Everybody has a favorite animal. Mine happens to be a polar bear. Now, I’ve always hated the comparison: "a real tiger!". When referring to somebody persistent.
I mean, if you can outrun a tiger for about three minutes the beasty will give up. Yet, a polar bear will chase you for days.
So why don't people say a: "real polar bear"?
Anyway, Disney's Zootopia manages to use this stereotyping to tell a thrilling story that -like Thomas More's original novel- doesn't shy away to seep some reality into an utopian world where fable-esq predators and prey live in harmony.
The story A bunny named Judy Hops (Ginnifer Goodwin) is the first bunny officer on the central police force of Zootropolis. A police force comprised of big (big!) animals like elephants and rhino’s. Sufficient to say she has to prove herself. With the help of a hustler fox Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) she takes on the case of finding a missing otter.
If there's one movie this year that should have the sticker made in 2016 on it it’s Zootopia. It is so keyed into the current world we live in it's almost like the producers formed the political climate to fit this movie instead of the other way around.
Not in my backyard, racism, discrimination, political correctness, fear, political games, feminism, class system, stereotypes, xenophobia, actual terrorism, heck- even bootlegging. Just to name a few.
Every subject that plagues the news today seems to make an appearance. And -obviously- since it concerns animals it doesn't hurt that much.
Let's be honest. The stereotype of wolves howling. If you even think of a human equivalent you are already knee-deep in the muddy waters of racism. Here, because it's a cartoon, it's all fine.
I was actually rather shocked to see how close this childrens’ movie dared to steer near the real world problems. And I’m still left wondering how many of the themes I saw in this pictures will be picked up by the intended audience. But I certainly applaud it. Movies, after all, always tell two stories: the main story, and the story of the time the movie was made in.
Bunny to the rescue The story -as we expect from Disney- is simplicity itself. A coat rack for both a thrilling buddy crime story and a parody.
However, like Frozen a few years back it's muddled a bit in the good sense.
No more: guy meet's girl in a perfect world with only one nasty villain. No the world is imperfect and the villain is unknown for most of the time. Just as it should be, a lot closer to the real world.
Yes, the moral of the story: ‘be who you want to be – not who society forces you to be’ is repeated time and again in this movie. But Zooptopia doesn’t shy away to add some footnotes to this black-and-white statement. For instance the (hilarious) fact that a bat can never become an elephant no matter how hard it wishes to be.
This makes it a better movie. Yes the morality tale is still there and Disney certainly hasn’t forgotten its educational prowess, but also embraces the complexity of the real world.
Nor their commercial goals. I bet the toyshops are going to be stuffed with stuffed toys.
Bunny in trouble
Another good example of this complexity (again like Frozen and Big Hero 6 before it) is that the main villain is unknown for a good time. Like any classic buddy cop film there’s a real sense of who-dun-it with the classic fourth act reveal.
Pretty much around the Breaking Bad-reference should be the moment the audience cracks the case.
Which –again- is something completely different from Disney movies of the past. We knew, back then, from the moment we saw her that Maleficent was one evil crone. Now she has her own movie. Times change and Disney changes with it.
Bunny immersed
Thankfully -like that wonderful scene of Pinocchio going to school for the first day- so too has Zootopia so much to see. Like the political 2016-sticker mentioned above; this movie can also wear the technological sticker of 2016 with pride.
This is a movie to watch frame-by-frame on blu-ray because there are so many little things hidden in the background.
The creative department went absolutely (pun intended) wild.
Which, I think, is best explained by the thought and planning that went into this movie.
‘How to put a polar bear and a wildebeest in the same city?’
Answer: By creating several districts. One for ice, one for savannah.
This thought process shows on the screen. When you sit down for zootopia you can actually ‘feel’ that someone has taken the time to think about the traffic regulations between the car of an elephant and the car of a mouse. It’s this attention to detail that makes zootopia such a comfortable ride.
Which is great because –to be a tad negative here – the directing isn’t that original. The scenes look good on camera but hardly ever does the movie utilize the full potential of the digital camera. It’s like zootopia tried to mimic the cop movies from the ‘1980s –which were known for the action and fast-talking characters but not the creative cinematography.
But it doesn’t truly matter because the movie shows what it needs to show. I just feel that it could be even better.
To finish with the acting. That’s simple; the acting is perfectly fine. But after eighty years of cartoon voice acting the craft has pretty much been perfected. I can't readily think of a animated movie in which the voice-acting was bad. Maybe the character was underwritten, or a wrong voice type chosen*. But never unbelievable bad (or 'missed the lip synch' bad for that matter). So the acting is perfect and -to be honest- it is fun to imagine Ginnifer Goodwin jumping around in her recording booth as a feisty bunny.
I do remember that awkward ‘hello-just-met-you-now-lets-sing-a-lengthy-song-about-the-fact-that-I’m-blind’-bit in Quest for Camelot. But even here the acting was fine. The sudden inclusion of this song was what went wrong.
Just a little game I thought up the minute Donald Trump started talking about his silly wall. I mean he's really like an old James Bond villain with Yosemite Sam for his sidekick.
Anyway, I figured I'd have some fun with this wall of his and make a little parody out of it. Nothing terribly offensive (I hope). A simple sprite replacement and bingo Trump becomes Donkey Kong.
UPDATE: it appears that Firefox and flash had a marriage
dispute (and forgot to tell the kids) so some people can’t see the flash file.
But, you can download it HERE.
In the eighties it was the-thing-to-do to make
a mixed tape (like a mp3 but touchable, always in need of a pencil and most
definitely cooler). On it you would make a little playlist of all the cool
songs. Now the trick was to make each song correspond with the rest of the
tape. In this post I will try to do the same with movies.
Every once in a while I will select a general
topic and select movies to accompany it. As you can see the more child-friendly
movies are at the start of the day, but when night falls: ‘here be monsters’. Please
feel free to give suggestions of other unknown movies.
One rule though: Auteur themes like
‘Shakespeare’ or ‘James Bond’ are not allowed. ‘Spy-movies’, naturally, are.
Theme: Here be monsters
I love those old maps that have sea monsters
scribbled in the corners. There once was a time when monsters were everywhere.
Nowadays we realize that the monsters are our fellow men. Notwithstanding I
want to delve into monster movies. Where the threat of Dracula’s bloody fangs
are very, very real.
08:00-10:00 Hotel Transylvania:A fun movie about Dracula and his daughter
–who falls for a backpacker. Even though the main character is voiced by Adam
–‘please stop working’- Sandler I still like this movie because it is what it
is. No pretences. It just wants to give the viewer a good time. And it does
with some good jokes. I becomes a bit sappy at the end but, then again, it’s a
kids movie.
10:00-12:00
Ernest scare stupid:The best movie in the
Ernest-franchise. Here simple Ernest takes on a century old troll trying to
capture children. It might be a little bit too scary for the little ones but I
never minded. Besides the minute Ernest cries out “Milak” all is forgiven and
I’m (still) rolling on the floor laughing.
12:00-14:00
The monster squad:The classic had to be included. ‘Boys versus
monsters’ would have been an equally impressive title. In this movie a group of
boys take on, not only, Dracula but also the swamp thing, the mummy, the monster
of Frankenstein and the wolfman. Hell yeah.
14:00-16:00
Harry and the Hendersons: After two bad monster movies it is
time for a good monster movie once again. Bigfoot Harry is just that one. He’s
sweet, slightly stupid and fun for all. Include a caring John Lithgow and an
evil Poirot, David Suchet and you’ve got a great movie for all the family.
16:00-18:00
Loch Ness: And another monster from legend. If I got
Bigfoot I might as well include Nessie. A scientists goes to Scotland to see
whether Nessie is real. He falls in love with the hotel proprietress and her
little daughter and then he spoils it all.
One fun
thing I liked about this movie is the ending. Spoiler warning: everything is
alright in the end. The hero kisses his sweetheart. But –what I noticed- the
director probably told the little girl standing in the background to be happy and dance around a bit and
then run back into the house. The little girl did just what she was told,
danced her little butt off and went back into the house…and out
again…dancing…in again…out again…dancing…
It is a
sweet and hilarious ending at the same time. I can’t blame the girl. It’s just
fun. Like the movie.
18:00-20:00
Matinee:The best monster movies were made in the ‘50s.
This movie highlights that period in time alongside communism scares and the
thread of nuclear holocaust. A sweet story to put all those movie previous into
perspective. Also it has John Goodman playing Lawrence Woolsey stealing every
single scene he’s in.
20:00-22:00
Young Frankenstein: Like hotel Transylvania before I assume my
readers/viewers know the stories behind the monster beforehand. This is a great
parody of the Monster of Frankenstein story. It is hilarious on the level that
only Mel Brooks manages to achieve. And it even got a great cameo by Gene
Hackman to boot.
22:00-00:00
Tremors:It is later at night now, not it is time to
slowly go into real monster horror. Tremors is just the thing. It is horror but
with quite a lot of humor to it. Giant sandworm trying to eat people and Kevin
Bacon to save the day. But that’s not the best thing. What I love about this
movie is the moment the poor sandworm decides to dig into the cellar of a gun
collecting world-war-III-prepper. The little voice in my head can still hear
the sandworm mutter: “Oh shi…”
00:00-02:00
Swamp Thing: The classic. When you talk about
B-monster-movies this one should be on your repertoire. It isn’t bad, but it
isn’t perfect either. It is a strange experiment from the eighties that never
really worked. And so, few people have seen it. Too few in my opinion.
02:00-04:00
Jeepers Creepers:A true monster movie horror to end this list.
I love the fact that the two main protagonists are brother and sister. That way
I don’t have to worry about any sex-scenes that break away the tension. No,
here we have two people willing to fight for each other while fleeing from a monster. And
no it won’t end happily, or maybe it will.
Honorable mentions:There are way too many movies I could have
included on this list. For starters the Hammer Horror movies. Heck, I managed
to avoid Christopher Lee, Vincent Price and Boris Karloff all together. Shame
on me. Still this is my list. And, don’t worry. These three greats will make
their presence known in upcoming articles.
Okay this
one is not safe for the weak hearted (it features a decapitation and a crucifixion).
Jesus Christ Superstat (1973)
The omen (1976)
Last Easter
(naturally) I was watching Jesus Christ Superstar (1973). And I noticed a shot
that looked a heck of a lot like one used in The Omen (1976).
Maybe I'm
reading too much into this comparison. But I do like the possible parody aspect
that the usage of repeat shots used for the crucifixion of the son of God was later repeated in
a movie about the son of Satan.
*Now the
original explanation of the decapitation scene was that people in the audience
tend to look away for two/three seconds before turning their eyes back to the
screen. So the trick was that by prolonging the decapitation/ showing it from
different angles, the scene could still get a fright out of those people who
originally looked away.
I felt
creative enough to finally reproduce the famous Yigael's wall from the movie
Damien: the Omen II.
In this
fiction Yigael's received a vision of the anti-Christ and depicted his likeness
on a wall - from infant to grown man. Without spoiling the movie too much,
centuries later the wall is rediscovered and naturally the moment poor ol’ William
Holden sees it he learns for a fact that there's something terribly wrong with
his godson Damien.
It is
actually a rather interesting piece of art. I wouldn't want it in my living
room but still. Here it is, I hope you enjoy it.
Now for
some technical ranting on how I made it. You can skip it if you want.
Yigael's
wall - 'Or how to give your computer a heart attack' would have been a better
title. Anyway, my initial attempt was PrtSc-ning the heck out of my battered
DVD-copy. But due to the flashlight in the scene it looked rather horrid. More
screenshots would be needed to make the light in the pictures appear more
natural. So I made a second attempt. Using a nifty program called Animget (Link) I told my computer to take screenshots at 10 ms intervals. So now I
had a folder full of 5MB pictures.
Then I
fired up my old photoshop and used the photomerge function to stitch them all
together. To say the least my computer wasn't very pleased. Puffing and
groaning like an asthmatic dragon it finally decided that he wasn’t going to do
that for me.
So I tried
some online photo-stitching tools to create this panorama. Now, I’m sure that
these programs are great at their job, just not the ones I want them to do. So
finally it tried a program that told me it could make a panorama out of a
video. Great! So I ripped a video from my DVD and…the program forgot to tell me
I couldn’t set the intervals. So basically after two hours of tinkering I
decided to use the extra screenshots I got from animget and fix my original
sketch by hand. Twenty minutes later I was done. Lesson learned.
Now I'm
sure there are some people out there who are better at photoshop than I am. So
I'll include the .png's as well. Have fun.
In the eighties it was the-thing-to-do to make
a mixed tape (like a mp3 but touchable, always in need of a pencil and most
definitely cooler). On it you would make a little playlist of all the cool
songs. Now the trick was to make each song correspond with the rest of the
tape. In this post I will try to do the same with movies. Every once in a while I will select a general
topic and select movies to accompany it. As you can see the more child-friendly
movies are at the start of the day, but when night falls: ‘here be monsters’. Please
feel free to give suggestions of other unknown movies.
One rule though: Auteur themes like
‘Shakespeare’ or ‘James Bond’ are not allowed. ‘Spy-movies’, naturally, are.
Theme: Second World War
The second world war. Now how am I going to do
this one? Because…well…it’s not the happiest moment in human history. It’s
right up there with the biblical plagues. Still, there are quite some good children
movies that touch upon the subject. So let’s start.
08:00-10:00
Bedknobs and broomsticks: One of my all time favorite movies.
It has everything. Magic, song, dance and evil Nazi’s getting their butts
kicked by medieval armor. Naturally the movie doesn’t delve too deeply into the
evilness of the Nazis, but the movie does plant the seed that every child needs
to know: Nazis are pure evil.
10:00-12:00
Five Children and it:Now we are already touching
slightly on the subject of loss. Five children have to leave London to live
with a weird uncle and cousin on the countryside. Their father is currently
abroad fighting. He may very well die!
You don’t
get to see a speck of the war but the loss and longing these children portray
during their magical adventure is all you need. I was on two minds to use
either this movie or Nanny McPhee 2 but I figured the longing was stronger in
this movie (Narnia also crossed my mind).
12:00-14:00
An angel for May:How do you get kids nowadays interested in the
Second World War? Time travel of course. Just simply drop a kid from the now
into the past. I’m being a bit silly here but strangely enough this far-fetched
concept works. A (almost a delinquent) boy travels back to the Second World War
and befriends a girl named May. In the true timeline she is going to die by one
of the Nazi bombs. The boy tries to safe her and in the meantime manages to
better himself.It’s a
sweet movie about friendship that educates the children about the dark years of
the 1940s.
14:00-16:00
Johnny and the bomb:Terry Pratchett. That’s all you
need to know. Ow alright I’ll elaborate. It is basically the same story as An
angel for May. In this mini-series Johnny Maxwell and his friends travel back
in time to stop a bomb from dropping (and later on correct all the little
mistakes they made on the way). It is sweet, smart (in the way that time travel
stories can be deliciously mindboggling when handled by an A-class author) and
incredibly funny.
16:00-18:00
One against the wind:Now we’re getting our hands dirty
on war. Child’s play is over. But this is a television movie (produced by
Hallmark no less) so it is still very polite and straight forwards. The Nazis
are bad, the good guys are good. But this movie does stretch the borders of
television. For starters it gives you a powerhouse of a woman -played by Judy
Davis- trying to get British pilots out of occupied France. And the will her
character uses to get what she wants is admirable. More so –remember it’s a
Hallmark movie- It even ends in a concentration camp and –for good measure- the
moviemakers didn’t shy away to show the horrors of those camps. True, people
still look well fed but the fact that they even went there, bravo.
18:00-20:00
The bridge on the river Kwai:One of the things that's alway bothersome about learning about the Second World War is the focus on Europe. This one is a great portrayal of the war in Asia (The railway man is an interesting picture as well). Now, The bridge on the river Kwai is nowhere near an accurate
portrayal of the horrors at the Burma railway but it is one of the best.
20:00-22:00
Shindler’s list: There it is, the big one. To this day I’m
puzzled about the brilliance of this movie. Why did Spielberg decide to shoot
this movie in black and white? Why did Spielberg manage to get away with all
those horrors he shows? This is a movie that literally takes us into the gas
chambers. It is a movie in which the stars appeared to align just right to
educate the people about the horrors of yesteryears. This is the once in a
generation movie. The fact that our main generational influence (Spielberg)
made it makes it even more impressive.
Are there
faults? Of course there are. The whole: “With this ring I could have bought
several more…” speech is a bit too sappy. But then again we did have this cold
reasoning “how many do we got…we need more.” dialog several scenes
before.
22:00-00:00
Der Untergang:Until now we’ve dealt with the Second World
War from the Alliance’s perspective. Time to look at it through the Fuhrer’s
eyes. But that’s a lie, this movie doesn’t. Hitler in this movie is –slightly
understandable- but still as far removed from any humanity like the other
movies. Then what does make this movie so important? Because it shows
conviction. Hitler’s followers. From his minister of propaganda to the little
Hitler Jugend kid. People who support an idea and even though they don’t
believe in it anymore they will be damned if they stop and turn.
00:00-02:00
Escape from Sobibor:The first camp that liberated
itself. But at what cost? This is a movie that shows, in all its brutality, the
will of people to die for freedom. We’ve all seen action movies in which the
second hero sacrifices him(or her)self for the greater good. This movie shows
the reality of it and it isn’t pleasant. I’ve only seen this movie once, still
can’t bring myself to see it a second time.
02:00-04:00
Das Boot:I started this little article with Bedknobs
and broomsticks. Stating that all Nazis are evil. And they are, the ideology
is evil (even though a lot of politician nowadays are getting quite close to
these ideals). This movie shows the German working man on a U-boat. People who
just want to do their job and go home.
They kill,
they are ruthless, but they are human. And in the end it turns out that the
other side is just as ruthless/human as they.
Honorable mentions:The dirty dozen. Now this movie is
hardly an accurate portrayal of the Second World War. But it is one of the best
of the bunch of American’s-won-the-war-in-Europe-singlehandedly-movies of the
1950’s to 1990’s. One thing I remember about this movie (apart from the awful
sequel) is a behind-the-scenes featurette I once watched. During this bit of promotion the narrator
repeats, time and again, that this is a: “movie for real men!”. To such an
extent that it becomes hilarious.
Conspiracy: Now this is a very interesting movie for this
list because it is gut wrenching like Shindler’s List but utterly bloodless.
The movie deals with the famous Wannsee Conference wherein the Nazis discuss
various ideas to deal with –what they call- the Jew problem.
It is fascinating
and sickening
to witness the ease with which mass murder seems to be decided upon.
Once upon a time there were television series
that didn’t go on indefinitely from one new ‘king on the iron throne’ to the
next or from one ‘walker herd’ to the next. These were called mini-series.
Shows that would tell a complete story in three or four episodes. Oh…hang on,
they still exist? Like the brilliant 'The night manager'?
Let me try again. Here I wish to tackle three
mini-series from the past that resonated with me. And, luckily, they are all on
youtube nowadays. I’m going to give a short review for each of them and
hopefully you’ll watch them because they are very (very) good.
I’ve always
been a big fan of the phantom of the opera. Whether it’s the original book by
Gaston Leroux or the various movie versions (and one Polish cartoon). I’ve
always liked this idea of a murderous fiend hiding in the catacombs of the
Paris opera house. I’m sure the story is familiar but let me quickly summarize:
The phantom of the opera is about a disfigured
man called Erique living in the cellars of the Paris opera house. He has lived
there all his life and –as such- became very adapt in classical music. Then one
day a young girl Christine comes to work at the opera. He sees her, falls in
love, and decides to teach her to become a professional singer. However,
Christine falls in love with a handsome suitor named Raoul. Which, to say the
least, doesn’t sit well with the psychotic Erique.
I think
there are only two versions of ‘the phantom’ that I disliked. One is the
strange Dario Argento version with an automated rat-catching-machine (–far too
much focus on the bloodshed). And the other is Webber’s sequel to his famous
musical: Love never dies which basically destroys the original story (but I do
like that song: beauty underneath).
But if
there are two versions that I did like they would have to be the 1943 version
with Claude Rains –If you wish to know where this famous image of a mask comes
from, this is the version- and the 1990 mini-series.
Now keep in
mind I have seen every single ‘phantom’-adaptation ever to grace the screen,
including the original man-with-a-thousand faces/Lon Chaney version (both the silent and
sound version –it can be found on archive.org if you wish to see it). So what
makes the 1990 version such a pleasure for me?
The biggest
reason has to be that it is in no sense a horror-story. The phantom (being a
psychotic and all) naturally lends itself nicely for some 19th
century Freddy Krueger kind of story. But here it isn’t. Moreover you don’t
even get to see Erique’s mangled face. You simply get to see Christine seeing
it for the first time and fainting. That’s all you need to know about how
grossly disfigured the man is. There is no unmask reveal.
First and
foremost this is a story about love. A love between a father and a son. A
three-way love between Christine and Erique and Raoul. And all the (almost
opera) drama that comes from it.
Yes the
original story is changed dramatically. Erique, here, is less of a villain and
more of a misunderstood man. But the main themes about love and pain stay front
and centre stage.
Which
brings me to the acting. The phantom here is played by the great Charles Dance
(yes, Tywin Lannister from Game of Thrones).Naturally because he’s behind a mask all the time you’ll have trouble
recognizing him, but trust me it’s him. And he’s playing against both the
legendary Burt Lancaster as (slight spoiler) his father and former manager of
the opera house and the delightfully lovable Terri Polo as Christine. The on
screen chemistry of these three players is already magnificent to watch. But
the supporting cast that surrounds them (including one of the best wicked
prima donna ever to grace the story) supports them in their moment to shine.
Now the
main reason why this movie works is because of the music supporting the story.
It is phantom of the opera after all so there’d better be some opera in it (and
you’d be surprised how little opera is used in a lot of the other adaptations).
There is and it is perfectly keyed to wonderful standalone scenes. To name
three:
Christine
versus Carlotta.
Christine
has secretly been training under the phantom’s guidance to become a better
singer. One day he sets her a task to go to the local theatre bar and sing a
song there. She goes up on stage and (nervous) starts to sing. The arrogant
prima donna Carlotta decides to ‘help’ the poor girl and goes on stage next to
her. A sing-off happens in which the prima donna is absolutely destroyed by
Christine’s soprano.
It’s a
beautiful scene to witness and the music enhances this ‘battle’.
Christine’s
childhood.
A small
flashback occurs shortly after in which Christine remembers Raoul as the boy who
lived in the mansion where she and her father once worked at as servants. Raoul
has always (even in the book even though he’s a protagonist character)been a bit uneven in the phantom-movies.
Usually he’s just the handsome lad to save the day who happens to have quite a
bit of money to boot.Since we all have
a tendency to support the underdog. The phantom -in this case- becomes said
underdog. Regardless of the fact that he’s a psychotic killer.
The best way to
tackle this is by giving Raoul a good natured personality. In the 1943 version
this is done by making him a slightly-clumsy singer. In this version this is
achieved by making his character not care about the class system.
Christine,
a servant girl, secretly tries some keys on the piano she’s cleaning. Raoul
catches her but instead of scowling her he plays a song with her. They become
childhood friends shortly after. Naturally his mother isn’t very pleased when
she finds out about this class-different friendship later on and sends
Christine away.
This is a
great way of introducing Raoul because it shows him caring before Christine
becomes the famous opera singer.And the
schism his character will eventually create between Christine and Erique is
already set because of this past introduction.
And then
there’s also the song:‘Laissez-moi
planter le mai’. It is a small but wonderful song (nowhere to be found on the
internet) that encapsulates all of the flashback. These are two young friends
who were torn apart. Now that they refound each other love can grow.
The big
finale.
This is the
main reason why this movie is so adored by many Phantom-fans around the
world.And, naturally, because it is the
ending of the movie this part of the text is quite spoiler heavy.
Erique has
just been left by Christine because she got scared of his face. Christine
meanwhile is living with Raoul torn because of her betrayal of her friend and
master. And Raoul, of course, is jealous because the love of his live has
feelings for another man.
Christine has to perform on stage. The opera is Faust. About an aging man who
sells his soul to the devil Mephistopheles to win the heart of a younger
woman.I assume that the parallels are
obvious.
Christine
is singing on stage and Erique –suffering from tuberculosis- hears her. Even
though the entire French police-force is waiting in the main hall ready to kill
‘the Phantom’ Erique still goes up to box number five to watch his beloved.
He sees her, she sees him and Erique starts to sing a duet with Christine. Then
the actor singing Faust (a bit flustered because somebody stole his line)
starts to sing along and the duet becomes a trio. Then the actor
playing the devil gets involved and it’s a quartet. All the while Erique and
Christine are singing how they love each other – making amends- with Raoul in the audience being tremendously jealous.
This power
of this scene is even underlined by the main police officer ordering his men to
‘wait a bit’ before interrupting the proceedings by shooting at the phantom.
Only when the song is done does the firing start and the phantom has to make
his escape.*
On the roof
the phantom gets cornered by the police. He saves Raoul from certain death (thus
making amends with him as well), before getting shot in a mercy killing by his
own father. But beforeErique dies
Christine removes his mask en kisses the face that once scared her that much.
It’s this
grand finale that actually caused me to import the DVD from Korea of all places
(the furthest I ever ordered a DVD from). Because it’s such a satisfying finale
that goes out like an opera has to go out: big, strong and on the highest note.
Nowadays,
we don’t need to order any DVD’s we can watch the movies back on youtube. So if
you got four and a half hours to spare – emjoy
*During his escape he pushes the actor playing the Devil aside.I
always like this little touch. Who’s the biggest bad guy here?
A pretty
famous one for my second entry. I’m guessing but I wouldn’t be surprised if
this was the movie that catapulted Nicole Kidman’s career in Hollywood. It’s a
(almost) five hour drama of a daughter trying to find her father. Whilst he
tries to make accept his past. The story in short (I’m going to allow some
spoilers here to make the rest or the article easier to write):
A former lieutenant of the British army during
the Second World War has been convicted for war crimes and flees the country.
The crimes he committed are twofold. First it is the duty of any British
soldier in captivity to try and escape the prison they are incarcerated in. For
him this was a camp in Bangkok Thailand. However, every Brit escaping would
result in the Japanese executing those left behind. So, to spare lives, this
lieutenant ratted on the would-be-escapees the moment the tunnel to escape was
finished.
He didn’t know that the bombing of Hiroshima
happened on the same day. The war was over for him two days later. The second
reason for this ‘crime’ (it’s obviously an ambiguous term here) is that his
father was a highly decorated veteran of the First World War. Thus, this crime
shamed his father.
Finding solitude in exile the former lieutenant
falls in love with a woman in Australia. But when his pasts catches up with him
he flees once more, leaving her pregnant of a daughter.
Years later, after her mother died, the daughter
goes looking for her father. In London she meets her uncle and he sets her on
her way to Bangkok where her father lives.
Once in Bangkok –through the intermediary of a
lawyer- her father basically tells her to go away. Accepting the fact that she
tried she goes. However, a charming boyfriend she picked up in London stuffed
her suitcase full of cocaine. And when she’s arrested at the airport he merrily
leaves her behind.
She is sent to Bangkok Hilton. The nickname of
a prison which happens to be built right on top of the Japanese camp her father
was in all those years before. Knowing nobody in Thailand but her father’s
lawyer she calls him. Pretending to be the lawyer’s assistant her father helps
out as well. Trying to free her from the death penalty.
Once one of the friends she made in prison gets
executed and her own date of death has been set she, the lawyer and her father devise
a plan to escape the prison by using the tunnel made years before.
Why do I
like this movie? For starters it’s a film with a lot of familiar faces before
they became famous. Denholm Elliott as the father is better known for his turn
as the goofy Marcus Brody in the Indiana Jones series. Nicole Kidman, I assume
we all know. Hugo Weaving who plays the lawyer later on became Elron in Lord of
the Rings (and V of course).* Even Deborah Kara Unger is in it in a small but interesting role.
But, of
course, it are the main themes of a love between a parent and a child and the
ghosts of ones’ past that resonate the loudest. Let’s start with the second
one:
The ghosts
of the past.
The father character is tormented. Once you meet him in Thailand he’s pretty
much an all out drunkard. And of course it is quite a catch-22 that torments
him. Should he have let those soldiers escape then he would be responsible for
the deaths of countless more. But not letting them escape is the equivalent to
murder.
Played
beautifully by Denholm Elliott you understand his fears. But because of the
story these fears are made acceptable through the love he develops for his
daughter. One of the final scenes inside the sewers wherein he accepts his past
shows this. He’s on a mission to save his daughter. Without highlighting it the
movie tells the audience that –for him- by saving his daughter from certain
death he can somehow find peace of the crime he committed years before.
Fascination stuff.
The love
between a parent and a child.
This is
the biggest theme throughout the movie. But because for almost the
entire running time the father-character keeps up the lie that he’s just an
assistant the love grows as a friendship between an elderly man and a young
woman. Only in the brilliantly played last scene in which the father says the
words: “ I’m her father!” (I always loved that look of Nicole Kidman’s eyes in
this moment. A mixture between ‘ I knew it!’and‘ Oh daddy!’ ) does this
friendship acknowledge what the daughter character subconsciously knew all
along.
Then, for
the daughter, the penny drops as to why this man was so caring for her when he
first met her. Then she suddenly understands why it was him and not the lawyer
who went after her in the sewers. But most of all it acknowledges what she
already knew deep down.
The prison
system in Asia.
Naturally
there’s an elephant in the room. When this movie was released it was heralded
as a statement against the prison system in third-world countries. And still,
to this day, there are people imprisoned in Asia (I wouldn’t call it a
third-world country anymore) under terrible circumstances.
To
paraphrase a famous quote: ‘You can read the state of a country by the way
they treat their prisoners’ .
If you wish
to watch this movie from this perspective of suffering and hardship then
Bangkok Hilton doesn’t disappoint. The death-scene of the daughter’s friend
(and her younger brother) is shocking and a cut-clear statement against the
death penalty.
But I never
focussed on this element. It’s there and it’s a very important part of the
story. But for me this is a movie about parental love. The horrors of the
prison or the drug-trafficking boyfriend are parts of this story.
In the end
everything is well. The boyfriend gets arrested (almost in an
afterthought)and father and daughter
walk the beach reunited, their past the past.
*I
also loved him in the little known Phil Collins picture Frauds. Yes, that Phil
Collins from the movie Hook (look it up).
A very dark
tale to end with. Mainly because it all (pretty much) truly happened. The
search and capture of John Wayne Gacy. The story:
John Wayne Gacy –when you google him you’ll
quickly find a picture of him in clown make-up- was a serial killer who liked
to rape and murder young boys/men. He was a big, strong and clever man who got
away with what he did for a very long time. To this day the authorities still
aren’t sure how many murders he has committed. This movie deals with a police
officer who tries to capture Gacy.
As you’ve
read throughout this article I have a tendency to highlight scenes that I
liked. Scenes I find brilliant and therefore elevate the movie. To catch a
killer has a lot of those scenes but, at the same time, also has this early
1990’s real-life-stories vibe to it that slightly diminishes the power of the
tale.
Is it a bad
movie? Not by a long shot. The main performances are fantastic. Brian Dennehy
especially is absolutely frighteningly ‘
good’ as John Gacy. It’s just that,
because the movie focuses on a real case it has a tendency to become a bit
Hallmark (even though I love
Hallmark’s One against the wind, another mini-series I’ll tackle some other time
since it isn’t on youtube.). But don’t let that disappoint because there
are a great deal of fascinating scenes within this movie. I’ll focus on three
of them:
The psychic During one
scene the police officer is at wits end. So he tries something desperate and
contacts a psychic. Naturally he’s bit biased about her abilities. But, as
a fun twist, she doesn’t care. She knows what she can do and she only wants to
help. No harm no foul- as it were.
This is an
interesting approach to a psychic because the audience doesn’t have to
question her talents. Just go along with it.
Then she
goes into a trance and starts drawing pictures of graves while muttering: ‘so…so, many of them.’
True that
that’s the supernatural angle that was all the rage back in the 1990’s. But
then again, because the movie tells the audience not to put too much faith in
case-solving possibilities of this psychic it allows to create drama.
Through this scene the movie gives the viewer a dramatic look at the scale of the
crimes Gacy committed. This isn’t just one boy missing, it are several.
"Don’t let
him go!" Another
scene I truly loved is the ‘lawyer scene’. Gacy is constantly being followed
by the police. They know it is him but they can’t prove anything. So frustrated
and angry he locks himself up in his lawyer’s office.
Now the
lawyer, at first, is angry with the cops for harassing his client. But then a
night goes by. The next morning, soaking in sweet, the lawyer comes out of the
office and starts pleading with the officers:
“Don’t
let him go. He’s like an animal in there. Shoot his tires if you have to just
don’t let him go…!”
And then the door opens and out comes a beast that was once a man. Gacy
–high on pills at that time- truly shows his true psychotic persona.
It’s such a strong scene because the lawyer who is supposed to protect
his client betrays him because there’s no conscious in the world that would
enable him. This sets up the moment before the door opens and the pure evilness
of Gacy steps out.
"What more do you need!" And then there’s the third great scene. After a previous failed momentum
of searching Gacy’s house the police officer tries for a second house warrant.
The judge isn’t keen on giving him one. But then the main character goes on to
list all the things he knows. All the things that would incriminate Gacy if
‘only they could prove it’, topping it off with a: “what more do you need?“.
After two or three hours watching the cops trying to capture Gacy and
Gacy –in turn- escaping once again it is a very satisfying summary of all the
things learned so far. Once the police officer starts naming all these things
it becomes cut and clear that everything points at Gacy as a killer. Now all
they need is the proof.
There are a lot of other great scenes in this movie. But these three are
definitely some of them. To catch a killer is a great inside look in the
investigation of a serial killer. Wherein the focus of interest for once
doesn’t rely on the bloodshed that accompanies it but the sorrow it leaves behind.
Or: Pick your favorite animal –the movie.
If there's one movie this year that should have the sticker made in 2016 on it it’s Zootopia. It is so keyed into the current world we live in it's almost like the producers formed the political climate to fit this movie instead of the other way around.
The story -as we expect from Disney- is simplicity itself. A coat rack for both a thrilling buddy crime story and a parody.
However, like Frozen a few years back it's muddled a bit in the good sense.
