Tag Archives: Retro

Death Takes a Holiday Review

Posted on by
Reply

Trois_Jours_chez_les_vivants
It’s time to look at a very old film. This title came out before Star Wars, Godzilla, and even Twister. I haven’t seen many films from the 1930’s so it was cool to see this one. I’ve always thought that the writing in the older generations was better so a film about an average day more or less for the main characters would be more interesting in the 1930’s than for a 2000’s film. After all, it is fun to see how people used to spend their days and how refined the English Language was.

The title is fairly accurate as to the plot of the film. A group of rich people all head to a large mansion and are intent on having a good time. Things get a little worrisome when the host is visited by Death, who has decided to take a holiday. He won’t be performing his usual duties while on vacation as he wants to learn why people fear him so much. The host reluctantly agrees to let him join in on the festivities and Death warns that if any of the mortals find out his true identity…they’ll all have to die!

The film’s quite enjoyable which is always a good thing for a movie. Ultimately, you want to have a good time watching it and the film succeeded for me as I never grew bored. As I mentioned, it’s essentially a slice of life film as Death ponders some deep questions about life, but the film is completely dialogue based. Don’t expect any long chase scenes or anything like that. To an extent, you could also call it a bit of a romance film between Death and the main heroine, Grazia. It’s an old school romance so it’s played out better than 90% of the modern ones. They don’t actually start kissing or acting as if they’ve known each other for years. Rather, it’s played more delicately and the moral involves looking beyond the exterior when in love. It’s a good message and handled well.

That being said, I didn’t care for Grazia. She was rather vague at times and couldn’t always seem to make up her mind. She definitely kept her allies confused the whole time and I’m sure that they were very puzzled as she would faint and practically invite death as she goaded her friend into driving very quickly. You’ll possibly feel bad for the guy as he wanted to be with her, but was quickly friend zones. Grazia even said that she loved the guy…as a friend. That was probably one of the best moments in the film and I still say that it should happen more often.

Death isn’t a great main character as he is not very smart in the ways of humans so he is always slow on the uptake. The plot of an alien or concept trying to learn Earth customs has never been my favorite. Death tries to get the hang of things, but I feel like he should have a better understanding of Earth since he’s always creeping around. Evidently, you don’t learn how to be subtle while sending people to their graves. The host was probably the best character as he did try to shoot Death. While he may have lost his nerve after that, he started out strong and he was one of the more reasonable characters, it’s just too bad that he was so scared.

Of course, you could say that about the whole cast as they were petrified of Death. Even when they thought that Grazia was in danger, they didn’t step in to help her. Fearing death is a little overblown here as the heroes should be willing to risk death to save their friend. Especially the guy who wanted to be Grazia’s boyfriend, he simply backed down when he should have tried to press on.

One part of the plot that was fairly humorous was the fact that nobody could die since Death was on vacation. The film showed various disasters where people should have died and then the newspaper would say that everyone survived. That was neat and certainly fun as the heroes would wonder what was happening. Those people must have been very lucky eh? The most unbelievable for the heroes was the guy who jumped off of a skyscraper and just got back up. I wonder if he got any injuries or if “dying” resets you back to normal. It’s interesting to think about.

The film’s fairly short as it is just a little over an hour. It makes for a very quick watch. The film was good and there isn’t a whole lot of negatives to say about it. The main cast could have been better, but at least the unlikable characters here are still far better than the average unlikable characters from the modern films. One negative would probably be the plot where two of the characters are constantly flirting with Death as it does come across as a little unnecessary, but it’s not too bothersome. It’s just around and then it fades away.

Overall, Death Takes a Holiday is a solid film. The scene where the host is warning everyone not to upset Death was fun as there was a lot of tension in the air and it had a similar effect as if he had told everyone that the guy was Death anyway. Thinking about a world without Death is interesting, but the world would be overpopulated very quickly and the world would be in a state of ruin. The film briefly touches on that and the concept of what happens after Death as well. For Christians like myself, Death holds no sway as we have Heaven to look forward too. This film shows that without such a firm belief as to where you go after Death, Death itself has a lot of control over the individual. In the remake, it would be fun to see a Christian character and how they would interact with Death. That would add a whole new layer to the experience. Either way, I definitely recommend this title. It’s almost a century old, but holds up quite well and is as enjoyable now as it was back in the day.

Overall 7/10

King Kong Review

Posted on by
2

blog-11
It’s time to look at one of the oldest films that I have ever seen. This came out in 1933 so even I had not been born yet. This was also before Godzilla’s debut yet so we didn’t know what a true Kaiju was like at the time. A giant Ape is still pretty creative I suppose…and he makes for an intriguing beast. The film definitely suffers from too much animal violence, but it made for a starting point to the monster era.

A film producer is looking for a heroine to star in his new action film. He’s going on a very dangerous quest to the filming location and he won’t even tell the crew where they are headed. Naturally, most people want nothing to do with him, but he eventually finds a lady who was attempting to rob a merchant. She agrees to go with him and they set off for Skull Island. An all power being is located there by the name of Kong…King Kong! The crew will have to subdue him if they’re going to get this movie underway so the fight of their lives begins!

It’s an old film so the writing is expected to be pretty strong, but I wasn’t as crazy about it as I usually am. It’s probably the fact that the main characters aren’t all that interesting. The main guy who becomes the love interest for the heroine is pretty rude the whole time so it’s a bit of a stretch when he finally decides to play the hero. I can’t forget all of the insults so easily and he’s the kind of sexist character that we try to forget from those days. The producer of the film isn’t bad and he’s definitely pretty confident. That being said, the movie is more important to him than Kong’s health so he definitely takes a shot to his character there. We get glimpses of how the film would be without King Kong during the cilmax when everyone arrives for the show. Ironically, it would probably get a higher score since it has potential as a stage thriller, but it wasn’t in the cards. The main heroine is decent, but she’s not great either as she falls into the romance trap with someone who had been insulting her mere minutes earlier. He does try to save her life on several occasions, but she should have placed him in the friend zone. Considering that the director saved her, it makes sense that she would be willing to be in such a dangerous movie, but she shouldn’t have stayed next to the edge while on the boat. Ah well, she was not as fun as the director, but she was better than the main guy.

King Kong is naturally the big character in this production. He’s featured as the antagonist, but he’s mostly just your average animal. He does what he can to survive, but he doesn’t have much of a concept on good or evil. He destroys his enemies and does what he wants with his life. He naturally starts to like the main heroine and he’s famous for that at this point. You’ll feel bad for him when the army is blasting away at him and you’ll feel bad for the humans and animals that he destroys. I definitely don’t like King Kong and I never had. He’s simply not one of the better monsters out there and monkeys happen to be one of my least favorite animals. It would have been hard for this film to have changed that anyway, but I’m glad that he gave it his all. It is also good that he escaped the chains at the end since being a prisoner would have been a cruel fate.

The main thing that really hurts the film is the excessive animal violence. You simply cannot get away from this negative and it comes back to bite you every time. A dinosaur gets violently defeated and likewise with a cool Rodan monster. The snake is also injured and you’ll even feel bad for King Kong when he’s defeated. This guarenteed that the film would certainly get a negative score and while I’ll still give it a higher one than a 2 (Which would be slightly excessive) it was not going to get up to a 5 or a 4. Animal Violence is something that we have to avoid at any cost and King Kong simply couldn’t get past that.

It’s why the sequels don’t have a lot of hope either. The T Rex scene is famous and I’m confident that it is in both of the upcoming films. With updated graphics, the fights could be even worse. This film is about 2 hours, but it’ll definitely feel pretty long as you enter the second half. It only drags on at some points though as the battle in the Jungle is pretty fun and I do like the climax. It’s more towards the beginning of the middle where it drags for a while. That’s forgivable though since the film is expected to have some slow moments. (Get ready for the 3 and a half hour remake…)

The human scenes aren’t bad, but they aren’t extremely entertaining either. The captain of the ship was nice enough and he did a good job of guarding against the enemies. I don’t really care for the extremely rushed romance between the main heroine and the sailor though as it is another case of love at first sight, which I don’t buy into. The humans definitely look pretty corrupt as they are actually proud of the fact that they turned King Kong from a king into a captive. It’s something that you would hope the heroes didn’t take pride in. Apparently, money is what’s important to them so they don’t care about Kong’s well being. Likewise with all of the people in the audience of course.

The film is just pretty tragic and that’s one of the main reasons why it couldn’t be as great as Godzilla or the other big monster films. Take away the animal violence and this film would instantly be a whole lot better. King Kong being a captive was sad, but he did break free so that was good. He got to get his hits in before they finally mowed him down. At least he would end up returning in Godzilla vs King Kong about 20 years later.

Overall, King Kong is one of those classics that isn’t truly great. Without our nostalgia glasses I don’t think that it holds weight, but we know that we cannot get rid of the glasses. They are why I still see the original TMNT game for Gamecube as an exceptional title of epic proportions and why Super Smash Bros Melee will always have my fondest memories for any video game. I saw Godzilla first and I have a feeling that it will always outrank King Kong. Kong’s just at a disadvantage since he’s a real animal and he’s not even close to Godzilla’s size. He is also not immune to bullets so that should end the debate against Godzilla right there. Fans of the old monster films may enjoy this one, but definitely not if you don’t like animal violence. I’d recommend the original Godzilla film instead as it is much better.

Overall 3/10

The Maltese Falcon Review

Posted on by
2

cineculture-mar-11
The Maltese Falcon is a film that is even older than the original Godzilla. It’s definitely known as a classic at this point and with good reason. It’s a film that definitely holds up pretty well against the test of time. It’s nice and confusing without necessarily cheating the audience as it goes along. You have opportunities to try and piece together what is up amist all of the trickery that is afoot.

The main character is a guy named Sam Spade. He is a detective and one day a lady comes into his office asking him to tail someone. This guy may be dangerous so she wants them to proceed with caution. Sam has his partner tail the guy, but he ends up getting knocked off. This just got personal for Sam and he knows that the lady knows more. Other wrinkles quickly develop in the plot as an organization led by the Fat Man enters the picture along with a shady fellow representing another organization. What ties all of these individuals together is their desire to obtain the Maltese Falcon.

It’s definitely a pretty fun mystery as you watch Sam try to piece it all together. He definitely has no help since none of the characters want to be honest with him. He handles the whole thing pretty well for the most part although he does get knocked out once or twice. Sam is still human so I suppose he’s entitled to a few mistakes. One area where he didn’t look good was how he would let Brigid get to him even though he knew that she was pretty shady. By the end he makes the right call, but he should have kept the whole thing a little more business like anyway since he knew that it wouldn’t work out. As a detective, he’s definitely one of the best in the biz. He doesn’t back down from the cops or from gangsters. Sam just seems pretty fearless and we know that he isn’t, but his tough facade is a hard one to break down. He’s also a pretty talented fighter as he disarms several villains in the film.

Brigid is the main heroine and she constantly tells Sam lie after lie. It’s a good thing that he’s got a lot of experience at detecting those because she would have had him trapped otherwise. She got herself into this mess so it’s hard to feel sorry for her. She’s just as guilty as the other villains in pursuit of the Falcon so it’s hard to know which group to root for from the big 3. Regardless, she is typically on the defensive since she usually doesn’t carry a gun. She wasn’t my kind of villain.

Cairo is the kind of villain who acts really polite even when he is doing something sinister. He doesn’t look too impressive in his first fight with Sam, but he manages to do all right by the end. He is treated like a punching bag compared to the other villains though and you never get the feeling that his group will end up winning. He’s pretty brave and a quick thinker sometimes. Cairo’s a fun villain to watch, but one that you don’t expect to go very far.

Poor Wilmer is the main subordinate of the “Fat Man” and he always has a gun yet he is never really able to win. He’s constantly outmatched against Sam and the humiliations never stop for him. For a while you start to think that the “Fat Man” might just off him for being so inneffective as a hit man. Wilmer manages to escape that fate, but let’s just say that things aren’t all well and good for him by the time everything’s over. He does get more character than the “Fat Man” though. The boss talks tough, but he’s the kind of guy who really needs a bodyguard since he wouldn’t last very long on his own. He was a pretty fun villain and he also likes to act polite, but he enters the party pretty late. His final trick was a doozy though.

As with most of the old (Pre 60’s) films that I’ve seen, The Maltese Falcon has exceptional writing. If films still used the dialogue of the old days it would make for some pretty thrilling moments. There’s just something about the lines that makes all of the characters seem reasonably smart. It’s pretty neat and it’s probably one of the reasons why I like the feel of these films. The adventures are always very interesting and even if you manage to get lost in the shuffle of plot twists at some point, you’ll have had fun.

The ending was definitely a little unexpected, but in a good way. It was good to see a certain character get the last laugh after such a complicated endeavor. This character never actually gets to appear, but we begin to realize his brilliance once the final plot twist pops up. Trust me, it’s a doozy! It was a satisfying way to end the film and while we could in theory get a sequel, it can stand up on its own. The solid writing and good cast of characters definitely make the mystery entertaining. There is no soundtrack to be found here, but I suppose that I can overlook that this time…..I suppose.

Overall, The Maltese Falcon lives up to its reputation of being one of the best films of its time. It holds up well to the Hitchcock films or the other Bogart titles where he starred in a similar role. You may have some trouble keeping up with the names at first, but once you’ve go them down you’re all set to start deciphering the clues. Sam does let his feelings overwhelm him at times, but for at least 90% of the film, he’s the intense main character that we had been waiting for. I highly recommend checking this out if you like a good mystery.

Overall 7/10