Vultural

Casino Royale: The Big Picture - Problem Eliminator

Overview - Brilliant reboot of the Bond franchise finds James, not only newly promoted to 00 status, but rather inexplicably, newly promoted in general. As if he is a green, rookie lacking experience, viewed skeptically by all in British intelligence.
Problem Eliminator removes all latter suppositions. Bond may have a new license, but chances are he had been a field agent for years, and his promotion well earned.

Video - 1280 X 546p AVC. Solid editing throughout. Once, perhaps twice, I noticed a longish fade to black transition, but never at a point where it interferes with the tempo or mood. The color correction is nicely handled throughout…

Audio - 352 kbps 2 Channel stereo AAC. No subs. I listened to this using headphones. On a few occasions, the dialogue is difficult (almost exclusively these are exchanges between James and Vesper). Generally, the sound is excellent. I did not notice the opening song remix until I reread the editor’s comments after viewing.

Narrative - No complaints here. The story is faithful, despite bits excised here and there. The only sequence I dislike remains the recuperative period after Montenegro and before Bond fields the “where’s the money?” call. I have always found that section mawkish and difficult to believe. As if the British government would not jet in immediately to retrieve £100M… It was in the original film, it is in this edit, and it still causes me to shake my head in disbelief.

Enjoyment - Confession. I went into this rather cold. Owing to techicnal difficulties on my end, I sat on PE’s edit over a year, unable to view. After that time, I forgot what Problem Eliminator’s original intent was. Instead of refreshening my memory, I just loaded the film.

A Bond movie I am quite familiar with, I soon noticed omissions. My reactions ran along lines of, “Oh, he took that out. No loss.” “Good riddance there, that line made Bond look stupid.” “That had been weak, too, as if he couldn’t buy his own clothes.” “Aw, hell, the hospital bit, I hope he cuts this.”

I like this version. Like it a lot, and I wish producers had crafted this excellent 007 film this way.

Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 by steFANedit

I caught Blair Witch at the peak of its hype and was completely underwhelmed.
I avoided the sequel until I saw the DVD in a cut-out bin, paired with BW1, for $1.00.
Later, I kicked myself for wasting a whole dollar.
The film, which I only viewed once and now sits like an diseased barnacle on a lower shelf somewhere, was a complete p.o.s.
Stupid writing, enhanced by inept direction, and apparently edited by a drunken puppy.
So, why did I even get this edit? Because SteFAN made it.

SteFAN resurrected this tosser, and actually made it decent. Ain’t top tier horror, but makes for a watchable late night grind flick.
Characters remain unlikable, shouting, argumentative morons, but that’s what he had to work with and I cannot fault him.
On the technical side, I saw nothing wrong with the video and heard nothing out of kilter on the audio.
If you hated the original BW2, this is much more enjoyable.
Thanks, SteFAN. Come Halloween, this will air on the sheet hanging in my living room window for the begging monsters on my porch.

The Soul Of Youth - 1920 - 6/10

Sentimental, moralizing, creaky saga of orphan boy Ed’s mistreatment and struggle.
Abandonment, a harsh orphanage, life on the streets.
Ed’s is a full story, running side by side with a conflict between politicians, one crooked, one honest.
By and by, the current of events pull Ed into the maneuverings.
The print I saw was wonderful! Beautifully restored, adroitly tinted, with an evocative piano score.
This is one of the very few surviving (and available) films of William Desmond Taylor.
Must see for Silent fans.

Wicked Woman - 1953 - 5/10

Bottled blonde steps off the bus in the boondocks, rents a room in a dumpy boarding house, hires on as waitress in low end dive.
Another role in the checkered career of Beverly Michaels, who seemed to glide from one trashy film to another.
This one exudes sleaze. Flophouse sets filled with low life schemers and their petty dreams.
The plot is no inspirational theme, rather seduction and greed. Souls fighting for loose change.
Characters are broken failures, and everything they attempt seems to collapse.
Not really dark enough or fatalistic to be a Noir proper, but sour candy for the fans of Michaels, and as good a film as any to start if you’re tempted by, or have a weakness for, hard blondes.

The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich - 1968 - 7/10

Groundbreaking documentary is showing its age.
Based on Shirer’s thick book (1000+ pages), this neatly slots into rise - apex - fall.
Compared with later, longer documentaries, this qualifies more as a survey.
Despite that, this is an excellent primer, and worthwhile if one cannot commit the time for more thorough explorations.
One of the best elements of this are the interviews with survivors, including those who actually knew Hitler, or knew others of the inner circle.
This firsthand retelling is missing from virtually all subsequent histories.

Suzanne’s Career - 1963 - 6/10
AKA - La Carrière de Suzanne

Bertrand is a pharmacology student, fellow student Guillaume is more affluent, and a womanizing ne’er do well.
At a party, they meet Suzanne and Guillaume decides to bag her because she looks “easy”.
Later, he decides to leech her savings. Think In The Company Of Men (1997).
Bertrand isn’t much better, the weak friend who tacitly approves such mistreatment.
Suzanne is a cipher, independent yet submissive, intelligent yet displaying poor judgment.
One of Éric Rohmer’s moral tales.

Pinborough, Sarah - A Little Magenta Book Of Malevolence

With four stories, a trio of essays, and a couple of extras at the end, this is a choice sampling.
“Snow Angels” takes place in a Cancer Ward for the very young. Inside, hardened onlookers and resignation. Outside, fresh air and the bite of winter.
In “The Nowhere Man,” Amy disappears into a back fold. Sour faces declare she ran away, that she is little more than a shirker. Her brother, however, catches a faint ripple left behind.

Once upon a time, she had been one of the loveliest in the kingdom. Perhaps she had been vain and boastful, perhaps her pride had been fierce. Perhaps it had been love. Men were troublesome.
Who remembers? So much time had washed by.
“The Screaming Room” finds “her” (Medusa, Euryale, Stheno) in a reflective mood, recalling gaiety, admirers, and song.
She lives isolated, though from time to time, a presumed hero will arrive, sword in hand.
The weave of memory and beguilement, with a lulling, dark expectation, turn this into a delicious retelling, given by one who rarely receives her due.
Oh, and the songs, the songs will stay with you.

Though this went OP instantly, the press updated me that they intend to reissue this as ebook and audiobook.

Watcher In The Attic - 1976 - 6/10
AKA - Edogawa Ranpo ryôki-kan: Yaneura no sanposha / 江戸川乱歩猟奇館　屋根裏の散歩者

Morbid and twisted Edogawa Rampo story set in early 1920’s finds bored man spying on his fellow residents.
He soon zeroes in on once-aristocratic female, now servicing gentleman callers.
Clients include a tycoon, as well as a man who frolics as a clown.

Voyeur and prostitute gradually escalate into murderous duo.
Relatively short film, though slow going. Many scenes pan well arranged, symbolic visuals.
Whole production is steeped in a rotting sensuality. Sex as decay.
Ample nudity throughout, not to forget one memorable smothering death.

Spoorloos - 1988 - 7/10
AKA - The Vanishing

While refueling at the large, touristy gas station, the girlfriend disappears.
No one sees anything, there are no surveillance cameras, only a grainy snapshot.
Wisely, or maddeningly, the director does not show us, either.
We view numerous “possibilities,” though these are not red-herrings.
We simply see what the boyfriend sees, or later, remembers.
Gripping study of the training and false starts of a blossoming sociopath.
Remade a few years later in compliance with American attitudes and expectations.

Toys Are Not For Children - 1972 - 6/10

Jamie is twenty years old, going on eight.
With a young woman’s curves, and the emotional maturity of a child.
Jamie works at a toy store, where she is exceptional. She really knows her toys.
She is popular with customers. Especially male customers, postman, delivery men, guys just hanging around.
Innocent Jamie is a hot pussy in heat, catnip for horny tomcats.
At home, her bedroom is crowded with toys. Special favorites share her bed.
As mentioned, Jamie really knows her toys. Intimately.
A lot of viewers trash this film because, I think, they expected exploitation.
This is sordid, unpleasant, the path of a girl who will eventually work on her back for a living, or on her knees.
The print I saw was in marvelous shape, with a so-so audio commentary.

Cargo - 2009 - 6/10

Space SciFi from Switzerland.
The exhausted planet Earth has been mostly abandoned.
Folks are saving coins and heading for Rhea, the great new world.
Travel takes eight years in massive cryogenic cargo ships.
After three years, our heroine is roused, suits up as glorified patrol guard, and prowls the vast emptiness of dim corridors.
Why? There is a stowaway loose, endangering lives and the ship itself.
Gradually, darker discoveries emerge.
Several CGI shots, luckily kept to a minimum. Predictable, derivative plot.
Decent, post industrial “wet” sets.
(Just curious, why doesn’t leaking water freeze in space? Heating a massive vessel so that water puddles about strikes me as a colossal waste of energy. Sorry.)
Not a bad film, but not a good one, either.

The Dead Room - 2018 - 6/10

“Christmas Ghost Story” that has nothing to do with Yule.
Aging voice actor (Simon Callow) regales younger colleagues with how horror stories were in better days.
He is a traditionalist and has scant sympathy with modern scripts of gore splatterings and exclamations.
Nevertheless, carry on!
The new sound studio is actually an old location, reported to be haunted.
Bah, nonsense! Until the old ham begins hearing faint traces, catching fleeting images.
Story, written by Mark Gatiss, is perfunctory and not especially original.
BBC, if you are listening, please approach another writer next outing.
Personal suggestion, Reggie Oliver.

Brand New Testament - 2015 - 7/10
AKA - Le Tout Nouveau Testament

Behold, God!
Lo! The Divine One Himself. After creating the world, the air, the firmament, and all that, He is bored.
So He sits all day in His celestial office, pecking away at His computer, creating laws and certainties that only exist to irritate, foil and flummox his worshipers.
Yes, us.
The story, however, a comedy, is about His daughter, who longs to escape and “do things” like her older brother.

Alt-Right: Age Of Rage - 2018 - 6/10

Topical documentary shuffles interviews with leaders of Alt-Right and Antifa.
Attempts to be non-judgmental, each side will find something to cheer for their team.
This struggle still strikes me as early days. My take is times will harken to the Weimar era, and a lot of blood will flow.
Most of the footage was of the Charlottesville riots. As in Weimar Germany, police stood idly and watched.
For those curious to know how Americans seemingly abandoned their moral compass, this is poor guide.
The history is not yet written.

A Dark Song - 2016 - 6/10

Grieving mother hires occult specialist to help her contact her deceased child.
Lengthy setup as proper location is found, supplies stored, preparations begun.
Pace of this will vex the impatient.
This is about the ritual, the process, the incantation.
Exterior photography is spectacular and forbidding, while the house seems a character in itself.
Events begin to go awry, and you realize mother and interlocutor each have unspoken agendas.
For the more knowledgeable, the ritual in question had been attempted by Aleister Crowley.

Until Death - 1987 - 6/10
AKA - Per Sempre

Rainy night, a struggling husband is buried alive by his young, pregnant wife and her lover.
Six years later, the couple are still together, but their relationship is rocky, and the man has no use for the wife’s needy son
Another stormy night, and the drifter appears, seeking shelter.
Soon enough, he assists the wife in her cafe and befriends the child.
Italian TV movie boasts inventive camera work and the luscious Gioia Scola, but the script, despite trying to keep the viewer guessing, treads familiar territory.
Some of the son’s nightmares are memorable, hands clawing through plastered walls for one.
Not bad, but not great, either.

The Grand Seduction - 2013 - 6/10

Charming narrative of lies here.
Tiny fishing harbor in Canada is dying. No money from fishing, folks leaving for the city.
They are in the running for a petrochemical processing factory, however, if they can get a resident doctor.
A big city doctor is shanghaied in, then the web of deceit spins.
By turns laugh out funny, then sadly amusing, almost depressing.
Those who have witnessed the death of their childhood home will relate.
Distaff cousin of The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain, without Mr Grant.

Trois Femmes en Colere - 2016 - 6/10
AKA - 3 Angry Women

Well, not necessarily that angry.
Grandma, a feminist firebrand in the 60’s, realizes the young generation does not care, has no will to struggle, and that she and her sisters fought for … for what?
In one way, she has outlived her time, in another, she carries an unpleasant ghost of an earlier time.
Femme number two is her daughter, snared in an “open marriage.”
Meaning, husband can cheat at will. Yet if she does …
Femme number three is the granddaughter, medical student, whose boyfriend wants her to be his support, rather than an equal partner.
OK enough concepts. The males are not necessarily despicable or domineering. They merely take advantage and exploit their fortune.

The Fat Black Pussycat - 1963 - 4/10

Abysmal film, somehow oddly watchable.
Black-gloved killer prowls Greenwich Village, targeting the Bohemian set.
Beatniks, poets, dancers, poseurs and loose women.
A very square police detective gets nowhere interviewing the hipper-than-thou denizens.
He ventures into the Fat Black Pussycat Cafe, goes to swinging parties, hooks up with an anthropology professor.
Acting is uniformly dismal. Lots of pre and post coital situations, though.
Directing is terrible, editing worse.
The second half jumps all over the place with little coherence.
Extras include trimmed sex scenes and alternate ending, likewise incoherent.
Must-see for bad film connoisseurs.

Ditch Day Massacre - 2016 - 5/10

Dead teenager flick. Falls squarely into Revenge cinema as opposed to Slasher.
Six high schoolers skip classes to have a day party.
Swimming pool, booze and banging.
Unknown to them (being blind from drinking and squirming) the stranger has slipped inside.

There is a backstory, which I shall not go into.
Suffice to say the theme is of brutal justice, with no regard to bystanders.
Acting is as expected. Production shows limited budget.
Gore is minimal for the genre.

Murders At The Zoo - 1933 - 6/10

Pre-Code nasty misses greatness because it pulls its punches.
Lionel Atwill plays Gorman, a sportsman (meaning he shoots piles of animals), who ships a big collection to the zoo.
Early on, however, we witness how he deals with a rival for his wife’s affection.
Binding the man and stitching up his mouth before abandoning him to the hungry jungle.
Other particularly cruel offings follow.
Unfortunately, Paramount defused this throughout with comic humor, which undercuts the tone.
Better, since the wife had a wayward eye, would have been to juice the sexual angles.
Directed by Eddie Sutherland, who I’ve always regarded as loose change,
Coulda, shoulda been terrific.

L’ecole de la Chair - 1998 - 6/10
AKA - The School Of Flesh

Bored rich female initiates an affair with surly rent boy.
Beforehand, she had been warned by several of his ex-lovers / victims.
Challenge or self destruction?
Following the initial docking maneuver, they play games and test each others boundaries.
The plot, or what masquerades as a plot, are cobbled together set pieces.
Likewise the assembly of supporting characters, though some are more memorable.
Despite the occasional twist, interlude in the bazaar, and raw emotions, from the very beginning, one realizes this is not the happy ending love story.
French, not too talky, though there is quite a bit of dialogue.

Wagon Tracks - 1919 - 6/10

Stodgy, William S Hart western, though Hart vehicles typically carry the dust of Victorian theatre boards.
Hart goes to meet his younger brother, a recently graduated doctor, arriving on a paddle-wheeler.
While card playing, however, the young man has been gunned down.
Hart, leading the wagon trail to Santa Fe, ponders how the cull the guilty out of the herd.
The print I saw was wonderful, the tinting outstanding.
Even small details such as inter-titles, feature imaginative touches.

At barely an hour, the pace is unhurried, and effectively evokes the Old West.
Hart knew and was friends with Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson, and he strived for authenticity in his Westerns.
A first class production.

Bamboo House Of Dolls - 1973 - 6/10
AKA - Nu ji Zhong Ying // 女集中營

Wonderful exploitation sleaze from the Shaw Brothers.
Japanese troops attack a hospital, murder most of the patients, drag all the attractive nurses, kicking and screaming, to an internment camp.
Viewers familiar with the WiP genre can predict the following:
Rapes, beatings, tortures, a lesbian commandant, prison catfights, stoolies, and wardrobe limitations.
Indeed, all prisoners wear flimsy blue tops and skimpy blue panties.
Those outfits are shredded or ripped off every five minutes, exposing huge swathes of gratuitous nudity.
Subplots involve hidden gold and spies.
Compared with other WiP fare, this is on a par with the Ilsa series.

French Cancan - 1955 - 6/10

After Henri’s establishment closes, he regroups and decides to launch another.
This time, he will revive a bygone, notorious dance number, the cancan.
Love affairs, misunderstandings, arguments and pitfalls.
Will he be ever able to open his cabaret, the Moulin Rouge?
^

Afterward, I knew this was going to cost me.
“You never said this was a musical.”
“C’mon, Jean Gabin stars, Jean Renoir directs, in color!”
“It was like an MGM musical. Bloated nonsense. I don’t see how you like these things.”
“Big screen, too! Old fashioned magic.”
“When the Miss Fisher movie comes out, we’re seeing it. You owe me.”
“Aww, man …”
“And I renewed the subscription to the Hallmark Channel.”
“Oh, bummer, dude!”
“Dudette.”
^