a gambling game) so that he and the young man's lover can escape Casablanca. But Rick is not a sentimentalist; he's a bitter man who's been burned by a lover of his own (Elsa, played by Ingrid Bergman). Rick meets with Victor Lazlo (Paul Heinreid), a freedom fighter against the Nazis, and Elsa's current lover. Lazlo desperately needs help to keep up the fight, and he knows of Rick's reputation for "being on the side of the underdog," helping to fight fascists in Spain and Ethiopia. But Rick politely yet somewhat tersely claims that he's not interested in politics, and that if Lazlo really insists on knowing why he won't help, he should ask his wife. The reason for Rick not wanting to help Lazlo is more than obvious to the viewer, as all of this information has been shown earlier in the film.

The meeting ends, and then "Casablanca" gets even more interesting. Rick and Lazlo's conversation concludes when the Germans arrive in Rick's cafe and proudly sing "Die Wacht am Rein." The camera pans in to Bergman as her eyes follow Lazlo, who approaches the band and orders them to play "Le Marseillaise." They look at Rick; he nods, and then they play. The non-Germans join in, and they are so loud that the Germans cannot match them, no matter how hard they try. It gets a bit overly sentimental here, but Bergman's deep breathing is likely similar to what the audience experiences upon first watching the scene. The Germans, and especially their leader, Major Strasser (Conrad Veidt), are enraged, and Strasser orders Captain Louis Renault (Claude Raines), the Vichy leader, to close the cafe. "But I have no excuse to close it," he insists. "Find one!" is the stern reply. Renault follows his orders. Rick is angry now, too, and demands an explanation, to which Raines replies with one of the many oft-quoted lines in the movie: "I'm shocked--shocked--to find out that gambling is going on here," just before receiving his winnings of the evening.

Why is the scene so good? Much of it is because of Bogart. In the 1960s, in an article for "Esquire," Peter Bogdonavich quoted writer Nathanial Benchley who claimed to have met a Harvard student "who believed in only two things: the superiority of Harvard and the immortality of Humphrey Bogart." In those days, there was a cult of Bogart, and it's sad to realize that today most college students probably have never heard of him. But regardless, Bogart adds weight to the scene, as does the audience's appreciation of the character. As mentioned already, Rick is revealed twice in just the span of a few minutes in "Casablanca" to be a sentimentalist who likes sticking his neck out for the underdog, no matter how loudly he protests that it isn't true.

But beyond the weight he brings as an icon, it's his acting (and his director) that further make the scene excel. David Mamet has a good explanation. In his book "On Directing Film," he authoritatively states that "most actors are, unfortunately, not good actors." The reason? There are many, he claims, but the main reason is that the theater has fallen apart. It used to be, he writes, that actors would have spent their entire acting careers on stage by the time they reached thirty, but not anymore. Bogart started on the stage, earning his share of good and bad reviews. According to Mamet, Bogart claimed that to make the scene work, "Michael Curtiz, the director, said, 'stand on the balcony over there, and when I say action take a beat and nod,'" and that's what Bogart did. Mamet: "That's great acting. Why? What more could he possibly have done? He was required to nod, he nodded. There you have it. The audience is terribly moved by his simply restraint in an emotional situation--and that is the essence of good theater: good theater is people doing extraordinarily moving tasks as simply as possible." Contemporary theater and film, according to Mamet, tend to offer the audience the reverse, in that characters perform predictable actions in an overblown way. Mamet again: "The good actor performs his tasks as simply and as unemotionally as possible. This lets the audience 'get the idea'--just as the juxtaposition of uninflected images in service of a third idea creates the play in the mind of the audience"

It's an exceptional scene in an exceptional film. I've seen "Casablanca" several times, and the scene is by far my favorite (and there are many, many great scenes in the movie). "Casablanca" is probably also a great film to watch as our French friends celebrate Bastille Day. Our two nations have had a strong relationship (with some bumps along the way) since the beginning of our republic, and I hope it stays that way. In the meantime, enjoy "Casablanca" and the continuation of our two nations' beautiful relationship.

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Jurassic World

"I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power you're using here: it didn't require any discipline to maintain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew what you had, you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you're selling it, you want to sell it...your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should!"
-Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm, "Jurassic Park"


I can still remember the day I saw "Jurassic Park" somewhat vividly. It was a hot summer day in 1993, and as I jumped out of our family's car, my mother explained to me that I might find the film to be scary because in the movie "some of the dinosaurs eat other dinosaurs." From the opening moments, I was completely mesmerized, and I probably had no idea that movies were capable of presenting such images. I loved it from start to finish. We left the theater, had lunch, then came back to watch "Free Willy." It remains one of the greatest days of my life. I can't imagine that twenty years from now I will remember watching "Jurassic World," the fourth installment in this franchise, the one where the movie's makers stood on the shoulders of geniuses and were so proud of their ability to make what is now the world's fifth-highest-grossing movie of all time (with $1.4 billion in just one month) and bring back the franchise from the dead. The trouble is that they never stopped to think if they should.

Should they have? I say no, and loudly so. The 1993 film at the time seemed to have ushered in a new age of cinematic wonder, but instead in retrospect closed an era of better movie magic. If you don't believe me, just consider some of the visual effects before 1993 (like "2001: A Space Odyssey" and the original "Star Wars" trilogy) and then consider some of the modern-day ones (like "The Avengers" and the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy). True, there are some directors, like Christopher Nolan and Darren Aronofsky, who seem to take the time to really give their audiences impressive visuals, but Colin Trevorrow is not one of them. Trevorrow directed the mediocre independent film "Safety Not Guaranteed" three years ago, and he does deserve some credit for his work here. He and his cinematographer, John Schwartzman, use a camera that's fairly active, and their decision to use film stock instead of digital cameras was the right one because it creates a better visual link to the previous installments. But unlike Steven Spielberg, the director of the first two "Jurassic" films and the executive producer of the two most recent, Trevorrow is one of the many newer directors working with visual effects who seem to have no restraint. David Christopher Bell's article for "Cracked" explains this in more detail in a brilliant article in which he calls the visual effects of "Jurassic World" and other recent films "photorealistic carnage." He makes a further very important point: except for four minutes of computer-generated imagery of only fourteen minutes of actual dinosaur screen time in "Jurassic Park," every special effect utilized was an animatronic (or puppet or other practical effect) created by Stan Winston. In other words, CGI, itself groundbreaking in 1993, was a last resort and was used to better the visual experience on a case-by-case basis. In "Jurassic World," there was only one scene that I thought was using an animatronic. The scene features two protagonists who discover a butchered dinosaur and feel sorry for it. The audience seemed to share these characters' sympathy, conveniently not carrying that practically a dozen characters were eaten moments earlier.

Part of this wreck is not Trevorrow's fault. There was a profound sense of awe with that first movie, but then with each and every subsequent installment in the franchise, there was less and less. But had Trevorrow and his visual effects team used the same restraint and lack of color grading that was used in 1993, I think "Jurassic World" would have been much better. Its story and actors try to fill the gap. The world of "Jurassic World" is one in which the idea of living, breathing dinosaurs is no longer a novelty but a bore. Jurassic World is an amusement park much like Sea World, featuring roughly 20,000 visitors a day. Irrfan Khan plays the new owner, a billionaire so irresponsible he not only demands his scientists make bigger and meaner dinosaurs but also personally takes a helicopter out to do battle with the dinosaurs wrecking his park. The park's operations director is played by Bryce Dallas Howard, and she, too, is not very responsible, sharing the concerns that closing the park would be the end of the company. Finally, there's Vincent D'Onofrio, who's just as good a villain here as he is on Netflix's "Daredevil." D'Onofrio plays the hawkish security chief who believes that InGen, the corporation featured in most of the films, could use these animals for war purposes.

None of them seem to heed any of the advice of Owen Grady (Chris Pratt), an animal trainer for the park who seems to be one of the few adults in the room. Pratt has continued to show that he can carry a film as an action lead and do so with humor as well. At one point, Grady gets into an argument with Howard's character, Claire Dearing, who needs Grady's help finding her nephews after a dinosaur breaks out. She insists that he track the boys' footprints or scent. "I was with the navy," he barks, "not the Navajo!" But while I could appreciate the humor of Pratt, I found his character's situations so unfathomably stupid. Grady works for the park training the Velociraptors and actually leads them into battle against the Indominus, a genetically-mutated dinosaur that is terrorizing the island (and looks unbelievably stupid). At one point, Grady and Dearing take a moment to break from shooting at the Pterodactyls flying around chewing on their fellow human beings so that they can smooch. I think if the talking raptor from "Jurassic Park III" had made an appearance, it would have been more believable than any of this junk.  

There are still other fine performances here. Omar Sy appears here as a fellow trainer of Grady's; you may have seen Sy in the international French hit, "The Intouchables." It's also interesting to see Wong return, and his role this time is much more interesting that his small appearance in "Jurassic Park." And really, at the heart of this movie are the two boys who are sent to visit their aunt Claire, who is too busy to spend time with them and sends them to explore the park with her assistant. They are played by Ty Simpkins (whom you might recognize from the "Insidious" movies) and Nick Robinson as the older brother, more interested in girls than dinosaurs, and who is particularly annoyed by babysitting his brother. Simpkins in particular is very good here. The two boys become aware that their parents are getting a divorce, and this understandably troubles the younger one. It made me think that Spielberg, whose films often feature a child's relationship to his father, insisted that the moment be included here. But that's another flaw of "Jurassic World": there are some real moments that work well with the human characters, but there are zero interesting moments featuring dinosaurs.

I think back again to that day as a six-year-old in 1993. Children are arguably the best audience members; they possess no prejudice towards movies. It doesn't matter if it's a black-and-white film, or whether or not it's in sound, or whether or not the language is a language they understand and use. To most children, particularly younger ones, "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" can be just as exciting and thrilling as "The Lost World," the 1925 silent adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's work. Certainly the young boy two rows behind me who wouldn't shut up the entire time found "Jurassic World" to be quite good fun. But it's the parents of these children who have a duty to find their young ones better movies to watch. My advice: if you have children, show them "Jurassic Park," and then lie to them and say that there were no sequels.

Dedicated to Carrie and Eileen.

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