Category Archives: Movies

Movies

Swing Time (1936)… Yikes…!

Whenever I present a review of a film, optimally I like to see the whole thing or as very close to the whole thing as I can.

This should be an obvious statement!

There are times, however, when I catch a film when its halfway through its run time (or a little more) and wind up watching the whole thing but don’t write about it because, frankly, since I’ve only seen a part of it it feels wrong to give it a “full” review.

The other day I was flipping through the various channels and they were showing the 1936 film Swing Time. I saw the film once before, in a film class I took as an elective back in the stone age and during my very early college years.

I recalled very little of the film, frankly. See, though I love most film genres, film musicals don’t really do all that much for me. That’s not to say I don’t find some of them enjoyable (I liked, for instance, Grease).

Anyway, when we were about to see Swing Time, I recall our teacher say that this is considered one of the very best Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers pairings. The film was directed by George Stevens, who would go on to direct such classics as Gunga Din, A Place In The Sun, Shane, Giant, etc., but, frankly, I recalled very little about the film other than my teacher’s statement.

So when I spotted it on, I was curious. I kept it on and caught some of the early minutes.

The film was, I must admit, quite charming in its early going. Astaire is elegant and Ginger Rogers is quite lovely and when they dance, they move so smoothly. There is plenty of chemistry between them and, given the Depression era these films were originally released in, it much have been quite a relief to get out of the negatives one faced on a daily basis and lose yourself -if only for an hour and a half- in a movie featuring such lovely people having such a lovely time.

I was enjoying the film quite a bit even if it was corny (at least according to these more jaded eyes). I was enjoying it.

And then came the Bojangles of Harlem number…

Le… yikes…!

What this clip doesn’t show is Fred Astaire applying his blackface right before the number.

As he was doing it, I thought to myself: “Is that… is that what I think it is…?!”

Yup, it sure was.

The dance number itself was, like the rest of what I saw in the film, entertaining and beautiful and exciting and Astaire sure does seem to walk on air…

…but…

…blackface…?!?

Holy cow I had completely forgotten that was in the film (again, when I first saw it years ago, none of it really stuck with me at all).

I suppose this is another of those examples of things that were permissible and, indeed, deemed quite entertaining way back when but today…

Yeah, this just doesn’t fly.

At all.

And with good reason!

I shook my head and shut the film off after this… I simply didn’t have the time to finish it up, and I was left wondering how many other famous/well known films like this one have similar sequences. How many musicals from this era (and this was one of the bigger eras for musicals) feature such numbers?

I suspect there are many.

I know, for example, that the first “talkie” film was the 1927 feature The Jazz Singer. The concluding number was Al Jolson singing Mammy while looking like this…

Yikes indeed.

Movies

Murder By Death (1976) A (Criminally) Belated Review

I saw the 1976 Neil Simon written comedy Murder By Death once, perhaps twice, a very, very long time ago but it stuck with me. When I saw it on sale at VUDU, I had to pick it up and, yesterday, I had a bit of time to spare and watched it again.

Here’s the movie’s trailer:

Murder by Death is a parody of the popular literary detectives of the past and features a very star studded cast in all the key roles.

In this film you have David Niven and Maggie Smith playing Dick and Dora Charlston (a parody of Nick and Nora Charles from Dashiell Hammett’s novel The Thin Man and subsequently made into a delightful film series featuring William Powell and Myrna Loy). Peter Falk is Sam Diamond, a parody of Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade from The Maltese Falcon and is accompanied by his right hand “dame”, Tess Skeffington (Eileen Brennan).

James Coco plays Belgian detective Milo Perrier, an obvious parody of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, who is accompanied by his driver Marcel (James Cromwell in his movie debut) while Elsa Lanchester plays Jessica Marbles, a parody of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple who is accompanied by her nurse (Estelle Winwood).

Finally, Peter Sellers plays Sidney Wang, a parody, I’m guessing (I’m not as familiar with the character!) of Charlie Chan, who is accompanied by adopted son Willie Wang (Richard Narita).

The plot: Eccentric millionaire Lionel Twain (Truman Capote, delivering quite well!) invites the most famous detectives of all time to his mansion to solve a murder that will be committed at the stroke of midnight. The person who solves the murder wins one million dollars. If no one solves the crime, however, it will stain the reputation of these world famous detectives.

Meanwhile, the Butler (Alec Guiness), who is blind, has to deal with the new cook (Nancy Walker) who is deaf and can neither speak nor read.

What could possibly go wrong?!

The movie plays out as one would think a Neil Simon feature would: It feels like a filmed Broadway play, with a diverse set of characters running back and forth from room to room in an at times frantic way. The situations are at times quite hilarious and reminded me of what we would see four years later with the movie Airplane!: A star studded farce where silliness is the order of the day.

However…

While the movie plays out like an Airplane!-like dark mansion/murder/detective film, the humor is far less sharp and perhaps a little too gentle, at least when looked at now. There are some more edgy jokes (one involving Dick Charlston’s possible infidelity and Sam Diamond’s possible homosexuality) that are brought up but… again, its pretty gentle stuff by today’s standards of humor.

Still, seeing such a large and fascinating cast come together for a pretty good -if not always great- comedy winds up being a damn fun time.

Recommended!

By the way, when the film aired on TV, they re-inserted four clips into the film but they weren’t put back into the digital copy I have. The quality of the clips isn’t terrific and, truly only two of them -Willie Wang finding a clue and the last guest arrives after everything is over- are most worthwhile, IMHO. Those two clips are the last two presented.

Sorry for the murky quality of the scenes, but this seems to be the best you’re going to find them at this point.

Here they are!

Movies

Under The Silver Lake (2018) a (Mildly) Belated Review

Back in 2001 the film Donnie Darko, directed by Richard Kelly and starring Jake Gyllenhaal was released. It didn’t do much business but when it came to home video, the film met a far more pleasant fate: It became a cult classic and suddenly Richard Kelly’s near forgotten work was met with considerable acclaim.

It was deserved: Donnie Darko is a film that carried a lovely nostalgic bent which appealed to older (cough) viewers who lived through the 1980’s, when that film took place. But its themes regarding high school alienation struck a cord with younger viewers as well.

Flush with a new found success, Mr. Kelly parlayed that success in the creation of Southland Tales, a movie that… wasn’t very good.

In fact, its rare that I start seeing a film and have to shut it off, but Southland Tales was a film that, frankly, gave me a headache.

Self-indulgent seems almost too good a term to describe it.

Mr. Kelly’s subsequent career folded rather quickly. He re-edited Donnie Darko, creating a “director’s cut” which though I haven’t seen, have heard was nowhere near as good a film as the original theatrical version. His next film, 2009’s The Box, was met with both audience and critical scorn, and Mr. Kelly hasn’t been heard or seen since and for the past ten long years.

I point all this out because there are parallels -and significant differences- between Mr. Kelly’s career trajectory and writer/director David Robert Mitchell.

Mr. Mitchell’s big hit, 2014’s It Follows, is a damn good horror film, IMHO, confidently directed by Mr. Mitchell and incredibly tense and frightening.

Flush with success, Mr. Mitchell would follow up that film with Under The Silver Lake, a film which, like Mr. Kelly’s Southland Tales, was clearly an indulgence on Mr. Mitchell’s part, a film that likely would never have been made had Mr. Mitchell, like Mr. Kelly, had the clout to get investors to try his oddball project.

But, unlike Southland Tales, I found Under The Silver Lake (lets abbreviate it to USL) a far better work overall, though that doesn’t excuse some of its indulgences.

USL involves slacker/deadbeat Sam (Andrew Garfield) who lives in an apartment building in Hollywood and is about to be evicted from his apartment. He doesn’t take that -or just about anything- too terribly seriously. He has an actress girl friend who shows up for sex and watches an older -but not elderly- woman in an apartment opposite his who takes care of a bunch of parrots… while topless.

Then one day he spots a beautiful blonde (Riley Keough) bathing in the apartment building’s pool and is smitten by her. That night he bumps into her and spends a time in her apartment watching an old movie (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes with Marilyn Monroe, if memory serves) and as things get a little heated, her roommate and a few other oddball characters show up and Sam has to leave.

The next day, his neighbor’s apartment is completely cleaned out and the neighbor is gone.

This strange occurrence arouses the interest of Sam, who begins to investigate what happened to his neighbor, and in the course of the movie uncovers many of the secrets of La La Land.

USL is a film that one cannot view literally. Most of what we see and experience through Sam is symbolic and, sometimes, incredibly absurd. Sometimes, its so absurd as to be laughable… but not necessarily in a good way.

But unlike (once again) Southland Tales, USL presents us with more food for thought than the former film ever did, including some sequences (one involving an old Songwriter and another featuring Sam dancing in a club to What’s The Frequency Kenneth, the REM song) that are quite striking..

Having said all that, the movie does feel like a “light” or not quite successful version of David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. We get the whole Hollywood is a meat grinder storyline but with more absurd -again not in a necessarily good way- sequences than we should.

Still, when USL is good, its damn good but that doesn’t excuse the excesses or long runtime (the film clocks in at nearly 2 hours and 30 minutes and could have been trimmed down, IMHO, by at least a half hour without injuring the quality of the work).

USL, like Southland Tales, was hardly a hit. A24, the studio that released it and released such works as The VVitch, The Lighthouse, Hereditary, and Midsommar, appear to have lost faith in the movie when it was originally scheduled to be released and after a disastrous playing in Cannes a few years back. It was ultimately put out without much fanfare and doesn’t appear to have a BluRay release (I picked up a digital copy of it through VUDU when they were having a sale on A24 features).

In conclusion, USL is an odd bird of a film, self-indulgent and silly/stupid at times but at other times quite striking and thought provoking. I can only offer a mild recommendation, however, because the film is so strange it is just as likely to turn viewers off as it is to engage your interest.

For me, it was the later, but I won’t pretend to say the film works all the time.

Still, if you’re feeling adventurous, you could do much worse than spend time Under the Silver Lake.

Movies

The Quiet Earth (1985) a (End of The World) Review

The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door … (Fredric Brown, Knock)

Now that everyone smart is observing not only distancing from others but self-isolation, there have been several posts I’ve noticed focused on pandemic/end of the world films.

Some usual subjects rear their heads: Outbreak, Contagion, The Last Man on Earth, Omega Man, etc. etc.

Not too many talk about -or are even aware of- the 1985 New Zealand import The Quiet Earth. Here’s the movie’s trailer:

I was vaguely aware of the film but had not seen it. When it was on sale a while back over at VUDU, I picked up the digital copy of it but, like a lot of things I buy, I simply didn’t have the time to see it.

Yesterday, I resolved to do so.

What I found in the early going of the film kinda blew my mind, but it was mostly because of what was presented:

We start with a man named Zac Hobson (played well by Bruno Lawrence) lying nude in bed. He eventually wakes up, gets dressed, eats breakfast, and heads out…

…only to find there is no one out there.

At all.

The country outside the big city is intact with its buildings and gas stations, yet cars lie abandoned. Some have crashed, as if the occupants of the cars were in their vehicles one moment then disappeared and the vehicles, moving on inertia, continued until they crashed.

In one of the more fascinating scenes (and MILD SPOILERS) he finds a warehouse in flames and, upon investigating, discovers the wreck of a large airliner. He finds among the mangled remains seats which have seatbelts still tied together, as if the passengers were there… until they weren’t, and the pilot flew the craft, until they were gone as well, and the plane simply crashed (Random thought: I wonder if that chilling airliner crash sequence in Knowing -pretty much the only really great scene in that otherwise not so good Nicholas Cage film- was inspired by this sequence in The Quiet Earth?).

Eventually Zac makes his way to his work, which involves some high-tech energy experimentation station, and it is there we get the first hints as to what may have happened and why in an otherwise perfectly normal looking world he seems to be the only one there.

Seems to be being the operative word.

The Quiet Earth is divided into three segments, the first of which is Zac being all alone. The second act is like the second sentence on that short-short story by Fredric Brown I pasted at the start of this review.

Without giving too much away, Zac finds he isn’t totally alone.

The third act involves… well… I shouldn’t spoil everything, should I?

I stated that what I found in the early going of the film kinda blew my mind. Let me explain: When you write fiction, you come up with plenty of ideas and concepts you feel are promising in pursuing.

Alas, there are only so many hours in the day and when I commit to a story which may eventually become a novel, the commitment is damned serious. Sometimes, ideas come to you that sound promising but lead you -eventually or right away- to a dead end.

The opening minutes of The Quiet Earth very much resembled a story concept I was toying with a few years back but eventually left behind (no pun intended… or was it?!) because I had a hard time thinking of something clever or interesting to follow up the first act with.

The Quiet Earth, to some degree, also seems to have a little difficulty with what follows the first act. After seeing the film I was curious what others thought (I’m always curious to read people’s reactions to things) and there were many who felt the film starts off excellently but the subsequent second and thirds acts are weaker and more by the numbers.

I dunno.

As someone who grappled with a similar story idea and came up empty (another pun?! I’m full of them today!) I appreciate what the creative team came up with.

The Quiet Earth, while perhaps no lost uber-classic of science fiction is nonetheless a fascinating exploration into the idea of someone mysteriously awakening to find the world they knew is gone.

If the second and third acts aren’t quite as strong as the first -and I won’t argue that!- I nonetheless found them intriguing.

Even more intriguing was the film’s end, which is mysterious, fascinating, and ambiguous. Unfortunately, and like the iconic image at the end of the original Planet of the Apes, the visuals of that scene have made their way to the film’s poster and promotions, even the trailer presented above.

I suppose its inevitable but still, kinda silly to ruin what should have been a shocking -and intriguing- surprise.

A word of caution: The Quiet Earth is an old film, 35 years old this year, and is thus yet another of those films that today’s audiences might find move a little too slowly.

If, however, you can get past that and allow yourself to be immersed in this work, there is plenty to get out of it.

Recommended.

Movies

The Kennel Murder Case (1933) an (Outrageously) Belated Review

Enough of Corona for at least a minute or two, OK?

So we got home from our trip to Costco and Target (read about that exciting affair here!), got home, put everything away, and after eating lunch I’m alone in the living room and flipping through channels and on TCM they’re about to start up The Kennel Murder Case, a 1933 film that marked the last time William Powell played the suave detective Philo Vance.

It was the role of Philo Vance, which William Powell first played in 1929’s The Canary Murder Case, that would elevate him to a leading protagonist star status. But the year after the release of The Kennel Murder Case Mr. Powell would play detective Nick Charles opposite the wonderful Myna Loy in The Thin Man and that proved to be it for Philo Vance for him.

Frankly, it was the right choice.

For in watching the film -which, by the way, was very entertaining though the murder mystery is unintentionally hilarious in its twisty-turny resolution- was like watching the far superior The Thin Man but without the one missing -and sorely missed!- extra element… Myna Loy…

56 Best THIN MAN. images | William powell, Myrna loy, Thin man movies
Myrna Loy and William Powell in The Thin Man

Myrna Loy and William Powell had such a lovely on-screen chemistry and this -along with a clever script based on the classic novel by Dashiell Hammett- made The Thin Man an absolute stone cold classic and helped propel the series of films which followed featuring their characters.

But without Ms. Loy…

…well, she’s missed, let’s just put it that way.

Still, The Kennel Murder Case is a diverting movie which not only features a typically suave performance from Powell but also good turns by Mary Astor (though compared to her sterling role she’d play a few years later in The Maltese Falcon her character as written is rather one note), Helen Vinson, and Eugene Pallete (quite funny as the Detective just a step -or two!- behind Vance).

The story involves a literal locked room mystery and seven people who all had good reason for wanting the victim offed.

But, as I said above, the eventual reveal of whodunnit and why are so incredibly complicated and silly that they almost ruin all the delightful stuff that came before. Without giving too much away it involves the victim being essentially a “walking dead man” for a bit so he could move on his own from a downstairs room to an upstairs room, where he passed and…

…sheesh, I’m getting a headache thinking about all that!

Still, the film is breezy and fun and, as a bonus, directed by the incredibly underrated (and/or unknown, which is a shame) Michael Curtiz, who would go on to direct a little unknown film by the name of Casablanca (yes, that Casablanca) among many other pretty terrific works.

So if you’re tuning in to TCM one night and you see The Kennel Murder Case on the docket and you’re a fan of William Powell… and who wouldn’t be?… you could do much worse than spend some time with Philo Vance solving a locked room murder mystery!

Movies

The 100 Best Film Noirs…

…at least according to the writers at pastemagazine.com:

The 100 Best Film Noirs of All Time

One can certainly quibble with this movie or that and its place on the list… as well as films that maybe should have been on the list but weren’t… but I found the list pretty solid.

Incredibly, I’ve seen some 65 films on this list, though I would quickly add that there are several of them, perhaps over 10 or so, that I saw a very long time ago and do not remember all that much about them.

Still, it’s a solid list and if you’re interested in watching some good film noir, check out some of what’s offered there.

I was thinking of films that should have been on the list or perhaps fall just shy of being on it and I immediately thought of two films that are associated with director/writer Walter Hill.

Specifically:

Hickey and Boggs (1972). Walter Hill’s first screenwriting credit is a film that features Robert Culp (in his only theatrical direction) and Bill Cosby (I know this might be a deal-breaker for many) as two very much down on their luck private detectives in a then modern L.A. I felt the two, who reunited for the first time since their TV show I, Spy, display a great, natural banter and the mystery is solid and twisting. Cosby is actually quite good in a serious role as is Culp, whose sexuality is hinted as being quite fluid yet the character is not treated in any campy or silly way. Quite ahead of its time!

The Driver (1978). Walter Hill both directed and wrote this screenplay to this wonderful noir cat-and-mouse film which focuses on a getaway driver (Ryan O’Neal) and the police officer (a wonderfully unhinged Bruce Dern) who chases after him. Reportedly Walter Hill wanted Steve McQueen to play the titular Driver and its a damn shame he didn’t get him as I truly believe had McQueen taken the role it would have been considered his last great movie before his passing only two years after the movie’s release. As it is, Ryan O’Neal is only “OK” in the titular role.

If I think of any others, I’ll add them here!

Movies

Fuzz (1972) a (wildly) belated review

I saw the movie Fuzz only once before, a very, very long time ago and, once again, today (free time and all…!).

I saw the whole thing before. I had to have, because I recalled elements of the film from the beginning, middle, and end. Thing is, I couldn’t recall the movie’s plot too well and though I recognized this scene or that scene, the movie as a whole was rather “new” to me.

At least with regards to the story told.

Based on the Ed McBain (ie Evan Hunter) 87th Precinct novels, Fuzz has a screenplay by Mr. Hunter along with a pretty impressive cast for the time.

Playing Detective Steve Carolla is Burt Reynolds, in the movie he did quite literally right before he hit the stratosphere with Deliverance (also 1972). We’ve also got Rachel Welch as Detective Eileen McHenry, Tom Skerritt as Detective Burt King, and Jack Weston as Detective Meyer Meyer.

As the big bad, “The Deaf Man”, we’ve got none other than Yul Brynner as the mastermind extortionist/killer/blackmailer whose set his criminal sights on getting a fat payoff by scaring the city’s big politicians into giving him lots of money for not killing them.

Here’s the movie’s trailer:

As should be pretty clear from the trailer, the film is often played for laughs, presenting us with a police department which is barely functional as such, with a host of screw-ups and oddballs that in many ways seem patterned after the same oddballs and screwups we saw two years before in the movie version of M.A.S.H. Its worth noting that movie featured one Tom Skerritt in it as well.

The laughs, alas, are often forced, as in the case of Corolla and Meyers inexplicably dressing as nuns while engaged in a stake off in a park (yeah, a set of nuns that look suspiciously like two men in a park will gather no attention whatsoever, amiright?!). Worse, after that part is over, they keep the costumes on for the interrogation of the suspect once they’re back at the station! I guess they had no change of clothing?

I can’t help but think the director thought it hysterical to have Burt Reynolds dressed up as a nun and therefore kept the joke going for longer than it probably should have.

There are no less than five stories -probably more if I were to dissect things more fully- going on. The biggest involves the “Deaf Man”, and for the most part the others wind up folding into each other by the movies climax.

Well, most of them.

The story involving Rachel Welch’s McHenry winds up being something of a strange one. She’s new to the station and was brought in to serve as bait to catch a rapist. In the meantime, she has to put up with boorish, sexist attitudes of others (I must say, seeing this sort of stuff today is rather uncomfortable) while trying to do her job. Eventually she’s romanced by Skerritt’s Detective King but her story winds up concluding well before the film’s actual conclusion.

Reading up on the film, I found that Rachel Welch refused to do any scenes with Burt Reynolds. The two co-starred in 100 Rifles in 1969 and, apparently, she developed a dislike of Mr. Reynolds. There is a grand total of one scene where the two characters are in the same vicinity/room, but they never exchange dialogue and I wonder if the actors were even there filming at the same time (I don’t believe they’re ever in the same frame together, though I could be wrong).

Even worse, Ms. Welch’s role is so minor -she reportedly worked a grand total of 9 days on this film, which amounts to an extended cameo- that it could have been cut from the film without really affecting the main story. In fact, if she had been cut from the film it might have helped to focus more on the “Deaf Man” and what he was up to. Regardless, her story within the film abruptly ends when (MINOR SPOILERS) she captures, singlehandedly, the rapist and that’s pretty much that. She’s not involved in the movie’s main climax at all and essentially disappears while the movie still has some 15 or so minutes left!

Still, when viewed as an artifact from another era, Fuzz does offer some interesting oddities.

It’s rather refreshing the way they attempted, for example, to show that a station filled with “professionals” whose job it is to capture criminals succeed in spite of everything they do. The movie’s message is humorously cynical: Sometimes its just dumb luck that allows you to succeed rather than brains or dedication.

Fuzz isn’t a great film nor do I feel it will be rediscovered at some future point as a lost classic, but it is competently done with good acting by the principles and enough stuff happening to keep your interest, even if when all is said and done it might not amount to all that much.

Recommended for fans of 1970’s era crime dramas and fans of either Burt Reynolds, Rachel Welch, or Yul Brynner.

Others, beware!

Books/Literature, Movies

Clive Cussler (1931-2020)

On Thursday, February 27th news came out that author Clive Cussler had passed away at the age of 88. Here’s a link to an obituary written by Michael Carlson presented on theguardian.com:

Clive Cussler obituary

In many ways, Mr. Cussler is responsible for the author I am today, even if I haven’t read a single one of his books since probably the very late 1980’s or early 1990’s.

His first four released novels featured intrepid hero Dirk Pitt and were, in order: The Mediterranean Caper (1973), Iceberg (1975), Raise The Titanic! (1976), and Vixen 03 (1979). He wrote one novel, Pacific Vortex, before these others but it wasn’t formally released until 1983.

But for me, the novel Vixen 03 did things to me.

For one, this was the first “adult” book I ever read cover to cover, and very likely in 1979/80. I still carry a tattered, beat up copy of it:

It isn’t the actual copy of the book I had way back then (I suspect not, anyway), but it is exactly the same print/year as the one I originally had and read.

So delighted was I by the book that I had to get my hands on the other Clive Cussler novels which, at that time, were limited to the three others I wrote about up above.

I thought all of them were quite good, but it was Raise The Titanic! that seemed to really make Mr. Cussler a star. In fact, in 1980 a movie version of Raise The Titanic! was released. The movie wasn’t all that good, taking away most of the suspenseful subplots involving the Soviets racing to raise the Titanic on their own…

The movie’s making and eventual release seemed to sour Mr. Cussler on Hollywood adaptations of his works and it wasn’t until twenty two years later that another movie adaptation of his novels, the 2005 Matthew McConaughey starring film Sahara, was released…

This film also didn’t sit well with Mr. Cussler and all kinds of lawsuits followed because he claimed the studios were holding back on profits.

Regardless, Mr. Cussler became something of a regular on the Best Seller lists, churning out novel after novel after novel, though in more recent years he always seemed to have a co-writer, which to me indicated maybe the co-author did more of the actual grunt work in creating the work.

Getting back to my original point, I loved the first four Dirk Pitt novels. They excited and inspired me to pursue my own literary pursuits.

However, something happened after those first four books were released: He released more books and I began to realize he was essentially writing the same novel over and over again.

Vixen 03 was followed in 1981 with Night Probe!, then Deep Six (1984), Cyclops (1986), and Treasure (1988). Treasure would be the very last Clive Cussler novel I’d read (he has 25 Dirk Pitt adventures listed over on Wikepedia, along with a voluminous amount of other series).

The Dirk Pitt novels which came after Raise the Titanic!, including Vixen 03, seemed to have the same general plot: We start in the past with some kind of historical event (the sinking of the Titanic, the crash landing of the Vixen 03, the derailing of the train in Night Probe), then fast forward to the “near future” (Mr. Cussler’s books were light science fiction, usually taking place a decade or so after the date of each novel’s release), and Dirk Pitt and company are in a race against time and some very nasty bad guys to get whatever cargo was in the lost vessel we witnessed sink/crash/etc. in the opening act.

To me, the repetition became too much and I left the books, never to return. Many years later my wife, at my recommendation, read Vixen 03 and was turned off by the way Mr. Cussler wrote the character of Dirk Pitt. She said he was what people nowadays view as a “Mary Sue”, only in this case Dirk Pitt was a male “Mary Sue”: A character who can do no wrong and is rough and tumble and gets all the pretty ladies while always being right about everything.

I can’t help but feel Mr. Cussler viewed Dirk Pitt as his alter-ego as he too was involved in similar underwater activities before hitting it big as a novelist. Frankly, I find it amusing even if it is all rather silly.

But Clive Cussler was certainly not the first -or last- author to repeat stories over and over again, but he was the first in my case where I realized this is what was being done.

Thus, Mr. Cussler did two very important things for me as I was growing up and thinking of writing myself: 1) He inspired me to write as well as I felt he did (I may have to go back to those original four novels and see if they still “read” as good as my very young mind felt they were!) and, equally importantly, 2) He made me realize that as a writer I didn’t want to became a repetitious storyteller as I felt he became.

For this is the secret to becoming a writer, whether good, bad, or otherwise: You read others’ stories and analyze what works and -sometimes even more importantly- what doesn’t and you make novels/stories that follow the good while avoiding what you view as the “bad”.

Mr. Cussler taught me, through his writing, the importance of creating exciting stories but also taught me it can go bad if you decide to repeat yourself. Sure, he made a ton of money off his books, and there is a lot to be said about that, but he lost me as a reader and I didn’t want to create works that featured the very same elements time after time.

In the end, though, its sad to read of Mr. Cussler’s passing and one day I hope my novels are even a tenth as popular as his were.

Rest in peace, big guy.

Even if your later works didn’t appeal to me, those first four books have a special place in my head… and heart.

Movies

The Spy Who Dumped Me (2018) a (Mildly) Belated Review

Have to say, I wasn’t particularly interested in catching this film. I suppose there was nothing outwardly wrong with the concept: Two rather ditzy American women, Audrey (Mila Kunis) and her best friend Morgan (Kate McKinnon) become involved in Audrey’s ex-boyfriend’s affairs… completely against their wishes.

See, the boyfriend is -I’ll give you no more than three guesses here- a spy.

Not only that, he hid some kinda McGuffin in Audrey’s place and the girls have to get themselves to Europe to deliver the item while avoiding assassins, other agents, and double-agents.

Again, it certainly could have been a decent film, but I was not terribly impressed by the trailers…

When your film is supposed to be a comedy and you mostly see mayhem and stunts/explosions/shootings, one can’t help but wonder if maybe the humorous elements weren’t all that strong, no?

Regardless, I had a few spare minutes and the wife and I were watching anything in particular and the film was on the DVR, yadda yadda, so we put it on and…

…it wasn’t quite as bad as I feared it would be.

Having said that, I can’t say it was terrific either.

Mila Kunis does well as the semi-depressed Audrey, the woman whose boyfriend, she comes to find, is a spy. He’s dumped her (hence the movie’s cryptic title), and with her 30th birthday, is pretty much falling into a funk. Enter her friend Morgan, who is determined to get her friend out of her sadness.

I usually love Kate McKinnon’s antics. She’s a terrific comedian and often plays these types of “wacky” characters quite well. However, this time around she wasn’t given quite as much good material to work with as I was hoping. While she does have some very funny scenes, my disappointment in how her character was ultimately handled is best described by the movie’s climax, where the writer really strains any adequate justification for her character being on a trapeze (!) in a Cirque Du Solei situation.

I mean, that should have been funny but given the film’s penchant for showing some very brutal -and sometimes quite bloody- deaths, it felt too much to have her quite literally going out on such a limb, regardless of how “wacky” she is.

Having said all that (redux), the film was not that bad.

The plot might have been by the numbers but it moved along nicely and while ultimately Ms. McKinnon may not have been used to her full potential she was used well enough and, along with Ms. Kunis’ “straight (wo)man”, made for an engaging fish out of water team.

Further, Sam Heughan proved interesting in the role of Sebastian, a MI-6 agent who may -or may not- have the girls’ interests at heart.

There’s one more element I really loved about the film and, alas, they showed entirely too little of her: Gillian Anderson (that’s right, Scully from X-Files, among many other things!) was delightful in her three or so scenes as Wendy, the head of MI-6 (or whatever agency is after what the girls have). Gillian Anderson does so much with so little screen time and I truly didn’t think she had it in her to do deadpan comedy like she did!

In sum and after weighing the positives and negatives, I offer a mild recommendation to The Spy Who Dumped Me. Yeah, there are better comedies out there and, yeah, they maybe could have done better with Kate McKinnon, but in the end the film was far from a bust and did have several very funny scenes.

You could do far worse on a slow, rainy day.

Movies

Birds Of Prey (2020), A (Almost) Right On Time Review!

Release a couple of weeks ago and, sadly, underperforming at the box office, Birds of Prey: And The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (the full title of the work, though it is my understanding Warners has decided to cut it down) features -you wouldn’t guess it in a million years- the further adventures of one Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie, doing essentially a Looney Tunes-esq character).

First seen in the abysmally written, yet oddly decent -if only for the strong cast/acting- Suicide Squad (2016), Harley is this time around done with her boyfriend, the Joker, and we see what happens next.

It ain’t pretty, at least as far as Harley is concerned!

For the underworld has given Harley pleeeennnntty of space to do her wacky stuff because of her association with the Joker, who is feared throughout Gotham’s criminal underworld.

But when word gets out she is no longer tied to him, the restraints are off and Harley has to deal with plenty of aggravated criminals who want their piece of flesh.

The movie is presented mostly through Harley’s viewpoint, and as such we get a non-linear story, showing elements from the past, then future, then coming back to the past, building up a story that, incredibly, maintains its coherence through the ending.

As a writer myself, color me very impressed!

Yes, the storytelling is messy. Yes, it is at times very much non-linear. But that totally makes sense given the story is mostly told through a near-crazy character’s point of view.

And best of all, it does come together by the end and that is quite a writing feat, whether one comes away liking the story or not.

I happened to like the story, as well.

During the course of the film, we meet up with several other comic book characters. On the “bad guy” side we have Ewan McGregor’s charming -and unhinged- Roman Sionis, aka The Black Mask. His right hand man is the fearsome -and murderous- Victor Zsasz (Chris Messina). Early in the film Harley gets in their way and, once untethered from the Joker, is forced to do their bidding… or else.

On the “good guy” (though that term is relative!) side we have a quartet of characters, young pickpocket Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco), police detective Rene Montoya (Rosie Perez), Helena Bertinelli/The Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and Dinah Lance/The Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell).

The latter three characters wind up being the “Birds of Prey” of the title, and the movie serves as essentially an “origin” story for them as well as a story that documents Harley Quinn’s “emancipation” from the Joker while finding her path in the mean streets of Gotham City.

The film was at times very funny and it was interesting to see how the various characters interacted and, eventually, were forced to get together to take on both Sionis and Zsasz.

The movie’s standouts, other than Margot Robbie as Harley, are McGregor’s Sionis and Winstead’s sullen Huntress. But, truthfully, just about everyone carried their weight and the film proved to be a very pleasant surprise.

So if you’ve decided not to see the film because you’re all Jokered out (I think the movie may be underperforming because it did come out so soon after the release and success of the Joker film) and feel this movie is more of the same, it isn’t.

The Joker appears for only a few seconds at the very beginning of the film and only in an animated form. His shadow may linger over the initial proceedings, but this is all about the gals, and they’re a hoot to watch.

Recommended.