Wallace and Gromit " Vengeance Most Fowl (2024) directed by Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham

 

I was about to write about the new Wallace and Gromit short I saw last night but then saw the runtime... 80 minutes! I might have sworn it was 20! The passed so quickly and there was no part that dragged. I think the last film they were was Curse of the Were-rabbit in 2005, 20 years ago and there no sign that the time between projects had any effect at all. Like old friends you can not see them for decades and and when you do its like no time has passed at all, 

I don't think its a spoiler to state that Feather McGraw is the villain as they are in the a lot of preview materials. The farmer from Shaun the sheep makes a brief cameo as well. The basic plot is Wallace has spent too much money on inventions and is behind on paying the bills. His solution is to rent the garden Gnome he made to help  Gromit to neighbours but Feathers McGraw is able to find a way to control the robot and turn their lives upside down while he tries to steal the gemstone out duo got him arrested over in his short film from 1998. 

That bit might have been a little much, introducing an old bad guy from long ago, but it works and they explain the backstory with humour and doesn't let it bog down the new story. 

REALLY GOOD!

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) Directed by Robert Wise

Based on short story "Farewell to the master" this early sci fi 50 classic sets the high bar for films even made today. The music is one of the first time the theremin was used in science fiction and it has become synonymous with the genre ever since. Filmed in a pseudo documentary style and using actual reporters  know to the public, the film has a certain realism to it lets say lacking on other futuristic films from the later 50s. 

Spoilers:

The story is not complicated. One day a spaceship lands, in effect, on the White House lawn and a human-like being gets out. He is immediately shot. As he struggles on ground bleeding the gathered crowds suddenly notices a giant humanoid robot has exited the craft and it destroys all the gun and weapons in sight until the injured alien tells it to stop.

In hospital, the visitor, named Klaatu tried to get a meeting with world leaders so he can transmit a serious message to the people of Earth. When made clear this is not going to happen, he escapes to learn about the people by living among them for a while. This causes hysteria and conspiracy theories. He decides to meet a famous Einstein-like scientist to see if he can talk at least to the scientist of Earth and to convince them he agrees on a display of power that won't hurt anyone but will basically scare the crap out of everyone. By stopping all activity on the planet for 30 minutes, the scientists gather to meet him at the spaceship. Sadly this action also increases the pressure to capture him and he is killed trying to escape from the authorities. Before dying he tells a woman he has befriended to go to the ship and say a phrase to Gort, the robot which tells it to get him and bring him back to the spaceship. 

Inside the ship, Gort revives Klaatu and he leaves the ship to give an ultimatum to all the humans on Earth. Keep your weapons and violence on your own planet or Gort and other like him, who keep the peace between planets, will return and destroy the Earth to "a burnt out cinder".

This is a classic for a million reasons. The effects are sparse but very effective and still look good, the performances are very good and the actors, especially Rennie take their roles seriously and the message of peace, or else is pretty effective. 

Klaatu lives in boarding house while trying to get a feeling for your everyday human and there he meets a single mother and her son. The father was killed in the war and her new suitor is determined to marry as soon as they can. Billy Gray is the child actor and for once, it's role that doesn't grind the film to a halt. Patrica Neal is amazing as the mom who is career oriented, smart and one of two people Klaatu trusts. There is a good rapport between them and it never gets romantic, something that would have seriously undermined the film. When she is stuck in an elevator with him during the world-wide shutdown and he tells her who he is why he is there (which we don't see happen) she is shook to her core and we get how badly this meeting or worlds could go. Her boyfriend, on the other hand sees only ways to become known and make money off Klaatu's real identity and she dumps him without regret. 

Micheal Rennie is perfect. Unknown at the time his performance is a mix of superiority, confusion and bemusement as he tries to navigate human society. He has no patience for foolishness but his goal is to warn not punish humankind... Gort will do that if needed. I love the scene where he asks for a flashlight and can't figure out how it works and when the child shows him his look says "How cute! A switch!". its endearing but also character-wise shows he really doesn't come from around here. When he takes the boy to Arlington Cemetery to visit the father's grave he is touched and it manages to relay how dying in a war is completely, for lack of a better word, alien to him. 

The restored Blu-ray is worth buying. Though there are a few nonsensical things in the movie (only 2 guards for the spaceship at night? How does Gort walk from the ship to where Klaatu's body is with no one noticing an 8 foot alien robot on the streets?) there is only one shot that takes me out of the story. When Gort is seen by the crowd they run away... sort of. The film is sped up and it looks cartoonish. Apparently the untrained extras just couldn't get it right and Wise had to resort to the film trick or not get the shot at all. 

Gort, Klaatu Barrada Nicto! 

Documentary: Tobias Allen - Why I Paint This way (2001 restoration)

  In 2001 I films a short documentary about (then) local Boston artist Tobias Blaine Allen.  It was edited in iMovie which was amazing at the time. I looked at it online recently and it looked TERRIBLE. 240p was fine on You Tube when it was uploaded and its unwatchable now. 

Today I found a better copy but still low resolution on my hard drive and upscaled it to HD. Then I brought it into Final Cut Pro and did some colour correction and audio fixes. Sadly, there are no copies of the images of the art in the film to replace those in the doc so I exported the worst of them as images and did my best to make them look nicer. They still don't look great, or ever did, they were shot with an early 1.5 megapixel Sony digital camera. 

The process took about 7 hours to complete the 1 minute film and now it's HD and looks and sounds much better. Hopefully Toby with think so! I will delete the older film so no one has to see how bad it looked on modern devices. 

Ultraman Rising (2024) Directed by Shannon Tindle

Ultraman rising is reboot of sorts of the Ultraman franchise as an animated movie. The animation is very good as is the sound and direction. Likes most current films, particularly animated ones the story has something to be desired. 

In this version o Ultraman, Ultraman is the father of a small family fight kaju that attack Japan making somewhat of a absent dad. His kid grows up and he and his wife grow apart. The young boy moves to the United States and became a egotistical but excellent baseball player. He comes back to Japan to play for a Japanese team but also to take up his responsibilities as the new Ultraman. He isn't the best in the role and one of the monsters dies trying to get it's egg back after it was stolen by the villain who wants to kill all kaju after the death of his family. Ultraman find the egg, which hatches and he is no charged with raising a giant monster and trying to continue his baseball career. 

This sets up conflict between the hero and the villain who are at odds at what to do about the giant monster attacks. He also meets a reporter who becomes his love interest and begins to patch up his relationship with father. His mother "disappeared" many year before and is assumed dead. 

Sadly this all works out in ways you can easily predict including a post credit sequence. I was about to say as the credit rolled that at least we didn't find out the mother was actually still alive but... sequel set up. 

It's fun enough and visually interesting but dragged a bit especially you know nothing really out of the box is going to happen. Oddly enough I found the live action mess of a fim Shin Ultraman more fun because it was such a train wreck of multiple storylines and foot fetishes. 

Obituary: David Lynch (1946-2025)

 

With great sadness the Slammer mourns the passing of David Lynch whose work both inspired and sometimes frustrated us with its ambiguity over the years. 

(From wikipedia)

His first feature-length film was Eraserhead (1977), which found success as a midnight movie. Lynch was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director for the biographical drama The Elephant Man (1980), the mystery Blue Velvet (1986) and the neo-noir Mulholland Drive (2001). His romantic crime drama Wild at Heart (1990) won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. His other credits include the space opera Dune (1984), the neo-noir Lost Highway (1997), the road movie The Straight Story (1999) and Inland Empire (2006).

Lynch and Mark Frost created the ABC series Twin Peaks (1990–91), for which he received five Primetime Emmy Award nominations, including Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series and Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series. Lynch co-wrote and directed its film prequel, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), and a third season in 2017. He acted in Twin Peaks, Lucky (2017) and Steven Spielberg's The Fabelmans (2022). He also guest-starred in TV series such as The Cleveland Show (2010–13) and Louie (2012). He directed music videos for artists such as X Japan, Moby, Interpol, Nine Inch Nails and Donovan, and commercials for Dior, YSL, Gucci and the New York City Department of Sanitation.

Lynch also worked as a musician, releasing solo albums and a variety of collaborations; a visual artist, including painting, furniture design, and photography; and author, publishing the books Images (1994), Catching the Big Fish (2006) and Room to Dream (2018). A practitioner of Transcendental Meditation, he founded the David Lynch Foundation to fund meditation lessons for students, veterans, and other "at-risk" populations. A lifelong smoker, he was diagnosed with emphysema in 2020, and died in January 2025 after being evacuated from his home due to the Southern California wildfires. The adjective Lynchian came into use to describe works or situations reminiscent of his art,[2] with the Oxford English Dictionary noting his penchant for "juxtaposing surreal or sinister elements with mundane, everyday environments, and for using compelling visual images to emphasize a dreamlike quality of mystery or menace".

Personally, my first Lynch film was Eraserhead I saw at a midnight show and I loved it, followed by The Elephant Man which one of the best films ever made in my opinion. I did love most of his films and projects over the years but not all. Wild at Heart did not interest me, it seemed violently excessive and his last full length film Inland Empire I really disliked thinking it showed he needed to have some restraints put on him to keep his ideas in focus. I was obsessed like everyone else with Twin Peaks and like the new more recent series of that quite a bit as well. If nothing else, Lynch was always challenging us to see things in his odd, often disturbing way. 

Shadow of the Vampire (2000) directed by E. Elias Merhige

 I saw this film in the cinema on release and remembered liking it quite a bit. Seeing again recently, I realized I forget how good it really is. Basically a comedy with some tension and drama thrown in, the movie is a "what if" sort of story positing that when Murnau filmed the silent classic Nosferatu, he used a real vampire. 

I originally was tempted to the cinema because Eddie Izzard was in it and his small role does merit going to see it the film but it's Willem Defoe who shines and stands out as the vampire. His appearance is beyond perfect and he without doubt spent some time studying Max Schreck in the original role - copying his physicality and postures to perfection. Murnau has told the cast and crew that Defoe is a method actor and will appear only at night and in full make-up, never dropping character for the entirety of the production. His odd behaviour and attacks on crew members quickly brings a few to conclude that he is, fact, a member of the undead. Thing like pulling a bat in flight out of the air and eating in front of people was a clue for example, though in that case Udo Kier's character simply states... "Max, you must be the greatest actor ever!"

The vampire seems to be under the control of Murnau through most of the runtime but it becomes clear that is not the case by the end. Defoe manages to go from comic to genuinely terrifying in a split second and the stakes change completely. 

Quirky might not cover how odd this film is and you will have to sit through a rather long opening credits sequence before the movie starts but it's all worth it.  As a little extra info,  Nicolas Cage produced this film and was to play Schreck but gave the role to Defoe when he showed interest. Good choice! 

The White Reindeer (1952) directed by Erik Blomberg

This is a fantastic film debut for Erik Blomberg the director. The cinematography is stunning, turning the barren snow covered landscape into a mystical, beautiful land of mystery. It is the story of a young woman who feels her new marriage needs a little extra and goes to a shaman to get it but ends up with more than bargained for when the prescribed sacrifice goes wrong and she becomes an irresistible temptresses who also transforms into a white reindeer… and a supernatural killer. 

This killing spree leads to her being accused of witchcraft and she is chased by the village men leading to a sad end at the hands of her husband. 

This film is considered folk horror and I suppose that is as good a des as any. It also shows many of us a way of life alien and fascinating as the Finnish actors get around in skies and sleds and live in a world of perpetual snow and cold while living life to the fullest. Prita the doomed woman is a force of nature, skilled and strong and full of life. There is a real sense of companionship and love between her and her husband, making the events of the film more tragic. The folklore presented is a welcome breath if cold fresh air that doesn’t have any of the tropes of what we might traditionally think of as Gothic or folkloric horror. 

Conquest of Space (1955) directed by Byron Haskin

 

Another George Pal sci-fi extravaganza from the 50s. Like many of his sc-fi films it brings with it some novel ideas at the time that were very forward thinking. Circular rotating space station, a ship to mars built in space, the time and distances involved in space travel along with the dangers. Of course other aspects are way off but easily forgiven since we had no idea what the Surface of mars looked like and the biggest sin space movie make even today... while on Mars the crew would take off their gloves and touch the dirt! NO concern for bacteria, exposure to the cold etc... they did keep the rest of their spacesuit on though. 

In the film, a crew on "the wheel"  has been in training for a long time for a trip to the moon but as time grows near they are told the moon is no the real objective, Mars is. This is so they can see if they can exploit materials there as Earth is running low. Why they had to lie about this at all is never explained. There are asteroid hits and near misses and the crew is almost killed by the ship captain who turns into be a religious nutcase en route and thinks they should all die for "Blaspheming" and other planet he thinks God does not approve of them visiting. Before this happens he quotes from a bible, something many Pal films do and I wondered what his religious affiliations were. Apparently they were not that strong but he felt that he had to put bible citations in his science orientated films to avoid controversy... though making the villain of this movie a religious crazy pants seems to indicate he wasn't all that into the subject himself. 

The crew has to deal with loss of water from sabotage done by the captain and they can't leave Mars until Earth in line with their trajectory home. A lucky snowfall saves them and they manage to take off despite an earthquake as they try to leave. 

I would say this is an OK film, the least of Pal's films in this genre. The dated effects are fine to watch but the characters are terrible and annoying. The acting is not great and the interactions are forced, especially the "comedy". No one is qualified for a trip to Mars! The only women we see are on a video screen and there is one Japanese crewman ( brave for that so close to the end of WWII) but no other people of colour who are missing in his other sci-fi outing as well. 

I initially the movie got no so great write-ups in the press but in later years it was considered much more favourably, mostly because of the high production values. I am siding with the earlier reviews on this one. It drags and the human interactions are painful at times. Not unwatchable but not memorable either. 

Nosferatu (2024) directed by Robert Eggers

 

This long awaited remake of the 1922 classic film by Murnau was finally released Christmas day this year. The plot is not different from the original but the details and execution make this film very much it's own thing. A real estate agent is sent to meet a certain Count Orlock in in the carpathian mountains to sell him a property for a large sum of money. He arrives, and Orlock is an undead creauture that decides it will take control of the agent's new wife. The agent escapes and gets back home just before Orlock to warn his wife, who because of her odd connection to the monster already knows he is coming. The rest of the film is a race to destroy the menace somehow before the entire village dies from him or the plague he has brought with him. 

Spoilers: 

I was not sure this would work. I saw The North man and it was OK, but basically had the same plot as Conan the Barbarian. It was well filmed with great performances but had its faults. Luckily, this movie is not a copy of the original and keeps away from many of the expressionistic trapping of that one (though not all of them which is good) and relies much more on true gothic horror and the folklore of the Carpathian region involving vampires to create something new and terrifying for a modern audience. Orlock is really nothing like Max Schreck in the silent version physically. Schreck has a slim monstrous beauty in a way. Bill Skarsgård is a walking corpse with a voice that give you nightmares and is unrecognizable in any way from his real life appearance and voice. The original was considered one of the most scary films at the time due in most part to the look of Nosferatu and this new version gives us a new image to lose sleep over. 

Visually I also had some trepidation. Eggers is a master of camerawork and transitions and I am always afraid he will slip into something that looks great and takes me out of the film. He doesn't do that, in fact i would say as fantastic as the cinematography is, it stays in service of the story from start to end - pulling the viewer through the events until the conclusion. Too many films look like video game segments with sweeping impossible camera moves that are far too smooth and really distracting. See The Lord of the Rings Trilogy for example and almost any new horror movie. This film lives in its darkness and takes you into it without dragging you along, you go willingly and it's seamless. 

The sound design in the film is great. I didn't notice the soundtrack much to be honest but there are all sorts of crazy, disturbing noises woven into the shots that add to the fear and sense of unrest.

The folklore has to be addressed since Eggers is famous for his research and Nosferatu has some nice nods to the actual legends rarely seen. A horse is used to find the grave of a vampire and I've only seen that in the disappointing Dracula with Frank Langella. They use iron stakes, nice touch! The vampires are walking rotted corpses not sexy teenagers. Nosferatu is pure evil, without morals or a dumb backstory to make you "understand him better". 

The cast is all stellar. Skarsgård  is the stand out, he can't help but be and Lily-rose Depp really gets her role and her character as well as manages to freak you out with her fits of hysteria as they were called. I was hoping Willem Defoe would be Nosferatu before production started as he was so good in the role in "Shadow of the Vampire" but he was better as the eccentric vampire hunter, a role that recently I have come to really detest how it is interpreted. Francis Ford Coppola had Anthony Hopkins as a mean, perverted Van Helsing and Laurence Olivier's turn at the part was cold and underwhelming. This was a good balance of dedicated and crazy. 

As a life long fan of the Murnau film, I can say I was impressed by this version and I also love the Herzog version which is, again, a totally different take on the same story. Believe it not, a lighter version. Eggers brought the silent film into today while keeping it's look and feel firmly rooted in the past and gothic horror traditions. it could have easily gone over the top or into cliché after cliché but made it's own way instead. This is a bleak, tense often violent film so it is not for everyone and not for anyone who wants anything that resembles most vampire tales. If you want the real deal don't miss it. 

Forbidden Planet (1956) directed by Fred M. Wilcox

 

(my interpretion of elements of the film)

 Inspired by Shakespeare's "The Tempest", Forbidden Planet is film with a list of firsts in Science Fiction  cinema. It was the first science fiction film to depict humans traveling in a man-made faster-than-light starship.It was also the first to be set entirely on a planet orbiting another star, far away from Earth and the solar system. Robby the Robot character was more than just a dumb machine that walked and has a distinct personality. The film was groundbreaking as the first of any genre to use an entirely electronic score. The film was nominated for special effects and for good reason, they are really over and above other films at the time. The design of the saucer shaper spaceship is iconic and stands out to this day. 

The story centres around a crew from Earth sent to discover the fate of an expedition on the Planet Altair which was lost 20 years previous. After arriving in orbit, they warned off by Morbius telling them their safety cannot be guaranteed if they land and he has no need of them. They do land as per their orders and discover every one of the expedition except for Morbius and his daughter, who has never seen other humans, are all that is left. 

Spoilers:

It turns out the previous crew were all killed by a mysterious force when they tried to leave the planet and for reasons unknown Mobius and his daughter were spared. They feel immune to the attacks but also do not think the threat has gone away by any means. The residence they live in is on top of the entrance to what was a super advanced civilization that all died out thousands of year ago overnight. Morbius has been trying to understand how and why and learning how their tech works. His daughter seems happy enough but even he realizes she must return to earth at some point to have a normal development. 

The visiting ship is attacked and people start dying from an unseen force which turns out to be an invisible monsters which is briefly seen as it breaks though the force field around the ship as it kills several more crewman. 

The daughter decides to leave with the earthmen and the monster now seems to be after her as well. In a really great twist, it turns out the machines that Morbius has been using to boost his intelligence has tied him into the very system that doomed the origin race, the Krell. It was supposed to let them make their thoughts become real with no need of physically making things but their "Id", the subconscious mind, hid horrors and violence that an advanced race could suppress but not rid itself of. The monster was produced by Morbius himself to avoid leaving the planet and to keep his daughter in his control. When he realizes that he is at fault he he tries to unsuccessfully disown the monster of his Id but is killed in the process, but not before he has the ship captain set off a series of explosion that will destroy the planet and keep this technology away from mankind before they too disappear. 

If you have never seen Leslie Nielsen as anything other than Frank Drebin from the Baker Gun films and series this is a great film to expose you to his career as a handsome young leading man in serious films. Robby the Robot has been in so many movies and films you might not know this is where he was first seen and his design and character are fantastically realized. Ann Francis is an odd character, both naive and very aware and in control of herself and not a screamer in search of a man to save her, though she of course falls in love with the captain and they head back to Earth as a couple. 

As recent as November 15th of 2024 there was word of script for a remake but I am not sold there needs to be one, this holds up on its own!