Frankenstein

1931’s Frankenstein remains after more than eighty years, one of the most recognisable, influential and respected horror movies of all time. While it may do little for the gore hungry Saw generation, to those of us who appreciate the art of film, it stands up against the test of time and despite numerous subsequent attempts at the iconic story, this version will undoubtedly be the one you have in your head. From the imposing gothic architecture and magnificent use of shadow to the distinctive and now ‘go to’ flat head, Frankenstein is a movie which many of us will know before even seeing it in full.

The plot is taken from Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel of the same name and should be known by anyone with at least one functioning sense. The story and its characters are some of the most iconic and recognisable not only in horror history but also literary history and the tale has been repeated and twisted in everything from Mel Brook’s spoof Young Frankenstein to TV classic The Munsters to the recent animated film Frankenweenie and has influenced countless books, TV shows and movies. This adaptation is relatively faithful version of the timeless original text.

Notorious

Set and made in the months following the end of the Second World War, Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious is an espionage thriller set mainly in Brazil. The film features a more romantic plot than many of the director’s previous films and includes a couple of great performances from its leads Carey Grant and Ingrid Bergman. Alicia Huberman (Bergman) is the daughter of a convicted Nazi spy and is enlisted by her adopted United States to counter spy on Nazi activities in South America. Her handler and government agent T. R. Devlin (Grant) falls for his charge and jealousy ensues when Huberman goes to romantic lengths to infiltrate the Nazi group.

At its best, Notorious matches the tension and drama of any Hitchcock movie but there are large swathes which I found uninteresting. Unlike some of Hitchcock’s best which are tense and exciting from start to finish, Notorious ebbs and flows from extreme brilliance to mere average but overall is a very well made and intriguing film.

Evil Dead II

Released six years after The Evil Dead, the cult hit sequel Evil Dead II sees the hero of the first movie, Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) back at the cabin in the woods with his girlfriend Linda. When a tape recording unleashes evil spirits and his girlfriend is first possessed and then dismembered, Ash is left alone to fight the evil and at times his own body until the daughter of the cabin’s Archaeologist previous inhabitant joins him in the battle against malevolence.

I saw the original Evil Dead for the first time a few weeks ago and loved it. It was intense, gruesome and funny and last week I was also impressed with the remake which while not so funny, was just as intense, much scarier and more gruesome than I could manage. Evil Dead II is different again from its predecessor in that it forgoes a lot of the traditional horror and indeed most of the scares, in favour of creating a hilarious and downright bonkers movie which is entertaining from start to finish.

Rounders

Rounders is a 1998 film set in the world of underground poker featuring early performances from Edward Norton and Matt Damon. Mike McDermott (Damon) is a law student and gifted poker player who loses his entire bankroll on one hand to Russian mobster ‘KGB’ (John Malkovich). After briefly quitting the game to concentrate on his studies under the advice of his girlfriend Jo (Gretchen Mol), Mike gets back into it following the release from prison of his close friend and loose cannon Lester ‘Worm’ Murphy (Norton). With Worm’s debt’s mounting up and Mike mistakenly vouching for him, the pair is given two days to come up with the $15,000 needed to pay the debt but begin with only a few dollars to their names.

I played a bit of poker while at University both with friends and online but was never good enough to play for more than small change. This film has been credited as an influence behind the careers of many professional poker players including World Series Poker winner Brian Rast and one of the game’s foremost sex symbols Vanessa Rousso. Along with many other players, they have both credited the film as being what drew them in to the sport. Pro Poker player Michael Rocco even wrote this piece, heralding the film’s influence over his career.

8½

In my quest for cineliteracy, there are a number of films I’ve had earmarked for viewing for many years. To my great shame as a self confessed cinephile, I’m still yet to see Citizen Cane, Rashamon, Tokyo Story and The Bicycle Thieves amongst many others. Until today, Federico Fellini’s 8½ was also on that list. I bought the film several years ago and have had the DVD on my shelf, staring at me, longing to be watched ever since. With a few hours free this afternoon I ignored the shouts from the various light hearted comedies and action packed Westerns who also begged for a stint in the DVD player, switched on my brain and sat down for what I’d long read was a true visionary masterpiece.

Named 8½ purely based on the number of films the director had previously made (six features and three collaborations which each counted as half), Fellini’s 8½ is a sometimes impregnable film which I found difficult to stay with. The plot, which is more than a little autobiographical, concerns a famous film director, Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni), who is stalled on his latest project due to director’s block. Infatuation and love cause marital problems and producers, agents and stars add to his headache with varying demands. Flashbacks and dream sequences blend seamlessly with the narrative to create an avant-garde but ultimately confusing film which also happens to be one of the most beautiful looking movies I’m yet to see.

Two Days in Paris

Early this year I saw a great little Franco-American comedy called Two Days in New York. That film, a sequel to this, worked well as a stand alone film but we enjoyed it so much that my girlfriend sought out the first movie as well. Julie Delpy writes, directs, edits, composes and stars in what is essentially a study of love. French born but New York residing photographer Marion (Delpy) is on her way back to the States following an unromantic trip to Venice with her neurotic, Woody Allen with tattoos and a beard-esque boyfriend Jack (Adam Goldberg) when they stop off in Paris for a couple of days to pick up a cat and drop in on Marion’s parents. The previously disaster filled Venice trip fades into obscurity when put up against the events of the two days as former lover after former lover reappears in Marion’s home city and Jack becomes ever more jealous and agitated.

I’m a big fan of talkie comedy-dramas featuring socially liberal, middle class people. I love Woody Allen, Wes Anderson and Guillaume Canet, all three, directors who can create snappy, funny, insightful films about relationships in often claustrophobic settings. Delpy has the same talent and despite the spacious city streets of the French capital, the film feels hemmed in and claustrophobic which adds to the sense of sweaty tension. The dialogue is politically smart and socially astute and is snappy in both English and French. It’s incredibly droll and witty and manages to play on stereotypes without succumbing to them. There is also a great understanding of the ebb and flow of a relationship and the hang ups which both sides naturally have.

Iron Man 3

With Iron Man 3 Marvel Studios found themselves in a somewhat precarious situation. Coming off the back of the super hit superhero extravaganza The Avengers, they had a lot to live up to and in a sequel to the poorly received Iron Man 2, they had some damage to undo. Stuck between a team of superhero rocks and an iron suited hard place they’ve managed to pull it out of the bag once more and produce a thoroughly entertaining action movie which is in my view, the best Iron Man movie to date.

Our arrogant, former playboy hero Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) is now settled with his live in girlfriend Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). While Potts manages Stark Enterprises, Stark himself tinkers in his basement on new designs and upgrades for his Iron Man suit. Unwanted flashbacks to the events at the close of The Avengers movie provide a distraction to his work and coupled with insomnia he begins to lose focus on what really matters in the life of Stark, instead focussing on his alter ego. With his dedication to Iron Man reaching addictive levels he finds he needs to focus when a new menace threatens the world in the form of shady terrorist The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) and a small army of indestructible men whom he has at his disposal.

Trading Places

Just a couple of days ago I mentioned in my Beverly Hills Cop review that I hadn’t seen any of Eddie Murphy’s early films. I realised afterwards that this was incorrect as years ago I’d seen an even earlier movie, Trading Places. It just so happened that I’d recorded that very same movie a few weeks ago and watched it again yesterday. Trading Places is a satirical comedy in which two very wealthy commodities brokers mess with the lives of an employee and a homeless man for their own amusement. Their nature vs. nurture argument leads to a bet that they can turn a poor, uneducated black man (Eddie Murphy) into a wealthy broker while simultaneously turning their suave and successful employee (Dan Aykroyd) into a bum who turns to crime.

Despite its liberal message Trading Places is all over the place morally and much of the humour is derived from racist or offensive material. It’s not a particularly funny film in general but is well made and despite the inherent moral problems with the story, the plot is engaging and thought provoking. The film opens with a montage which sites the differences between Philadelphia’s rich and poor. In the inner city kids are seen playing in littered streets and men huddled round burning drums while in more upmarket areas, people are waited on by butlers and enjoy fine cuisine. This difference is then extended to the introduction of the central characters.

Beverly Hills Cop

People of my generation, born in the mid 1980s have a problem when it comes to Eddie Murphy. To many of us born too late to enjoy his 80s heyday the first time around, he’s that annoying guy who pops up every couple of years to play every character in an awful movie. This is a shame because recently I saw a film which changed my opinion of the Spice Girl bothering, fat suit wearing funny man. That film was Beverly Hills Cop. I’d recorded the film when it was on T.V. so long ago that trailers for Django Unchained were running in the ad breaks but don’t know why I did. I can’t ever remember enjoying an Eddie Murphy performance and never expected to. Well, now I have.

Alex Foley (Murphy) is a wisecracking, talented but reckless young cop from Detroit. When his friend is murdered in front of him, against the express orders of his superiors, he tracks the case to Beverly Hills where he begins to investigate the murder while getting under the noses of the Beverly Hills P.D., especially Sergeant John Taggart (John Ashton) and Detective Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold). Slowly Foley uncovers a major smuggling operation and gets his more conservative and by the book colleagues on side as he does so.

Grave of the Fireflies

I’ve only seen a couple of Studio Ghibli films in the past but each has had an interesting and often unique story. Grave of the Fireflies is the least fantastical and most hard hitting film I’ve seen from the studio and it’s probably also the best. Set at the closing stages of the Second World War it details the struggle for survival of two orphaned children called Seita and Setsuko. The movie has an anti war message at its centre but its main themes are of survival and of sibling love. With their father away at war and their mother killed by falling bombs, the young pair are forced to fend for themselves in a Japan which has no use for them. After initially finding a home with a distant aunt, they soon discover that they aren’t wanted and strike out on their own, finding refuge in an abandoned air raid shelter, scavenging and stealing what food they can lay their hands on.

Grave of the Fireflies is a depressing film both for its overarching themes and also for its individual character arcs. Although I’d heard it wasn’t all fun and games, I was still a little shocked by the brutal honesty with which it depicts war and the ending which is far from what you’d expect for what is essentially a young person’s cartoon. Despite the harrowing themes and images, personally I’d be happy to show the film to a bright child of about ten. If it could hold their attention I think that the movie would both interest and educate them and perhaps open their eyes to their species past, informing their decisions in the future.