Bounty Law

Film: Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood
Format: Blu-ray from Sycamore Public Library on rockin’ flatscreen.

I learned when doing the 1001 Movies list that there was a real benefit to watching the longest films I could get my hands on first, at least psychologically. I’ve been sitting on a Blu-ray of Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood since the middle of March but really haven’t had the opportunity to watch it. I’ve also been dreading it slightly; I have a strange relationship with the films of Quentin Tarantino. I’ve said for a long time that I think he’d be a lot better if he stopped trying to be awesome and instead tried to be just good.

Not surprisingly, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is a film that tries very hard to be awesome and ends up being merely self-indulgent. For starters, it runs 161 minutes long, and, judiciously, I think I could knock out half an hour of it without losing a great deal. And that’s going to be the theme here. I know that I’m in the minority when it comes to Tarantino; everyone seems to like his films more than I do, or to casually overlook his flaws in the interests of bread an circuses. In a lot of ways, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood feels like he wants to break away just a touch from that habit of showing off, but he can’t quite get there. There’s still a lot of excess here that seems to serve no other purpose than servicing Tarantino’s ego.

A Minor and Expected Change

It's not going to be a shock here, but I'm coming very close to completing the Oscar project. I've got only two dozen films I haven't watched in the seven categories. This includes the most recent Oscars.

I'm also very close on my own takes on all of these Oscar categories and races. I have about three and a half dozen of these left. Because of this, I'm going to run the Oscar Got It Wrong! posts on Friday only from this point forward.

To End All Wars

Film: 1917
Format: DVD from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

I grew up watching war movies. My opinion on them has changed a bit over the years. I’m far less interested in the movies that glorify war than I was when I was a kid. These days, I still like war movies depending on the way they depict the conflict. I was interested in seeing 1917 for this reason. There is also some truth to the notion that, in general, Americans don’t make great World War I movies (Kubrick’s Paths of Glory being a notable exception). It takes a people who lost more and were in it longer to really understand the despair of trench warfare.

The selling point of 1917 is not so much the story but the way in which it is filmed. There is a single moment of unconsciousness, but the film is otherwise presented as a single tracking shot, or two shots total—up to the point of unconsciousness and after that point. Movies have been done this way, of course—some like Russian Ark are truly a single shot. Plenty of others, Rope, Birdman are presented as if they happened in a single shot. It’s always impressive. With a film like this one, involving dogfights, a crashing airplane, massive fires, and hundreds of men going over the top from their trenches to attack the enemy.

Rags...Riches...Rags?

Film: Valiant is the Word for Carrie
Format: Internet video on laptop.

Adolysti has come through once again, and in a big way—another email reminded me of the Ok.ru site that has a number of streaming movies, including a bunch that I’m having trouble otherwise finding. What this means is that you’ll be seeing a chunk of Oscar pictures in the weeks ahead. For instance, Valiant is the Word for Carrie was one of the pre-1940 Best Actress movies I hadn’t seen before today.

The truth about Valiant is the Word for Carrie is that it plays with one of the classic tropes of movies. The “hooker with the heart of gold” trope clearly had to start somewhere, and while I don’t think this is specifically the first place where it shows up, it’s clearly one of the early versions of this when it comes to movies. Our gold-hearted hooker in this case will be our title character, Carrie Snyder (Gladys George), the woman of ill repute in the tiny little fictional town of (and yes, this is what they called it) Crebillon, Louisiana. She is barely tolerated, but when she is befriended by Paul Darnley (Jackie Moran as a child, John Howard as an adult), the 12-year-old son of a local businessman.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 1989

The Contenders:

Isabelle Adjani: Camille Claudel
Jessica Tandy: Driving Miss Daisy (winner)
Michelle Pfeiffer: The Fabulous Baker Boys
Jessica Lange: Music Box
Pauline Collins: Shirley Valentine

Acronyms are Fun

Film: C.H.U.D.
Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on the new internet machine.

I remember when C.H.U.D. was released, but I had never seen it until today. Based on the reactions I remember from the time, I genuinely thought C.H.U.D. was a comedy, but it’s not. I think that probably comes from the fact that it’s kind of a dumb name for a movie. If you weren’t aware, the acronym stands for “cannibalistic humanoid underground dweller.” What that means for us is that we’re going to have a movie where the creatures are essentially mutated humans that live in the sewers of New York.

Here’s what I found really surprising about this movie: C.H.U.D. is, at its heart, an environmental film and very much an anti-authoritarian film. This is a film that, for a wonder, makes a legitimate social statement, and does so using Daniel Stern of all people as the mouthpiece. In truth, it’s not a great movie. I watched it because NetFlix, Amazon, Hulu, and the libraries in my state don’t have it. When you find a film like that, it’s best to watch it right away. I expected a dumb horror comedy and, while the movie definitely has issues and plot holes, I’m a lot happier with it than I expected to be.

Men are from Mars, Monsters are from Venus

Film: 20 Million Miles to Earth
Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on the new internet machine.

I love creature features from the ‘50s. There’s something so ridiculous and wonderful about them. They so deadly serious and earnest no matter how stupid the premise may be. 20 Million Miles to Earth has the slight benefit of a less ridiculous premise, but the science here is truly terrible. People make scientific pronouncements and discoveries that are patently ridiculous, but it’s how the movie has to work.

We take as our premise that, unbeknownst to the entire world, the American space program—in the ‘50s—managed a manned space shot that flew to Venus and back. Problems on the return trip caused the rocket to crash into the ocean off the coast of Sicily. Two members of the crew are rescued from the wreck by local fishermen while Pepe (Bart Braverman), the son of one of the fishermen, finds a metal canister on the beach.