Quick reviews
What I've been watching lately:



Don't Torture a Duckling: An early Lucio Fulci flick, this is a pretty solid giallo. The basic plot is that someone in a small Sicilian village is murdering young boys (10-13ish). A big city cop, the local police, and a reporter are all working to solve the case, and the suspects boil down to the local priest, the daughter of a rich land owner who's returned to the area (and is played by red-hot Czech Barbara Bouchet), the village idiot and the local "witch", really a disturbed woman whose seizures mark her out as an outcast in the superstition environment of the village. Fulci actually manages coherence and the film is beautiful, making great use of mountanious Sicilian terrain and character actors to give it a lot of flavor. The plot isn't the most innovative ever but there is a fair amount of red herrings and the killer and the reasons for killing are somewhat refreshing in a giallo, and it's nice to see one that doesn't rely on an urban setting and trenchcoats and hats. Recommended to giallo/thriller fans, though I warn you that there is some pretty nasty gore and the ending death is ludicrously drawn out and not as successful FX-wise as the rest of the film.

The Man Who Laughs: Universal brought over Paul Leni and Conrad Veidt from Germany at the height of the Expressionist film maker's movement's power. The idea was to end the threat of German film success by taking all of their best actors and directors. When they wanted a follow-up to The Hunchback of Notre Dame, they got the rights to another Victor Hugo book, The Man Who Laughs (the tale of an English political prisoner's son who is mutilated with a carved on smile as punishment), but unfortunately their intended star, Lon Chaney, went over to MGM. They plugged Leni and Veidt into the film, and I think that Veidt, at least, was the right decision. His lanky form makes the prosthetic used to create hi character's terrible visage more believeable that it would've been on Chaney, I think. In any case, Veidt does a great job with the part, but Leni's direction is mixed. In the early scenes there's some truly astounding work, like Gwynplaine's (Veidt) journey through the snow past gibbets and the King's torture rooms, all of which recalls the work the Germans were doing on the continent at this time. Unfortuantely the extended court scenes and the terribly Hollywood ending (which stoops so low as to have a freaking DOG save the day) although the book's ending, which sounds forced in the other way, probably wouldn't have been much better. In any case, the tale is okay, but not quite what I expected, and it's interesting the sympathetic Gwynplaine's image was later used as the basis for The Joker, who is not very sympathetic at all and doesn't have Gwynplaine's "sad clown" identity.

Star Gate: I had never seen the film that the long-running tv show was based on, probably because I've never been a fan of the show. Still, the film stars Kurt Russell and James Spader, so I gave it a shot. For a Emmerich and Devlin film it was fluffy light entertainment, not good but there, which is about all you can expect from those guys (and it's at least mercifully short compared to, say, ID4). Everyone gives and okay performance, the costumes and FX look good, but that's about all I can say for it.

Suspicion: I have to say I didn't pay as close attention to this as I should've (I got interrupted a lot) but it's a solid Hitchcock film and part of the 1940s-1950s cycle of films where a woman's mate may or may not be planning to kill her and she's trying to decide if she's being paranoid or not. Apparently the ending on this one was changed but it was an okay flick, though so divorced from modern experience that it feels pretty distant. Still, you could do much much worse.

Wall-E: I caught this with Moms Mortis and Brother Grimm on the 4rth and we all had a great time with it. Not my favorite Pixar film, but as good as their films always are, and yeah, there's some tension between the anti-consumerist part of the message and the fact that this will be marketed like crazy, but I'm not going to worry about that as there's plenty of stuff here that's not about consumerism gone awry; really the film is about hope and change and I quite enjoyed it.

Hancock: BVH wanted to see this and it was super hot out (and it was a Tuesday that I skipped out on Judo, bad me, but the Circle Cinemas runs a 6 buck ticket night every Tuesday) so I agreed to go with her. Not at all what I expected, from the back story of Hancock on, but it was actually a decent if not great flick. Jason Bateman is really the center to the film and I really enjoyed what they did with his character. Will Smith, as usual, is better than people give him credit for and I enjoyed the take on superheroes the film had. Could it have been better? Hell yeah, but for what it was it was enjoyable.

Where Eagles Dare: Brother Grimm has been after me to see this forever, and finally having seen it I thought it was good. Not a great film, by any means, but the twists are plentiful and caught me at least a few times. Clint Eastwood is strictly second bananna to Richard Burton, but it's obvious which one excels at an action part and which one is the pompous ACTOR (though Burton isn't quite too big for his britches here, so he doesn't ruin it). The action is well done, the plot is good, and the supporting cast does well enough.