Screenings, Autumn 1997

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Sleepers

With its cast, this movie disappointed. DeNiro and Hoffman had little interaction--which is why I'm looking forward to seeing Wag the Dog.

84 Charing Cross Road

Too much Anne Bancroft, not enough Anthony Hopkins. Some plays don't translate to the screen well. I stayed home sick from work and this passed the time. 971230

One Fine Day

I thought, watching this at DMB's over Christmas, that I would be disgusted with myself for wasting time with a lite romantic comedy. I enjoyed it. Of course with any movie like this, the ending is obvious, and so I prepared myself for smarm. 971226

Cold Comfort Farm

Kate Beckinsale was a lovely Hero in "Much Ado about Nothing" and a much more suitable Emma in her BBC version of "Emma" than Gwyneth Paltrow, and in "Cold Comfort Farm" she was another excellent Emma. However I'm going to beat myself until I can think of which Austen novel one of its last lines was taken from, something about a handsome woman in good health managing quite well in an unmarried state. It could be something Emma says of herself in Emma, but Emma pro'ly wouldn't've referred to age. It could be something Anne Elliot says of Mrs. Smith in Persuasion, or did Mary Crawford ever say she might not marry when she was being petulant about Edmund in Mansfield Park? Damn. Why am I not writing a concordance of my dear Jane, or has someone else already done so?
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Crash

Here's a simple guideline: avoid movies with violent one-word titles. Particularly when they have James I-don't-act-I-just-sneer Spader. Actually it had its moments. I liked Holly Hunter. Whoever played Ballard's wife had an odd, uncomfortable face that suited her part. To combine car crashes and twisted sexuality is a great idea; and to make a lame Rosanne Arquette an object of irresistible attraction not only to the messed-up Ballard but also to the repressed salesman is a master touch. Re-enacting James Dean's and Grace Kelly's death with the atmosphere of a snuff film was powerful too. Of course one must wonder if the screenwriter, if not the author, regretting writing this before 31 August 1997.
971023
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Scream

Besides that I knew a spoiler for it but not the right wording, and that I repeated about every fifteen minutes "I'm not liking this," it was okay.
970919
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The 39 Steps

I like Hitchcock. How demure: "Can I spend the night with you?" asks a woman, and a man says yes, and this movie still was passed by 1935 Brit censors? Wondrous. I notice Hitchcock didn't address the bathroom functions of a man and a woman handcuffed together, and I'm kind of like Ramona about that. Ramona (Remember Ramona the Pest? You should) had one question about Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel that she hoped her kindergarten teacher would know, since her mother didn't: if he was in his steam shovel all day, how'd he go to the bathroom? Stupid grown-ups, not to see the sense of that question. Maybe they didn't know my story.
Anyway. Like Poe, Hitchcock doesn't bother to give too much detail; the viewer gets much more engrossed and personally involved when it doesn't know every tiny bit. Which is the technique he used in "North by Northwest," too: when someone finally tells Cary Grant what's going on, airport noise drowns his voice out. Of course I wonder if anyone who reads lips can translate for me, but if Hitchcock supplied that detail, he'd have dated his films.
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Rebecca

I have seen this before, long ago; I borrowed it from HAO just recently because I've been listening to it. She, the Movie Goddess, told me Joan Fontaine was Olivia de Havilland's sister and they hated each other. Hating a sister is a completely alien concept for me. "Why?" "Competition, I guess." Anyway, so I looked for Melanie/Maid Marian throughout and spotted a resemblance a couple of times, but then I'd've believed, at least based on physical resemblance, that she was Ingrid Bergmann's sister too. The plain, young Ilsa-in-Paris/Maria-in-Spain look. Spoiler: in the book, Maxim did kill Rebecca. Watching the movie, hearing Laurence Olivier say that she stumbled as she approached him, fell, and hit her head on tackle, I thought that wasn't very likely (which is why, given the framing narrative, I thought the the second Mrs. de Winter was an unreliable narrator). Rebecca wasn't a stumbler. In the book, indeed, she wasn't; but Laurence Olivier can't be a murderer any more than Cary Grant could be in "Suspicion" (was that Hitchcock too?). Also, Hitchcock added Mrs. Danvers's Bertha Rochester-esque demise for the flick. But he didn't show that Jasper (the dog) survived, though perhaps it's presumed he did since the servants are all thronging outside. So the movie doesn't get a CM rating.
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