Vampires, Assassins, and Romantic Angst by the Seaside: Takoma Reviews

I think it's like Night and Fog in the sense that both are very important given that so much antisemitism and holocaust denial still exists in the world today.

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I've only seen a couple of Naschy movies, so you very well might find something good. I wasn't impressed though.


I've only seen the first Blind Dead movie, and while you'd be pressed to call it a great film, it definitely has its moments.

It's not only that it exists, but that the actual people who survived WW2 are dwindling in numbers.

I forget who, but some alt-right talking head was talking (positively!) about how nazi-like thinking and symbols and all that will become more acceptable to the new generation because the generation that actually fought the Nazis are no longer sitting at the dining room table. For a lot of people, WW2 is just an abstraction. I had a student two years ago who, and I don't know how else to put this, basically had a crush on Hitler. She knew everything about him, referred to him as Adolf, etc. It was really hard to navigate being like, "So I love that you're interested in history, but . . .".

I think that these films---with their large and small scope---are really critical to keep that awareness and those stories alive.

When I was like 11 years old, they showed Schindler's List unedited and without commercial breaks on TV (I want to say on NBC). My parents told me that I could watch it, but that they thought I would probably find it too upsetting. I think I watched a few minutes, but ducked out pretty quickly.

Ooh, this also gives me a good excuse to post one of my favorite YouTube videos ever.



When they all stand up, it gets me every time.

Bound, 1996

Corky (Gina Gershon) has just gotten out of prison and is hired as a painter and all-around handyman at an apartment building. Her next door neighbors are Violet (Jennifer Tilly) and her mobster boyfriend Caesar (Joe Pantoliano). In short order, Violet sets out to seduce Corky and involve her in a plan to make a new life for herself and take the opportunity to make off with $2 million that will be in Caesar’s possession for the weekend. But can Corky trust Violent not to set her up as the fall guy for the heist?

Putting a fresh twist on some classic noir tropes, this twisty-turny crime thriller really picks up momentum as it goes.

I think that it’s really easy to be cynical about films that take familiar plot and character structures and change a demographic element---race, gender, sexuality, etc---and see it as a cheap way to look progressive. And are there films that do this in a way that is probably just an attempt to cash in? Yeah. But I think that this film shows that changing the demographics of people in a familiar plot structure can fundamentally alter the dynamics of the story and contort the tropes in interesting ways.

In a typical crime thriller, the character of Corky would be a man. A brooding, maybe not so bright, hunk who gets drawn in by the sexy gangster’s moll very much to his detriment. But making Corky a woman, and by extension making Violet queer, does really interesting things to the character dynamics and what we’d normally expect from the direction of the story.

Just from the jump, Corky being a woman means that she is granted a certain kind of invisibility to the mobsters and specifically to Caesar. Despite her criminal past, Caesar doesn’t register Corky as a threat. He does offer her a bribe at one point--which she takes--to make sure they’re on the same page. But at one point he comes home to find Corky and Violet in the throes of passion on the couch and despite their clearly, um, perturbed state, when he sees that Corky is a woman his suspicions disappear. Likewise, with her wide eyes and “Gee golly!” compliant routine, Violet manages to keep the mobsters thinking of her as a helpless damsel.

Violet being queer---probably gay, possibly bisexual---also makes the nature of her relationship with Caesar more explicitly transactional. At one point, Corky hears Violet and Caesar having sex through the thin apartment walls. Violet tells Corky that what she heard wasn’t sex, it was work. There’s an interesting detail in the film in that the man who embezzled the $2 million from the mob--a man whose torture and murder Violet is forced to witness---according to Violet knew she was queer. If true, it adds another personal element to Violet’s desire to take the money and run: revenge. Violet is trapped in her relationship with Caesar, essentially forced into the role of loving hostess and sex bomb. We see at one point the violent response that would await Violet if she tried to leave Caesar. It adds an extra layer to the trope of the woman who gets herself stuck in a relationship with a crook.

Then there’s the erotic component of the film, and it works really well. I was neither here nor there on Corky’s character, but Tilly is walking sex with her gravely babydoll voice and overt seduction that begins with an unflinching, raw stare behind Caesar’s back during an elevator ride. The sex scene between them is incredibly fiery, but also portrayed in a fantastic panning long shot that captures details like Corky’s foot pulling the corner of a fitted sheet off of the mattress. The detail that Violet is on top during their encounter and it’s Corky we see experiencing orgasm reinforces Violet’s role as femme fatale. Corky several times articulates that Violet could just be setting her up, but what we see helps us understand why she might not entirely care. Explicit-but-not-exploitative is a tricky tightrope to walk and the film really nails it. Reading trivia afterward---that it was a very closed set and done with the input of, imagine!, actual lesbians---makes a lot of sense of what’s on screen. There’s no doubt about the sexual chemistry between the characters, but we have to wait and see if they’ll actually end up together.

I also enjoyed the style of the film, in which you can see glimpses of the techniques and camera moves that would later pop up in grand effect in The Matrix. There are 360 pans around the action, and use of slow-motion. Suddenly an argument taking place in a living room feels like a wild west showdown. There are also some great visual touches, like zooms to ringing phones, close ups on walls through which we can hear sounds of violence, and the iconic shot of hundreds of bills drying on thin lines strung through Caesar and Violet’s apartment.

My only real complaint is that I found some of the violence to be a little too much. I definitely muted and looked away for a chunk of a torture/murder sequence. I understand that the violence in that scene sets the table for the threat against Corky and Violet later in the film as their carefully laid plan begins to unravel. We see in graphic detail what Caesar and his compatriots are capable of, and it’s terrifying. Still, it was a bit much for me, despite understanding its function.

A really solid thriller that delivers and subverts noir crime tropes all in one go.

I think if you didn't want to like it, then you'd probably like it.
It's not a good enough movie to meet the expectations of a movie that you want to like.
But it's a good enough movie to be liked.

I think I'm only a slight variation of Crumb's opinion.
I've seen a couple Naschy films (a couple of werewolves, Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll (aka House of Psychotic Women)), and I've just never found anything to connect to them.


I saw The Ghost Galleon years ago and didn't think much of it. Saw Tombs of the Blind Dead (first one), and enjoyed it a lot more, but I'd have to admit that all of the weaknesses of the film were probably already accounted for from my previous experience with The Ghost Galleon (so I'm actually probably more positive on it than Crumbs).
I know someone IRL that says really good things about Night of the Seagulls, but I've never seen it myself so I can't speak to it (nor of this person's recommendation).


It's been too long since I've seen The Living Skeleton to remember much about it. For some reason I've only ever started to watch Genocide (despite really being tickled by The X That Came from Outer space), but Goke - I wasn't impressed with when I watched it on DVD, but then saw most of it on 35mm at 3 am one Halloween (I missed some due to needing to use the bathroom), and I have to say, the crisp psychedelic colors on a large screen really played a lot better to my sleep-deprived brain.

Oooh, Bound is good. Haven't seen it in a very long time, though.

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25th Hour, 2002

Monty (Edward Norton) is a mid-level drug dealer who has been caught, tried, and convicted. With just one day left before he must report to prison, Monty spends the day with his girlfriend Naturelle (Rosario Dawson), as well as his childhood friends Jacob (Phillip Seymour-Hoffman) and Frank (Barry Pepper).

Grounding its narrative in a highly specific post-9/11 New York, this film is a powerful study of place with a so-so set of character arcs.

There are plenty of films where one can remark that the setting--often a city--is practically a character in the movie. In this film, that’s taken to an extreme, as Monty’s last day in New York involves a hyper-awareness of the people and places around him. And in this film it isn’t merely the place, but also the time. Jacob and Frank have a conversation overlooking the site of the Twin Towers, watching as construction vehicles navigate around. They talk about rumors that the air is still toxic. A wanted poster for Osama Bin Laden hangs in Frank’s stock-trading workplace. The melting pot of the city is tinged with anti-Mulsim/arab sentiment.

The shadow of 9/11 is echoed in an interesting way in the position where Monty finds himself. Going to jail is a disaster that Monty can see coming. He is acutely aware of the before, and while he doesn’t know the exact details, he does know that nothing after will be the same. He anticipates damage, possibly permanent, and that certain potentials will be gone forever. Is it better or worse that he can see what is coming?

This weight of anxious anticipation hangs over the whole film as Monty must process what his future holds. Again and again he expresses fear that he will be a victim of sexual assault and physical assault in prison. Other characters offer him strategies for survival, but he is unable to shake his concerns. Every minute that he spends with Naturelle, he is aware that he will be away from her for the better part of a decade. Plans that they had for having children together have been derailed, if not entirely scuttled. He’s also connected to some very dangerous men, and so he must tread carefully in terms of them believing that he hasn’t informed on them to the police.

In its best moments, this film balances Monty trying to soak in the city around him with the encroaching dread about his upcoming incarceration. In a long monologue delivered to a mirror, Monty tries to cast the city as a vile place, spewing hatred at just about every subgroup he can name. But at the end, he cannot keep up the facade and turns his loathing on his own reflection. Every moment of enjoyment---every drink, every dance, every hug, every kiss---is tinged with an unspoken “for the last time”.

Spike Lee shoots New York with an intimate familiarity that captures the beauty and the everyday grunge of the place. He places Monty strategically in ways that both capture the hustle and bustle of the place and simultaneously make Monty feel impossibly alone.

Where I didn’t really engage with this film were in the various subplots. Jacob spends the whole film waffling and sweating over whether to romantically pursue one of his teenage students, Mary (Anna Paquin). I’m sure you can guess my feelings about this “dilemma”: it’s gross! And unethical! And frankly, watching the way that Jacob’s friends egg him on---including getting Mary into a nightclub despite her being underaged---broke my sympathy for any of them.

From a character point of view, I was most drawn to the dual feelings of anger felt by Monty’s friends and Naturelle: they are angry at him for getting caught, but they are also angry at themselves for standing by while he went down that path. Frank confronts Naturelle about the fact that she’s been benefiting from Monty’s dealing. Even Monty’s father must grapple with the fact that Monty started dealing in the first place to help him pay off his debts. It’s very clear that Monty is a smart and charismatic person, but he was never strongly steered in a more lawful direction by any of the people in his life.

I did have some mixed feelings about the portrayal of Monty, which uses some too-obvious manipulation to get us on his side. The very first time that we encounter Monty, he is rescuing a dog that has been badly abused and abandoned on the side of the road. Monty nurses the dog back to health and adopts it. I mean, come on. Monty’s crimes are also abstracted to some drugs hidden in his couch. We never see any of the results of his drug dealing, or even really see the impact of drug usage in the city. I can easily empathize with Monty’s fears and his despair over his squandered potential, especially when his arrest is really just a tactic to shake down his boss. But at the same time it feels somehow dishonest to present Monty as almost an innocent victim, when his actions have at the best furthered addictions and at worst killed people.

I wish I’d been more engaged by the various characters and subplots. It’s not just a matter of them being unethical people, but they are unethical people who are also kind of boring. Once the action moved to the nightclub, my interest really took a nosedive. A stunning final sequence between Monty and his father (Brian Cox) ends the film on an emotional high note and pulls everything back together.

I Married a Monster from Outer Space, 1958

Marge (Gloria Talbott) is engaged to Bill (Tom Tyron), but the night before their wedding Bill is ambushed on his drive home and his body is taken over by an unseen alien creature. The creature wears Bill’s body like a suit, gaining access to his memories, and goes through with marrying Marge. Sowly, Marge becomes more and more unsettled by Bill’s strange behavior and mannerisms. But as she starts to seek help from her friends in their small town, she comes to realize that Bill might not be the only one who is not who he seems to be.

Full of surprisingly disturbing moments and imagery, this is an effective story about paranoia and conspiracy.

Whether it’s horror or fantasy or sci-fi, I think that the best movies with unreal elements draw a line in your mind or heart between what is on screen and some current or personal reality. What I loved about this film was that at every step, it made me think about very real life situations.

It’s not uncommon to hear phrases like “She’s not the person I thought I was marrying” or “He isn’t the man I married anymore” in real situations of couples splitting up. In the beginning, Marge is unsettled by what she perceives to be changes in her husband, though nothing that goes to an intense extreme. He makes a remark about dogs not liking him, though she knows that his family always had dogs when he was growing up. One night he forgets to turn his headlights on, and she wonders aloud how he was able to see to navigate in the darkness. He stops drinking alcohol and starts smoking more.

While there is one incident that is overtly disturbing---Marge buys Bill a puppy as a gift and he claims it strangled itself accidentally when Marge clearly hears it yelp in pain---for the most part the changes in Bill are small, and the kind of things that would sound silly if said aloud to a friend or doctor. Marge is unhappy, but there’s nothing serious enough to compel her to ask for help. In one scene with chilling real world parallels, Marge goes to the doctor to try and figure out why she’s unable to become pregnant. The doctor assures her that she is healthy and able to bear children, and tells her to send Bill in. Marge visibly shrinks in on herself at this suggestion. After all, what man doesn’t like having his virility questioned? You can see the wheels turning in Marge’s head at the suggestion, trying to figure out how to frame it so that Bill won’t be angry.

As the film progresses, however, the threat does become more serious. Marge comes to believe that whatever is affecting Bill is also affecting other men in the town. Now, I apologize for how dark this connection is (sorry!), but it made me think of a documentary about sexual assault in the military. One woman who was interviewed talked about how the men at her base would monitor her phone calls out. They all had access to the room where she slept. And the person she was supposed to report any abuse to? He was one of the men who was raping her. This torment of everyone with power or authority being someone who either won’t help you or is actively harming you simmers in the second act. Every avenue of help---the police station, the telegraph office, the police patrols, the switchboard---is overseen by men, and whether they are possessed or merely unwilling to take the word of a hysterical woman, no one will really help her. It all goes back to a really effective trope in sci-fi/horror: something happening to someone that a rational person probably wouldn’t take seriously. If a friend of mine told me that she thought her husband was possessed by an alien, I’d be looking to get her psychiatric intervention, not calling out the national guard. But because we know that Marge is right, we suffer along with her as every plea for help is ignored. Marge doesn’t know what Bill will do if he discovers that she’s on to him or if she tries to escape, and so she is incredibly cautious with each attempt. It’s this hesitation and fear---along with our audience awareness of just how surrounded she is---that generates a terrible tension.

So storywise and from a character arc point of view I really enjoyed this film. I really liked Marge as a protagonist, and for the most part totally understood her actions. But I also really liked the character of Bill---the possessed Bill---because he really deviates from the typical sci-fi alien tropes. We come to learn that the aliens need a new place to live, and are making a go of colonizing Earth. While we twice see Bill kill innocent animals for no reason, there’s still something very engaging about his character. The more time he spends with Marge, the more the character changes. Yes, this is the old trope “teach me about love,” but here you can actually see Bill learning and processing and coming to have some sort of feelings for Marge. Maybe not love, per se, but there’s almost something like affection there toward the end of the film. There’s a growth to his character that I feel is atypical for this kind of movie, and it adds interest to all of the scenes between Marge and Bill. There’s a choice made by Bill toward the end of the film that speaks to him being a developed character and not just a cookie-cutter evil alien invader. There are also some fun supporting characters, given weight by the fact that the film is kind of unpredictable in terms of who survives and who doesn’t.

Finally, I thought that there were some really fun, and sometimes disturbing, visuals here. The film frequently goes to the well of an effect where when lightning flashes, we see the alien faces behind the men. When the aliens possess someone, they are enveloped in a strange plume of rolling black smoke. And there’s a glimpse inside the alien ship later with a fantastic visual showing how the aliens are accomplishing their body snatching. The film develops a fun visual language to show us who is possessed. Someone holding a cigarette or declining a drink takes on special significance.

There really wasn’t much here that I disliked. There is a plot point around the end of the film that I thought was kind of stupid. After Marge being the center of the film for almost the whole runtime, at the last minute the movie is like, “And now let’s hand things over to a group of dudes.” Not only is this kind of annoying because it puts Marge in the backseat, it also makes no internal sense given that the only people who can 100% be trusted not to be possessed are women. There are several women characters who have been living with possessed husbands for months if not over a year, and it seems glaringly obvious that they would be the ones to do something. But I guess having women tromp through the woods on a mission would have been too action oriented for the era. Womp.

This was a surprisingly complex and nuanced sci-fi thriller, and I think it’s a shame that the most common image associated with it---a squid-headed alien carrying off a woman in a white wedding dress--has absolutely no connection to what actually happens in the film. Such a huge gulf between my low expectations and how much I enjoyed this film. I’m entirely serious when I say that with a slightly stronger final act, this would be a near-perfect score from me.

Interesting trivia: Tom Tryon, who plays Bill, wrote the novel on which the 70s horror film The Other is based!

Hearts Beat Loud, 2018

Frank (Nick Offerman) runs a record store that is on the brink of closing, and he himself is experiencing something of a crisis as his only daughter, Sam (Kiersey Clemons) prepares to leave for college. Convincing Sam to record a few songs with him, one of their tracks becomes a minor hit on Spotify and Frank seriously begins to ask Sam to consider staying put and pursuing a music career with him. Also complicating things for Sam is a new romance that sparks between her and a young woman named Rose (Sasha Lane).

This heartwarming drama-comedy gets plenty of emotion out of watching its two leads navigate major changes in their lives.

Cinema is full of parents who are superficially like Frank: seemingly immature and impulsive, forcing their children to be the adults in the relationship. I usually find these characters very off-putting, as they are far more selfish than they are charming, and even with a quirky performance, I can never stop thinking about how miserable and unstable a child’s life would be with such a parent. Where this film goes very right is in taking the time to actually interrogate what is behind Frank’s behavior, letting parallels play out between Frank and Sam as they both face a major life transition.

Frank and Sam are both still dealing with the lingering aftermath of the death of Frank’s wife and Sam’s mother in a cycling accident. This loss comes up in ways large and small throughout the film, such as when Sam must admit to Rose that she never learned to ride a bicycle. What is implicit all through the film is that Sam is really all Frank has as family. We can understand why he wants to hold onto her, and why a future where they travel and perform together as a band is an attractive fantasy to him: give his daughter success, fulfill his own dreams of musical success, and keep them together as a family unit.

Offerman and Clemons have great chemistry as the father-daughter duo. Clemons in particular has a brightness to her that conveys just how much potential Sam has. As the film goes on, we see some of that shine dull under the weight of her father’s expectations and the realization that her romance with Rose most likely won’t survive if she goes through with her plans to leave for college. Offerman really embodies the kind of person who is glib and makes jokes out of everything to avoid confronting any unsettling emotions. His frantic dive into trying to make their band a success has as much to do with distracting him as it does with wanting the band to make it.

As with any movie that centers on characters being artists, a certain amount of your enjoyment will come down to how you respond to the art. Well, I liked the music in this film. Written by Keegan DeWitt and actually performed by Clemons, it’s light and engaging, and I didn’t at all mind hearing the title track several times.

My only complaint here is that I felt that a subplot involving Frank in a quasi-romance with his landlord, Leslie (Toni Collette), didn’t quite come together. Her character works really well in theory, both to show how Frank is tentatively approaching romance and also because Leslie is rooting for the record store to stay afloat, and her enthusiasm forces Frank to confront whether or not he wants the store to survive. So in theory, yes. But in practice, I don’t know. Something about her character didn’t work for me, maybe because she seems to be so obviously there as a sort of catalyst for Frank to make choices or come to realizations.

Good stuff.

Somebody recommended that one to me.

I've seen it mentioned by posters on this site quite a few times.

I can't remember if you've ever seen Whatever Happened Was...

The 1994 film? I have not! Tell me about it!

It's very much worth seeking out. Basically the whole film is a slow burn character study that watches a man and a woman on an awkward date. I'm trying to find a word to describe how it made me feel and I'm at a loss. It wasn't sadness or happiness or fear or anger or laughter. It may have touched on some of tbose emotions but I think the uniqueness of its effect was what lingers with me.

It's only on Mubi right now, but I watchlisted it and I'll keep an eye out for it popping up elsewhere.

Les Miserables, 1935

In this adaptation of Hugo’s novel, Jean Valjean (Fredric March) steals a loaf of bread for his hungry family and is sentenced to a decade of hard labor aboard galley ships. While there, he and the other prisoners endure punishments and a total lack of empathy at the hands of Javert (Charles Laughton), a military man who believes in following regulations no matter the circumstances. After his release from prison, Valjean starts a new life with a new identity and becomes very successful, at one point rescuing a young girl and raising her as his own. Unfortunately Javert ends up assigned to the town where Valjean now lives and soon becomes suspicious.

A solid and powerful telling of Hugo’s classic tale, this adaptation makes some rewarding changes to the plot.

If you’ve seen any version of this story---my first exposure was seeing the musical with my family when I was maybe 11?---you know that there’s a lot going on and many characters to keep track of. The story also covers a huge span of years, probably about 30 or so. There are a lot of strong elements to this particular adaptation, but one of the best things it does is keep you very clear on who is who and what is happening. This means making some changes to certain plot points, and even omitting certain parts, but overall I thought that the deviations from the original text worked well.

With such a large cast of characters, you never know who will shine. March makes for a good Valjean. He brings a wounded vulnerability to his character once released from prison, a man who is angry at what he’s been reduced to and ashamed of the lengths he must go to in order to survive. Later, he’s dashing in his new persona as a wealthy factory owner, but still brings a haunted anxiety when it seems that his past might rear its head. But the real star of the show here is Laughton as Javert. Scarred by the shame of having a father who was a convict, Javert’s unflinching and often cruel adherence to the law is his way of distancing himself. It’s easy to read Javert’s actions as just being a way to be superior and lord power over others. But in the last act we see that there’s more to it than that, and that it’s actually at least partly a coping mechanism.

Stylistically, the film gets the most out of the performances by not rushing through the different sequences. In one scene, a man is pinned under a broken wagon that is trapped in the mud. Slinging off his fancy coat, Valjean puts himself under the wagon and becomes a human jack, lifting the cart so that the man can be rescued. Witnessing this feat of strength, Javert becomes suspicious. The camera lingers on Laughton for a good long while, so that we can see the wheels turning in his mind.

The world painted here is largely one of cruelty and injustice. Valjean is chastised by a heartless judge for having stolen the loaf of bread, even as Valjean explains that he would have to walk miles and miles just to get to work because jobs are so scarce. Life for the prisoners in the galley is brutal. Yet within this context, there are moments of kindness and light. When Valjean is homeless after his imprisonment, he ends up spending the night at the home of a priest Cedric Hardwicke). Valjean steals from the man, but when captured he is saved by the priest, who lies to the police that the stolen items were gifts. It is a moment that stays with Valjean, who internalized the message “Life is for giving, not for taking.” Later in the story, Valjean rescues Cosette from an abusive situation and one of the best moments of the film involves her embracing him and both of them having a moment of being emotionally overwhelmed.

There are a lot of changes made to the story, some big and some small. Honestly, I really appreciated that this version did away with some of the plot elements in the later story. In the book, there’s a whole thing where Cosette gets convinced by her fiance that Valjean is evil and so they shut him out of their lives, he goes off and is depressed and dying. Does it fit with the whole “cruel world” thing? Yes. But at this point in the story it begins to feel like misery piled on misery piled on misery. Instead, the film ends after the final confrontation between Valjean and Javert, and it’s a great way to end the film, on a note that is emotional, gives a sense of closure, and has a feeling of optimism.

My only issue with the film is that some of the accents are really out of place. At certain points, there are supposedly French characters who sound like they’ve reported directly from the Bronx.

Overall this was a really strong adaptation of a classic story, really elevated by great central performances.

What do you think of the oft-seen accusations that Spielberg is sentimentalizing Holocaust? And about the general sentiment of Godard, that cinema is unable to portray Holocaust?

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San Franciscan lesbian dwarves and their tomato orgies.