Dracula (1931) ***

In honor of Halloween, I decided to watch some of the old, original horror movies, starting with the one that started it all, 1931’s “Dracula.”  Based on the Broadway play adapted from Bram Stoker’s novel, “Dracula” kicked off a highly successful run for Universal Studios as THE horror movie studio of the 1930’s.  The movie was followed by such iconic films as “Frankenstein,” “The Mummy,” and “The Wolf Man,” as well as numerous sequels and monster-mashup films.
“Dracula” begins in Transylvania (part of Romania), home of the eccentric Count Dracula, who lives in a ruined castle, and about whom much is whispered by the locals.  Everyone knows the basics of the legend.  The undead Count sleeps in a coffin by day, emerging by night to suck the blood of mortals.  He can turn into a bat or a wolf.  He can be repelled by a crucifix or wolfsbane (no mention of garlic), but only killed by a wooden stake through the heart.
A lawyer named Renfield has been dispatched from London to assist the count in leasing an old abbey in England.  The film never explains why Dracula wants to move, but one imagines that since everyone in Transylvania knows he is a vampire, he is moving for his own safety, as well as for a fresh source of victims.  In any event, Dracula avails himself not only of Renfield’s legal assistance, but of some of his blood, which turns Renfield into Dracula’s slave.  By the time they arrive in England, Dracula has killed off the ship’s crew.  The hysterical Renfield is sent to an asylum, while the count feasts in the back alleys of London.
Dracula wastes no time in meeting the neighbors, who include Dr. Seward, his daughter Mina, and their family friend, Lucy.  The Count first feeds on Lucy, killing her and turning her into a vampire, then he begins to feed sparingly on Mina, slowly bringing her under his control.  The family turns to Professor Van Helsing, a student of the supernatural, to try to save Mina and free them from the curse of the vampire.
You have to cut “Dracula” some slack, considering that it was made in 1931.  Hollywood was barely out of the silent film era, and in fact some of “Dracula” plays like a silent film.  The sound quality is not perfect.  Neither is the story, which has some sizable holes.  The rubber bats are downright laughable, although a 1931 audience may have been more forgiving of bad special effects.  Nonetheless, as a starting point for a genre, it’s not bad.  Most of the acting is decent for it’s time, and Bela Lugosi set the bar high for smooth, accented, well-dressed vampires.

3 stars out of 5

Friends With Kids (2011) ***

Having kids changes your life.  This well-known fact is fertile ground for comedy, and well-trodden.  “Friends With Kids” doesn’t manage to cover any new ground but it combines “She’s Having a Baby” with “Friends With Benefits” pretty successfully.
Jason (Adam Scott) and Julie (Jennifer Westfeldt) are truly Platonic, best friends, both still single.  As they watch their circle of friends having kids, they worry that when they do manage to find a good mate, everything will be ruined by having children.  Yet, they both want to have a child someday, so what are a couple of hip New Yorkers to do?  They decide to have a kid together and raise it within their Platonic relationship, leaving them each free to pursue true love and romance free of that pressure.
“Friends With Kids” indulges in some of the standard punch-lines of this genre, but the movie manages to work due to the strength of the cast.  Maya Rudolph, Chris O’Dowd, Kristen Wiig, Jon Hamm, and Ed Burns are all as good as you would hope.  Meanwhile, Adam Scott and Jennifer Westfeldt portray their friendship with genuine humanity and sweetness.  I fell for Jenifer Westfeldt in “Kissing Jessica Stein.  She plays pretty much the same character here, and it’s a charming performance.
My only complaint about the film is that it is about thirty minutes too long, and that half-hour almost looks like it is from a different film.  Somewhere towards the end of the movie, the camera work starts to look worse, the musical score gets cheesy, and the story seems to lose track of itself.  It’s as if they either ran out of money or just couldn’t decide how to wind things up.  I suppose this is inexperience showing, as “Friends With Kids” is Jennifer Westfeldt’s directorial debut.  I still recommend the movie, just with moderated expectations.

3 stars.

Matando Cabos (Killing Cabos, 2004) **½

It would be an exaggeration to call this Mexican action-comedy “good.”  It is disjointed, full of stupid actions on the part of the principles, and the comedic tone is often thrown off by gratuitous violence.  “Matando Cabos” is, however, a certain amount of fun.
The titular Sr. Cabos is a psychopathic businessman known for fits of rage and brutality.  In the process of attacking one of his employees, he trips and knocks himself unconscious.  This puts the employee, who happens to be engaged to Sr. Cabos’s daughter, in an awkward situation, especially when he goes for help, returns with his co-worker, and finds his still-unconscious boss inexplicably stripped to his underwear.  There follows a wacky night of capers involving kidnappers, mistaken identities, two unconscious men, and professional wrestlers.   If “Weekend at Bernie’s” had been in Spanish, had two bodies instead of one, and periodically degenerated into graphic violence, it would have been “Matando Cabos.”
Tony Dalton and Kristoff, who play the two leads, play their characters as a couple of goofballs, and are nothing special.  Nor do Ana Claudia Talancon and Rocio Verdejo, the two main actresses, do anything to distinguish themselves other than look good.  It is Joaquin Cosio and Silverio Palacios, who play the wrestlers Mascarita and Tony the Cannibal, who make the movie.  These guys carry themselves with a cool and confidence that makes them the center of every scene.  It actually makes no sense that these two would be willing to spend a night risking their lives for a guy they haven’t talked to in years, but that’s part of what I liked about the characters.  They are the kind of guys that if a friend calls, they will show up, ready for anything.  

2.5 stars out of 5

Chronicle (2012) ***½

“Chronicle” was sort of billed as a super-hero movie, but the characters don’t really go out and fight crime.  It’s more a movie about super-POWERS, specifically telekinesis, which it turns out can be pretty versatile in the right hands.  Three high school guys discover a sinkhole with some kind of glowing asteroid at the bottom.  The film never explains what this is, but after the exposure, the guys start to develop telekinesis, the ability to move objects with thoughts.  There’s no one around to explain what is happening to them or why, but they do a pretty good job teaching themselves to move objects and eventually themselves, allowing them to fly.  Matt (Alex Russell) and Steve (Michael B. Jordan), both popular, well-adjusted teens, realize that they need to establish for themselves some rules about when and where they will use their new skills.  Andrew (Dane Dehaan), Matt’s nerdy cousin, whose life alternates between being abused by his father and being abused by bullies at school, is quicker to master his powers and less interested in limiting his use of them.  The story from there is predictable, but action-packed.
Creators Josh Trank and Max Landis use an interesting conceit to tell this story.  The film starts out like a standard, “BlairWitch”-type found footage movie, with Andrew filming himself and his friends with a camcorder.  As the story progresses, however, it includes footage captured on other cameras from within the story, often cell phones or security cameras.  This allows for a more traditional narrative flow, and it invites one to consider just how much time we spend now under the camera eye.
“Chronicle” also has something to say about abuse and bullying.  Given how much Andrew has suffered at the hands of those stronger than he, it’s no shock that he abuses his power when he is finally given the means to fight back.  One could easily re-imagine this story with Andrew getting his hands on a gun, with the same results.  In either case, the problem isn’t that he gets the means to fight back.  The problem is that he was allowed to suffer so much humiliation, and no one around him thought that they should step up and help him.
As mentioned, once the setup is established, “Chronicle” descends into stock storylines (Think “Carrie“).  Fortunately, the action and performances were good enough to keep me glued to my seat anyway.  It’s easy to see why the film was able to amass a worldwide gross of $123 million on a budget of only $12 million.  Despite rehashing old storylines and concepts, the script and dialogue are smart, and the actors are pretty convincing as high school students.  Once things get rocking, the action is really bad-ass, especially for a pretty low-budget film.

3.5 stars

Cold Comfort Farm (1995) ***

Period comedies about a bunch of English people marrying each other aren’t necessarily my favorite genre, but they do have a certain style.  “Cold Comfort Farm” is no exception.  Kate Beckinsale, in one of her early roles, plays Flora Poste, an over-educated, over-cultured Londoner with tons of looks and intelligence, but little money.  With a good family name, but no estate, she is forced to cast about for relatives to live with.  She decides to seek adventure by accepting an invitation to live with her relatives the Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm, where everyone refers to her as Robert Poste’s child.  Frequent references are made to some great wrong done to Robert Poste, and that perhaps Flora has some claim on the  farm.
Flora has no interest, however, in fighting over a dreary farm.  The Starkadders are grist for her literary ambitions, and she soaks up the oddities of these wacky, rural characters in hopes of someday being the next Jane Austin.  Along the way, she neatly tidies up everyone’s lives, stoking the dreams of some and playing matchmaker for others.
The characters and jokes are, to be sure, ones we have seen before, but “Cold Comfort Farm” is a capably done little comedy.  Besides Kate Beckinsale’s charming self, the film features nice performances by Eileen Atkins, Ian McKellen, and Stephen Fry as a pompous ass.  “Cold Comfort Farm” is the lightest of comedies.  It doesn’t make for much of a narrative meal, but it’s a nice snack.

3 stars out of 5

Barbarella (1968) ***

It’s hard to know what to say about “Barbarella.”  The movie is at once silly, amateurish, campy, and hot.  With sets and special effects from a Dr. Who episode and a plot straight out of a porno film, one has to wonder what the filmmakers thought they were making.  Nonetheless, they got one thing right: They showed as much of Jane Fonda’s body as possible as often as possible.  It turns out if you get that right, you don’t have to worry about the rest.

Fonda plays Barbarella, a space-traveling government agent who gets dispatched to find a missing scientist named Durand Durand (This is where the band got its name.)  Durand had invented a powerful weapon called the positronic ray, and Barbarella is supposed to find him before the weapon falls into the warlike hands of the inhabitants of Tau Ceti.  All of this is explained to Barbarella while she is buck-naked, proving that this movie knows how to get things started!  Barbarella goes to Tau Ceti, meets a lot of people and has sex with some of them.  In the evil city of Sogo, she meets a gorgeous, evil brunette (Anita Pallenberg, who dated three of the Rolling Stones) and gets thrown into a torture device that kills by inducing orgasms, but fear not, Barbarella is up to the challenge!

Fonda doesn’t so much act in “Barbarella” as she wanders from scene to scene and costume to costume with a look of amused tolerance.   Let’s face it, this is the silliest movie ever made, but it sure is easy to look at.  I usually just include one photo per movie here, but I had to go with multiple pics of Jane Fonda in “Barbarella,” because basically that’s what the movie is about: Fonda in various bizarre, skimpy outfits.  “Barbarella” is basically the best porno ever made; they just cut out the actual porno parts.  Everything else is classic porn, from the props to the music to the silly plot setups that lead Barbarella (Fonda) to have sex with one alien guy after another.  I’m convinced that in director Roger Vadim’s basement there are some film cut-outs of seriously hot, full penetration scenes.  They could probably only show the complete version of the movie in Scandinavian countries.

3 stars out of 5

Sin Nombre (2009) ****½

Whatever you may think about illegal immigration, you have to admit that many of the people who manage to sneak into the U.S. to live and work do so against great odds.  “Sin Nombre” (Without Name) is a thoughtful, heartbreaking tale of those challenges.  It’s also a story of the violence wrought by drug gangs in Mexico.  This is not light-hearted fare.
The movie follows the stories of two young people.  Sayra (Paulina Gaitan) lives in a Honduran slum with her grandmother.  Her father long ago emigrated to the U.S., but when he is deported back to Honduras, Sayra is reunited with a father she doesn’t really even know, who wants her to sneak back into the U.S. with him.  Meanwhile, in southern Mexico, we are introduced to Willy (Edgar Flores), known to his fellow gang members as El Casper.  He is part of the Mara Salvatrucha-13 gang, one of the most violent and widespread gangs in the Americas.  Willy’s story for us begins with him helping to recruit a young boy into the gang, a process that involves being beaten by other gang members, then having to help murder a member of a rival gang.  Willy is no hero; he is basically comfortable with these brutal aspects of gang life.  He has a secret, however, a girlfriend from a middle-class neighborhood.  Martha Marlene (Diana Garcia) is aware of Willy’s gang affiliation, but has no idea what that really entails, and Willy works to keep her separate from that part of his life.  For a member of the Maras, however, there is no life outside the gang, and Willy’s gang-brethren brutally remind him of that reality.  Willy leaves the gang and gives them plenty of reason to want him dead, making his flight across Mexico a journey through a minefield of local Mara groups who are all on the lookout for him.
Sayra, meanwhile, hikes across Honduras, Guatemala, and into Mexico with her father and uncle.  There they hop a northbound train, which speeds up the travel but exposes them to abuse from Mexican locals and extreme victimization from gang members.  Ultimately, Sayra and Willy’s paths cross, and they wind up trying to help each other reach the U.S. border.
In theme and in tone, “Sin Nombre” reminds me of another award-winning Spanish-language film from 2004 called “Maria Full of Grace.”  This movie has that same heartbreaking motif of an innocent (Sayra) being completely surrounded by evil, but managing to maintain some hope.  Yet it is the story of Willy that is most gutting.  His character is completely without hope.  He grew up knowing only the brutal world of the Maras, and now he knows only that he doesn’t want that world anymore.  He does his best to help Sayra while he waits for death to find him.  We get a feel for how Willy became what he is through the tragic story of Smiley, the kid Willy recruits into the Maras.
If “Sin Nombre” sounds like dark material, it is.  This is not a movie for those who don’t like to see violence in films, and in truth, the violence in this film is of a kind that no one will want to see.  This is not action-movie violence; it is real, sickening brutality.  For viewers who can handle that, however, “Sin Nombre” is an exceptionally well-told, thought-provoking story.

4.5 stars out of 5

Seres Queridos (Only Human, 2004) ***½

     Leni (Marian Aguilera) and Rafi (Guillermo Toledo) are freshly in love, and since both live in Spain they are unconcerned with the fact that Leni is Jewish and Rafi is Palestinian.  Hell still breaks loose, though, when they visit Leni’s family for the first time.  Things are uncomfortable enough with Leni’s Israeli-army veteran grandfather, her controlling mother, her horny sister, and her newly religious brother, but when an accident occurs, things really get out of control.
A Spanish, screwball comedy about the Arab-Israeli conflict sounds like a long shot, but “Only Human” makes it work.  The comedic cast keeps the outrageous story crackling along.  Guillermo Toledo is especially good in his straight-man role, and it is with him that we identify as we bump along from one crazy situation to the next.  He reminds me of Ben Stiller in “Meet the Parents.”  The message of the movie, “Love conquers all,” isn’t exactly groundbreaking, and I don’t think any light is ultimately shed on the Arab-Israeli conflict, but it’s a fun time.

3.5 stars out of 5

Thor (2011) ***

Of all the superhero movies to watch, you would have to figure this would be, hands down, the dumbest one; and you would be right.  It really is a story about Thor, Norse thunder god and son of Odin, coming down to earth to meet some girls, have a little R&R, and save the planet.  And yet, the film actually kind of works.
At least half the movie takes place on other planets or dimensions, in Asgard, the home of the Norse gods, and Jotunheim, home of the frost giants.  You have to hand it to the filmmakers; they really don’t skimp on the Norse mythology.  They detail the epic war between the gods and the giants, and the uneasy peace that follows.  Then Thor (Chris Hemsworth), foolishly breaks that peace, setting the stage for another war.  Odin is so angry at the vain, impulsive Thor’s folly that he casts him down to earth and wedges his hammer in a rock, with an incantation that Thor won’t be able to retrieve it until he becomes worthy.
Now you might think Thor would speak Swedish or Norwegian, but conveniently he is fluent in English, which works out well when he makes landfall in the western U.S. and gets picked up by cute girls.  Natalie Portman and Kat Dennings are the least convincing scientific researchers ever.  They are both good actresses, but they make no sense in this movie.
Fortunately, none of that matters, because the movie is all about Thor, Odin (Anthony Hopkins), Loki (Tom Hiddleston), and Thor’s Asgardian entourage, and they all kick ass.  In fact, “Thor” is actually two movies squished together.  The longer, dominate one is full of gods and ice monsters who all take themselves way too seriously, but are still kind of awesome.  The second movie, where some earthlings are in peril, is smaller, lamer, and really kind of insignificant.  The only notable aspect of this second movie is that it introduces a government agency called S.H.I.E.L.D., which presumably will play a role in later comic-book movies, including “The Avengers,” which I haven’t seen yet.  (They even give us a peek at Jeremy Renner as the bow-and-arrow toting Hawkeye.)
Make no mistake, “Thor” is as dumb as they come.  The movie has no deeper subtext, and this is not a cult classic.  Still, all the major players give the impression of having a splendid time, and despite my doubts, I had a pretty good time, too.

3 stars out of 5

Bullitt (1968) ****½

If you want to know why Steve McQueen is STEVE MCQUEEN, this cop thriller  is a good place to start.  As Detective Frank Bullitt, McQueen is as cool as they come.  Men want to be him; women want to have him; and no one wants to get on his bad side.
Bullitt is a San Francisco cop who is tasked with protecting a Mob witness so the  guy can testify.  Despite the protection, Mob hit-men manage to get to the guy.  With egg on his face, Bullitt sets out to catch the hit-men.  The search culminates in an iconic movie car chase through the hilly streets of San Francisco, with Bullitt in his Ford Mustang pursuing the hit-men in their Dodge Charger.  The famous scene is long, heart-pounding, and thrilling, with the cars reportedly topping 100 mph at times.  It has become a piece of muscle-car history.
The only weak point in the film is Jacqueline Bisset, as Bullitt’s wife.  If she just walked around wearing nothing but a button-down shirt, it would have been fine, but the problems start when she opens her mouth.  Her beauty doesn’t compensate for her poor acting, and the film tends to grind to a halt during her scenes.  Fortunately, the rest of the film is captivating, an engrossing piece of action-noir.  Besides that car chase, there is a great foot chase through the airport tarmac.  “Bullitt” also works well as a police procedural, as Bullitt methodically retraces his murdered witness’s tracks to solve the case.
“Bullitt” tries, in a clumsy way, to get philosophical.  The film’s noir edge comes from the fact that Bullitt is completely surrounded by evil in various forms.  From the Mob hit-men to the low-life witness to a sleazy politician, there is no one to root for but Frank Bullitt.  In one scene, Bullitt’s wife berates him for becoming as cold and callous as the world in which he works, but the scene is clunky due to Jacqueline Bisset’s acting.  The theme is better handled obliquely in the rest of the movie, as at the end, when Bullitt washes his face and looks in the mirror, probably wondering if he can ever feel clean again.

4.5 stars out of 5