The Star Wars Industry Churns Onward-Luke Skywalker aka Mark Hamill Cashes His Check-Director Rian Johnson’s “Star War: The Last Jedi-VIII (Sure, Sure) (2017)-A Film Review

The Star Wars Industry Churns Onward-Luke Skywalker aka Mark Hamill Cashes His Check-Director Rian Johnson’s “Star War: The Last Jedi-VIII (Sure, Sure) (2017)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Will Bradley      

Star Wars: The Last Jedi-VIII, starring the Mark Hamill (the late) Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, and an ensemble cast backing up the main actors, directed by Rian Johnson, 2017   

No question the Star Wars industry has spawned nothing but gold, more than faux Vegas Canto Bight shown in a sequence in VIII could ever dream of for creators, actors, directors and the thousands needed to keep the operation churning. No question either that from my perspective this thing had been played out, has lost plenty in the script department since this Last Of The Jedi has stuck pretty much to the action-filled and story-thin formula that has driven everything after the first trilogy. Frankly I don’t give a damn about IX although I know as sure as I am now writing that we will be besieged by such a production if for no other reason that to keep the gold coming in.

If all of this sounds a bit cynical then you are right on the money. I did not ask for this assignment, did not want it and hopefully have not dug myself into a hole by griping about my fate publicly. Here’s how this one has played out. Seth Garth and Johnny Callahan, the latter a serious financial angel for this publication, both desperately wanted to tackle this film. Seth had done a few of the earlier episodes and Johnny has actually done the review of the very first one for the hard copy edition of this publication back in 1977. Meaning this: both men have been aficionados since day one. Sensing that this golden operation was finally bringing this monster to a close both wanted to pay homage to, well, let’s call a thing by its right name-their youth. Greg Green, site manager and the guy who hands out the assignments, decided to make a Solomonic decision and pass them both by and look for somebody who was less involved emotionally and cinematically with this saga. Thus I got the call having not even been born when the series started and moreover as disinterested a party as could be about the whole business after falling asleep when my parents rented a tape for the VCR from the local video store  (showing my age at least against those who know only DVDs or streaming).           

Okay where to start. Darth Vader, oops, Kylo Ren, really   Benjy Solo, who turns out to be the late Mr. Vader’s grandson showing how if not incestuous in the direct sense at least in the storyline the whole thing was, is, played by Adam Driver, is up to his born to be bad self continuing from the last episode wreaking havoc on a sullen galaxy where he is acting as a discipline for the chief universal bad guy, a blob named Smoke, no, Snork, no, Snoke. For the good guys, good guys and gals as it turned out with a new generation of possible Jedi Knights coming from the female side of the sexual divide with Rey, played by Daisy Ridley, we have the same old same old leading the charge, leading the Resistance to the bad guys with General Leia, played by the late Carrie Fisher in her last film, and a few young bravos along side Rey and her friends Poe and Finn.             

What no Luke Skywalker? (Hans Solo, Benjy’s dad has passed beyond done in by Benjy’s hands as well although his ever-faithful companion Chewie is still going at it strong helping young Rey out of a couple of jams although he hasn’t improved his English much in the subsequent forty or so years). Yes, Luke is around but he is sulking on some desolate island having apparently given up the virtuous Jedi Knight job. The sulk  inherited from his reaction to his earlier attempts to tame an unruly universe. Half this film is spent with wanna-be Jedi Knight Rey trying might and main to get Luke back in the struggle, back into the resistance against bad boy Benjy, okay Kylo, and his handler Snoke. The other half is the usual fight to the death, yawn, between the good guys and the bad with the bad guys who vastly outnumber the good but who apparently were ill-trained by Snoke and his minions taking a pummeling before the end. Needless to say as things wind up, wind up for this episode anyway, the Resistance, the rebels are still holding on, still around in case the galaxy decides enough is enough with new head bad guy Kylo, okay, Benji and bring down a hell and damnation on his sorry butt.       

News Flash: before the end good old boy Luke does show up for one last hurrah holding off the bad guys to let the good guys and gals escape. That done one Luke Skywalker who Seth Garth and Johnny Callahan speak of in hushed tones cashed his check. What will happen next without his magic wand to protect the universe.   

When Ladies Lasted Last And Gentlemen Did Not Eve Span-David Niven’s “The Lady Says No” (1951)-A Film Review

When Ladies Lasted Last And Gentlemen Did Not Eve Span-David Niven’s “The Lady Says No” (1951)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Laura Perkins

The Lady Says No, starring David Niven, Joan Caulfield, 1951

One of the most fortunate things in my life, my professional career I should say which I am restarting here after a short hiatus at another publication, has been having Sam Lowell’s pithy comments and helpful hints along the way. (In the seemingly necessary to include interest of full disclosure these days Sam and I have been long, very long time, companions and he was the one who got me the lush long-time assignment at The Daily Literary Digest before luring me back to this publication where I had been a free-lance stinger when I was younger and when the publication was strictly hard-copy under Allan Jackson’s editorship now ended.) Two that apply to this review of 1950s The Lady Says No since there does not appear to be any other socially redeeming quality to recommend it is that, one, when all else fails for a “hook,” the hook being what you hang your hat on when reviewing films you can always use the old “slice of life” bit which I will invoke here. The other that applies is based on Sam’s old habit when he used to drink heavily and carouse with wicked women (before he met me and his match) was to just take whatever the studio publicity department put out, rip off the title and submit under your own by-line. And nobody complained. Of course today for old time films you have to cheap sheet Wikipedia and click and paste to do the same job. For the life of me I can’t figure out this silly film and so I was sorely tempted to just do that but no, this lady says no, I will trudge along trying to give the “skinny” as best I can.             

Of course if we are talking today, talking in today’s #MeToo whirlwind then something like the lady, or rather woman, says no that had a whole different and less menacing connotation back when this film was made for public consumption (although the overriding issues of male authority dominance and expectation and female subordinate resigned acceptance or flagrant abuse were I would argue not far from the surface then either). That is where blessed Sam’s “slice of life” snapshot theory comes into full force. It is extremely hard to see how a film like this, even a comedic film such as this would have any cache at all today. Certainly, the results, the ending could bear no weight today.

Bill, a globe-trotting photographer, played by David Niven, is on assignment to photograph and do a story on best-selling author Dorinda Hatch, played by foxy Joan Caulfield who has created a whirlwind in the eternal male-female, no, female-male battle of the sexes-so-called by calling for her version of an unarmed insurrection against Neanderthal males and his publication wants the scoop. As it turned out, as expected in the twelve millionth rendition of the Hollywood boy meets girl story that has saved many a studio (and incidentally got Sam on the road to taking credit for studio copy once he realized that half the films in that cinematic land depended on this beautiful little trope), there is some chemistry between them. Despite Bill’s hunter-gatherer manner and Dorinda’s obvious Seven Sisters naivete rampant in those day about what was what in the sexual wars for inexperienced young women-and ask Sam men too. The whole theme hinges on whether Dorinda’s naïvete or Bill worldliness will out in the end.

If it was just a matter of that battle royal this would be a thin-and shorter-film but the thing gets rounded out when the two sides start crusading for their respective positions among the GIs and their wives at Fort Ord out in Big Sur-Carmel-Monterrey country in California. (A place where Sam and I have gone many times especially when he gets into his Jack Kerouac and the beats mood and insists we go back to Todo El Mundo south of Big Sur where he hung out in the old days.)   Dorinda starts her own little rebellion (with some push-back) among the Army wives womenfolk in her fight. And here is really where this is a 1950s time capsule (maybe before actually) as a film all the while despite Dorinda’s feminist convictions she is inexplicitly attracted to Bill, uses whatever wiles, female or otherwise to tamp that madness, those hormones, down. You already know the ending, know it if you have been in anyone of the twelve million girl meets boy efforts Hollywood has put out in its existence. Not surprisingly despite the film’s origin in 1951 there is nothing of the red scare Cold War night and atomic thunder coming hellishly down on the world in this one. Nothing either that would pass muster with today’s audiences except members of the lonely-hearts clubs. Nothing that would resolve the eternal conundrum since Adam and Eve times, maybe before.

      

An American Werewolf In London-No-A British Werewolf In Spain-Hammer Productions’ “The Curse Of The Werewolf” (1961)-A Film Review

An American Werewolf In London-No-A British Werewolf In Spain-Hammer Productions’ “The Curse Of The Werewolf” (1961)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Sarah Lemoyne

The Curse Of The Werewolf, starring Oliver Reed, 1961     

No,  I am not going to use this space to further the “dispute,” the piddle that I can see old wise and wizen Sam Lowell calling his classic “tempest in a teapot” with Seth Garth over my so-called indiscretion, my faux pas if you will, about snitches, finks, you know guys and gals who squeak to the law for some reason usually to save their own asses, my expression from stir, from jail. Jesus with that “stir” I am starting to write like Seth. That came about when as I saw it Angela DeMarco in my review of Married To The Mob was ready to play ball with the law to get out from under the mob which was crowding in. I said it was in the interest of love as well since Angela had a thing for Mike the FBI guy who was following the mob and following her. That was then and this is now when I am on a different crusade and if Seth wants to make something of it, wants to wonder why I am defending who I am defending then bring it on, just bring it on. Hell, you’re the one who said I such be more assertive so live with it.     

This is the real deal I care about today. I am here to tell you that werewolves like some other furry animals like ferrets, weasels and coyotes, have taken some terrible public relations beating in novels and on the screen and I going all out to defend these poor creatures who have been misshapen by situations not of their own making. Case number one, the case before us which will serve as a not gentle reminder of what humans, what you and I have don’t to make werewolves even more hated by the general population than Frankenstein who at least had the defense that he was created by some evil genius as we celebrate the 200^th anniversary of his creation, of his first publication.

Take the poor werewolf Leon, played by a very young and hungry actor Oliver Reed before he hit Hollywood and the glamour rounds, in the film under review The Curse Of The Werewolf. A few things different here or there, maybe a mother who could have nurtured him rather than dying in his time of need or have not been so mesmerized by a wretched prisoner in milord’s castle where her own mother worked like a slave to provide for that bastard duke.  

Naturally though, or it seems natural now after I have a few reviews under my belt, a story goes with it as the short story writer and gadabout Damon Runyon used to say as a lead in to some of his work, about how I wound up doing this review, this review in defense of werewolves which before I delved into the matter I could have not given a damn about (my expression although when my editor saw where I was going with the review his said the same thing. A review which will be one of eight in this Hammer Production series which is what that studio made its nut on. When I was hired on here as a stringer by site manager Greg Green I was given the six- part Hammer Production series of psychological thrillers which the studio produced in the late 1950s, early 1960s. I had done two which were subsequently published, and which Greg said were good for a new hire.

Then office politics, the “good old boy” tradition which Greg was brought in to break up according to Leslie Dumont came to the fore when old time critic Sam Lowell saw the reviews and complained to Greg that he should have given the assignment since he had previous done a six- part film noir series that Hammer produced in the early 1950s. I was kicked off of that series unceremoniously and Sam was given the assignment. Not only that but he had the right, the effrontery really, to give his slant on the two film reviews I did to in what he called “the interest of completeness.” Worse, worse by far, was that whatever Sam’s reputation in the industry half the time he has some stringer do the review under his name again according to Leslie Dumont and that is what he wanted, wants me to do, including essentially to trash my own reviews. I complained very loudly and to “buy me off” I was assigned by Greg to do this series. (I will say as well as further ammunition since this is also well known in some circles, and I will name names if I get any blowback on this, that many times in the old days Sam would if he had some weekend tryst planned or wanted to get drunk with the boys he would just grab whatever the studio publicity department put out on a film, cut the top off and submit that as his masterpiece. Things must have been pretty lax since according to my sources they were all published here under his name.)

So here goes.          

Of course as a kid I was afraid of horror movies, afraid of Freddie Kruger on Nightmare On Elm Street and Jason in the ten million Halloween productions. I don’t remember if beyond American Werewolf in London I had seen any classic werewolf movies and that is not germane to my defense anyway. What is germane, what we all have to think through a bit is how to treat sentient creatures who have been abused and screwed up by human endeavor. The new model has come to us recently via the love affair between a mute young woman, a human, and a creature from the Amazon in The Shape Of Water. So whatever “crimes” a “monster,” a creature, a werewolf commit they cannot be held to the same standards as human beings who after all created the bad situation in the first place. I think in this film it was mainly a question of misunderstandings and spite which produced the ill effects.           

Aside from some religious, apparently Catholic teachings about the sad fates of those humans who lose their souls and hence are prime candidates for werewolf-dom, beautiful Leon really never had a chance to grow up and be somewhat normal. What can you expect when some damn Spanish nobleman showing the degeneracy of his class a couple of hundred years ago when he did some poor beggar wrong and kept him captive in his private prison and forgot about him. Forgot about him except the guy had to be fed and one of the feeders who was a young mute girl who didn’t flinch at his condition. Then as the young girl grew to womanhood the damn nobleman decided he want to take the “right of the first night with her.” She refused and found herself in the private prison with that crazed and apparently sex-starved mad man. The poor bugger died after having his way with her and when she decided to go to the nobleman to seek her revenge she killed him brutally out of hand. Good riddance.

Good riddance except, and here there is a strain of credibility, that poor girl after running away from the crime scene was found by a river by a kindly gentleman who took her in along with his wife and thereafter found that she was with child. The portents were not good when she died in childbirth and the gentleman and his wife raised Leon who exhibited some strange and bloody quirks even when young. Not good    

That was where the good gentleman went to the Church to see what could be done and was told the tale about soul lost and about the power of romantic love to conquer this beastly behavior. And it almost worked once Leon became smitten by the daughter of the guy he was working for in a winery when he came of working age. Almost but the power of evil was too strong and everything came to a head one horrible night after Leon had gone on a mad man killing spree and the towns people sought vengeance. Poor bedeviled Leon cornered, that kindly gentleman put the required by tradition silver bullet in the lad and that was the end of that poor misbegotten werewolf.

Except for one last comment that Hammer Productions known far and wide for its low- cost films must have spent about three dollars turning beautiful Leon into a raggedly werewolf that even I was not afraid of, not at all. That sentient being deserved better. And maybe Seth Garth does too but don’t tell him that.