Tag: Movies

Movie Review: The Wolf Man

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews6 Comments

The_Wolf_Man_1941_Poster_2_by_smalltownheroMy string of classic horror novels this fall mostly had the effect of driving me to watch classic horror movies. And after watching The Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and even the Karloff Frankenstein, I couldn’t resist picking up The Wolf Man when I happened across it on my library’s DVD shelf. It turned out to be quite horrifying—but not remotely for the reasons the filmmakers intended!

The story opens with the return of Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) to his ancestral estate, trying to fill his deceased older brother’s shoes as heir, and rebuild a relationship with his father (Claude Rains). He’s quickly distracted by the lovely Gwen, by folklore about a werewolf in the neighborhood, and by a rather creepy band of gypsies. And after he’s bitten by a very peculiar wolf, he has something else to distract him… Continue reading “Movie Review: The Wolf Man” →

Classic Review(s): Christmas Movies

On By cherylmahoneyIn Favorites Friday3 Comments

After my very non-traditional Christmas book review on Monday, it seems only fitting to go back to the classics for Christmas Eve.  My Christmas traditions are somehow much more centered around movies than books–I’ve reviewed A Charlie Brown Christmas and It’s a Wonderful Life, and here are some brief reviews from a few years back of several other favorites!

White Christmas – This is a fun story about two army buddies who make it big in show business after World War II.  One Christmas, they have to use their musical talents to help their former commanding officer–while wooing two beautiful sisters.  Starring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye and Rosemary Clooney, this is full of musical numbers, including Bing’s signature song.  And I love the end scene with the reunited troops singing “We’ll Follow the Old Man” to the General.

Holiday Inn – Bing Crosby seems to be the king of Christmas movies.  In this one, he’s in show business with Fred Astaire, until he decides to start Holiday Inn: an inn only open on holidays.  The movie actually covers the entire year, and Fred and Bing do musical numbers for every major holiday, in between vying for the same girl.  This movie has worked its way into my brain, and I find myself quoting the most random lines.  If you ever hear me say something will be as easy as peeling a turtle, I don’t know what it means either, but Bing Crosby said it.

You Can’t Take It With You – As far as I know, no one but me has ever connected this movie to Christmas.  And Christmas actually isn’t in it at all, but the feeling is right.  Lately I’ve been watching this while I wrap Christmas presents.  Like It’s a Wonderful Life, it’s directed by Frank Capra, and repeats half the cast.  Lionel Barrymore stars in a role so different from Mr. Potter, I didn’t recognize him the first time I watched the movie.  He presides as the kindly patriarch of a blissfully cheery and decidedly kooky family where everyone does just as they like–writing plays, dancing ballet, or designing fireworks.  Barrymore’s granddaughter falls in love with Jimmy Stewart, who comes from an uptight, big business-type family, and when the families come together, lifestyles clash with funny results.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas – The old, animated Grinch is so fun with the rhymes and the song and the familiar animation.  I won’t claim it’s a work of great art, but it’s one of those cozily familiar Christmas movies.

Joyeux Noel – By far the most modern movie on my list, this is about soldiers in WWI.  In opposite trenches one Christmas, the Scottish and French troops begin talking to the German troops, and the end up spending the day together.  When Christmas is over and everything is supposed to be normal, they can’t bring themselves to fight each other.  My favorite part is shortly after Christmas–the Germans get the word that the opposite trench will be shelled, so they go over to warn them, and invite them to stay in their trench for a while.  After it’s over, the French point out that their artillery will probably retaliate, so the Germans had better come over to their trench.  It’s so ridiculous and so beautiful!

I know there’s lots of other Christmas movies–what should I add to the list?

Movie Review: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

On By cherylmahoneyIn Historical Fiction, Reviews3 Comments

dr-jekyll-and-mr-hyde-movie-poster-1941-1020452635During R.I.P. this year, I read a lot of classic horror, including Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  And it wasn’t very good!  But it still left me wanting to watch the movie–specifically, the 1941 one, starring Spencer Tracy and Ingrid Bergman.  It was very much unlike the book, and so much better!

The novel puts the POV for most of the book from a friend of Dr. Jekyll’s, and keeps the mystery (that Hyde and Jekyll are one person) from being revealed for a very long time.  The movie dispenses with both these ideas.  We begin with the affable Dr. Jekyll (Spencer Tracy) who is engaged to be married to the lovely and genteel Beatrix (Lana Turner).  On a walk one night, he encounters Ivy (Ingrid Bergman), a saucy barmaid who quite likes the fine doctor–but he resists temptation and stays true to his fiancee.  Meanwhile in his work, he’s exploring the question of how good and evil are mixed in every individual, and whether there might be a scientific solution to separate them, in the interest of helping the criminally insane.  When he tests his elixir on himself, he morphs into the hideous Mr. Hyde–who has no moral qualms about seeking out Ivy.  Hyde begins a depraved affair with Ivy, while Jekyll grows increasingly conflicted…and increasingly loses control of his darker half. Continue reading “Movie Review: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” →

Movie Review: The Invisible Man

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews, Science Fiction3 Comments

The_Invisible_Man654935945largeI didn’t much enjoy the audiobook of The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells (and it was the book’s fault, not the narrator) but I still decided to go on to a re-watch of the movie starring Claude Rains—mostly in the hope of finding a better version of the story! And it gives me an entry for R. I. P.’s Peril on Screen.

I’m happy to report I much preferred the movie to the book—and would absolutely recommend watching the movie instead of reading the novel, and that is not a recommendation I often make! The funny thing is, it was a mostly accurate interpretation, which nevertheless made a bad book into a good movie. You see, what’s long and dull in a six-hour audiobook occupies a 70-minute movie very nicely!

The plot is more or less the same—a strangely bandaged man arrives at an inn, engages in scientific experiments, and is eventually revealed to be invisible…and then he proceeds to go on a rampage. Continue reading “Movie Review: The Invisible Man” →

Book Review (really!): Star Wars – Revenge of the Sith

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews, Science Fiction1 Comment

My book club has a habit of talking about Star Wars. I don’t know how it happens, it just does—and eventually someone suggested that we ought to read a Star Wars book. I think we were discussing the failings of the prequel trilogy at the time, and so elected to read the novelization of Revenge of the Sith, Episode Three. That might sound like an odd choice, but two of us (including me) remembered it as being almost bizarrely better than the movie. And it really was, making me quite impressed with the author, Matthew Stover.

The book assumes that you’re familiar with the first two movies in the trilogy, and picks up midway through the Clone Wars. We open with an extended battle sequence, as Jedi Knights Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi fight to rescue the kidnapped Chancellor Palpatine. When they return to Coruscant, they find politics much harder to deal with than the simplicity of battle—and Anakin is increasingly torn between his duty as a Jedi, his love for Padmé, and his own darker desires. And…I’ll leave the plot summary there, but spoilers will follow in the discussion!

The best thing about the book is that there’s just so much more than there was in the movie. Somewhere I heard it was based on an earlier, longer script that included scenes not in the final movie. Stover must have brought more to it too, though, because some of the best parts are internal character struggles, or beautiful descriptions of battles that were just so much cooler in the book than in the movie. Continue reading “Book Review (really!): Star Wars – Revenge of the Sith” →