Columnists
Entries from October 2013
By Todd Garbarini
During
the 1980s and 1990s I became disillusioned with television shows in general. Most of the series airing at the time seemed
derivative and predictable with little regard for the audience and more for the
commercial breaks. All of that changed
in 2001 when I began watching HBO’s The
Sopranos on a free HBO weekend, the first show that I can confess to binge-viewing
(the act of watching numerous episodes back to back with no break) and easily
the best television series that I have seen thus far. What was remarkable about it was the ability
of the writers to take their time and develop not only characters but
significant plot points, all without the annoying constraints of network
television and the need to get to the next conflict. This is not to infer that network television
is completely without merit as that
would be a gross and unfair oversimplification. Fox Network's 24, a show that
I initially was at first reluctant to watch, sucked me in when its first season
debuted on DVD. I have never been so
addicted to a storyline before and could not wait for the next episode and then
the next season. I have watched all eight
seasons at least three times.
The
Fox network has a sister network, Fox Extended or FX for short, and like most
other cable networks it has its fair share of exclusive programming (and
commercials, sigh), a maneuver that
appears to be the norm for networks if they are to survive. Even Netflix has learned this with their highly
acclaimed series House of Cards. FX’s most successful show, Sons of Anarchy, is now airing its
penultimate and sixth season. The series
has been heavily criticized for its use of brutality and profane language, though
I’m not sure that a motorcycle gang would speak any other way (as of this
writing you cannot drop “F†bombs, at least not yet, on this network). Despite
these complaints, however, SOA, as it
is known to its most zealous adherents, remains a rich dissection of the human
condition and how people deal with problems and try to solve them. They aren’t necessarily people you would want
to live next door to, but nefarious characters are infinitely more interesting than
real life. For one thing, they make us
think about how we would act if we found ourselves in their circumstances. In Breaking
Bad, Vince Gilligan's brilliant AMC series about high school science
teacher Walter White (played stupendously by Bryan Cranston) who becomes a manufacturer
of methamphetamine after he is diagnosed with lung cancer, people who normally
otherwise would not resort to violence or murder end up making those choices
when pushed to the brink and see no other options. In SOA,
murder seems to be a way of life and there is the Shakespearean element at work,
though it is covert; critics have cited Hamlet
as an obvious influence. Each season of
the show consists of 13 episodes, and season five is now newly available on DVD
and Blu-ray.
In
the fictional town of Charming, CA, the Teller-Morrow family heads up the
original and founding chapter of the Sons of Anarchy Motorycle Club, Redwood
Original (aka SAMCRO for short). At the
end of season four, Jackson Teller (Charlie Hunnam) has become the president of
the club, with his future wife Tara (Maggie Siff) at his side. Season five opens with the introduction of
the father of a young woman accidentally killed by the recklessness of Tig (Kim
Coates), one of the Sons’s members. Unfortunately for Tig, his victim’s father is a drug lord and the most
dangerous gangster in Oakland, CA, who catches up with Tig and enacts the old “an
eye for an eye†principle against one of Tig’s two daughters in one of the most
harrowing and upsetting sequences in the show’s history. This action propels forward a plotline that
ends up with Clay (former president of SAMCRO, played by Ron Perlman) in jail
for a murder he didn’t commit in the final episode. Along the way, a major character dies in a
brutal way, and the show follows the axiom that no one is safe when it comes to
violent storylines. Jackson constantly
has to make difficult choices for the sake of his family and the club he
presides over while trying to placate his vice president Bobby (Mark Boone
Junior). In some ways, he is like 24’s Jack Bauer as he is sucked into
danger and has to use his wits to extricate himself and his club members. More often than not he is trying to convince his
mother and Tara that things are going to be different and that everything will
be all right; though noble, it doesn’t appear to be realistic.
Creator
and executive producer Kurt Sutter, who pulls double duty playing “Big Ottoâ€
Delaney, has amassed a phenomenal cast. The performances are universally
excellent. My personal favorite is Mr.
Sutter’s real-life wife, Katey Sagal, who won a well-deserved Golden Globe Award
in 2011 for her brilliant portrayal of Gemma, Jackson’s mom. I always liked Mrs. Sagal as Peg on Married…with Children, and her banter
with Ed O'Neill, her slovenly husband Al. I never would have thought of her as a choice to play a character like
Gemma, however she has blown me away with the depth of her characterization of
this woman who will stop at nothing to keep her family intact.
The
Blu-ray looks absolutely gorgeous in high definition and the sound is crystal
clear. If you pump it through a stereo,
be prepared to mistake some of the sound effects for real-life sounds: several
times I thought my phone was ringing–
and my phone vibrates, I don’t even use a ringtone!
There
are also some nice extras to go around. Some of the episodes have some extended
scenes. There are also deleted scenes
and a few commentaries on select episodes. The best feature, in my humble opinion, is the ability to run the
episodes continuously without having to go to the main menu and select the next
one if you decide to watch more than one in a row. It actually encourages binge viewing!
Another
winning release for fans of this terrific show.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON
By Todd Garbarini
Julian Richards’s Shiver opens at a Cadillac Jack’s diner in Sunland, CA (in reality,
this
location is part
of a movie set that includes an adjacent Pink Motel situated at 9457
San Fernando Road in Sun Valley, CA) amid electrical towers and pylons. A nerdish middle-aged man named Franklin Rood,
played expertly by Aussie John Jarratt whom genre fans will remember from 2005’s
stomach-turning Wolf Creek and its
forthcoming sequel, stumbles nervously to the counter and cannot help but
notice the waitress, Kathy (Nikita Sesco), who is clearly half his age. He fantasizes about having his way with her
and shortly storms out after she quickly declines his offer to take her to a
movie. His adolescent-minded feelings
are shattered, and he doles out a head bashing in the parking lot after she
locks up the diner for the night, leaving her dead.
Twelve years later in Portland, Oregon,
the city is on edge due to a serial killer being on the loose. Wendy Alden (scream
queen Danielle Harris) is pestered by her mother (Valerie Harper) to ask her
boss for a raise since she can no longer help support her daughter. He friend Jeffrey (Shane Applegate) has more
than a platonic interest in her and she doesn’t exactly push him away, either. It would be foolish of her to, considering someone
is out there murdering young women. When
Jeffrey takes the initially reluctant Wendy out to dinner and offers that she
stay with him that night, she attempts to assure him that she will be fine. Any
seasoned horror film fan will know right away that she is about to receive a visit
from lunatic Franklin. When Franklin
arrives in her home and surprises her, he reconsiders killing Wendy as she
begins to behave in a way that he is not used to. She evinces a disposition
that is different from all of the young women he has killed up to this point.
Like most serial killers, Franklin suffered bullying and humiliation during his
childhood and blames others for his failures. But Wendy seems different to him, and through
his own delusional method of thinking, he believes that he can persuade her to
love him. The rest of the film consists
of the police and their failure to adequately protect Wendy (it features two of
the dumbest police officers in recent movie memory, who are both mercifully offed
by Franklin within a minute of each other; Casper Van Diem (from Starship Troopers) is the lead detective
and Rae Dawn Chong appears as his partner, though she is given very little to
do). In the midst of Wendy’s attempts to
escape Franklin’s clutches he hatches a hair-brained scheme to get her to play
house with him.
While I would not consider the film to
be anywhere near as suspenseful as the ads would lead you to believe, it is always
interesting, though were it not for the central performance by Mr. Jarratt as
Franklin, it would have been no different than the recent horror outings such
as Choose (2010) and ATM (2012). Shiver is a step above these films and keeps you focused until the
final frame. There are moments that make
you want to scream and reach through the screen to choke the characters in
frustration over their actions, but for the most part the film succeeds in its
quest to entertain. It does require a
suspension of disbelief to succeed. Mr.
Jarratt has a unique ability to play unrepentant psychopaths. His turn as Mick Taylor in Greg McClean’s
aforementioned Wolf Creek brought to
life one of the most frightening and vicious psychos that the cinema has seen
in quite some time. Here he is also
mean, but for different reasons. In Wolf Creek, he seemed bent on inflicting
pain on others for his own pleasure. Here, his Franklin is a rejected and unhappy soul trying to connect with
someone and goes about it in a terrible and bizarre fashion. Valerie Harper gives a feisty performance as Wendy’s
mother, although she only appears in two scenes. I almost see her as a divorced Karen Hollis
from Blame It on Rio (1984) some 30
years later, nagging her daughter. Danielle
Harris is also quite good and proves a great nemesis for Franklin. The score is by Richard Band, brother of
Charles Band and veteran of over 80 films. At times, the music is oddly reminiscent of Philip Glass’s score to Errol
Morris’s The Thin Blue Line (1989),
but it is effective for the most part. The
location filming in Portland, Oregon is a nice change of pace and showcases Southeast
Milwaukee Avenue, home to Franklin’s day job as a jeweler and the common denominator
between all of his victims that the detectives notice and set them on his trail. The Moreland Theatre several doors down reads
simply Harry Potter, as though they
didn’t receive permission from Warner Brothers to put a full title on it.
The DVD itself is bare-bones and
contains trailers for Aberration and The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh.
I would have liked some interviews and a commentary with Ms. Harris who
is always so fun and bubbly when talking about her career and the onscreen
action. All in all, definitely worth
seeing for Mr. Jarratt and Ms. Harris completists.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON
By Adrian Smith
(The following review pertains to the UK-Region 2 DVD release)
This film is a true oddity, and one
that will most likely escaped the attention of even the most avid Orson Welles
fans. Three Cases of Murder is an anthology film featuring three short
stories, each by a different director, linked by British television personality
Eamon Andrews, who appears to have just got home from a night at the theatre.
The only loose connection is that each is about, well, murder, and each segment
also features Alan Badel. a British character actor who was better known at the
time for his theatre work, but is superb here.
"The Picture" is set in an
art gallery, where the glass over a painting has been mysteriously smashed, and
several items have been stolen. Despite these nefarious goings on no culprit
has ever been caught. The museum tour guide meets an oddly dressed gentleman
(Badel) who engages him in conversation about this painting, a large portrait
of a gothic, fog-enshrouded manor house. Before he knows quite what has
happened to him, our tour guide finds himself actually inside the house itself.
This strange man reveals himself to have been the artist who painted the
picture. He had died before it was completed. It transpires that all the
pictures in the gallery act as a form of afterlife limbo, where the dead are
forced to live inside the paintings, stealing whatever they can from the
gallery. Also living in the house are a sinister, attractive young woman and a
truculent old taxidermist, obsessed with collecting butterflies.
This first story is by far the best of
the bunch, and plays out like a missing Twilight Zone episode, with its
stark lighting, fantastical story, weird camera angles and sickening twist
ending. Of particular interest is that
this segment was directed by Wendy Toye, who was that most rarest of people: a
female director in the 1950s British film industry. She had begun her career as
a dancer and actress, before moving into theatre and then film direction. At that
time there was only one other female director in the country, Muriel Box,
showing just what a difficult industry it was for women to rise beyond the
traditional production jobs on offer; script girl, wardrobe or makeup. The fact
that "The Picture" is the best, most inventive part of Three Cases
of Murder is testament to what a great talent she had, a talent that was
greatly underused in British cinema.
The second story, "You Killed
Elizabeth", is a mini-Hitchcock thriller regarding two best friends who
fall out over a girl. Murder and drink-fuelled amnesia lead to another surprise
twist where we learn the true cost of betrayal. Compared to the inventiveness
of the first segment, this story comes across a little flat. It was directed by
David Eady, his first contribution to a feature film. He went on to have a
minor directing career in British television and B pictures.
The final story is "Lord
Mountdrago", and casts Orson Welles as a pompous foreign secretary in the
old boys network of British politics. Although the story was directed by George
More O'Ferrall, who had a long career in television, it is claimed Welles
himself took over most of the directing. This is only a rumour, but it is not
hard to believe given his reputation.
Welles plays the titular Lord
Mountdrago, who after publicly humiliating a rival politician (Alan Badel
again) begins to suffer from nightmares, where he is himself repeatedly
humiliated by this same politician. After receiving psychiatric counselling he
refuses to acknowledge that a simple apology to the man he had wronged would
solve the problem. Instead he begins to believe that murder is the only way to
restore his sanity.
This story shares a similar Twilight
Zone feel to "The Picture", but is largely played for laughs. Welles,
who was appearing here whilst working in theatre, throws himself into the role
with gusto, unafraid of making Lord Mountdrago look increasingly ridiculous,
including an appearance at a party where he has forgotten to put on his
trousers!
Three Cases of Murder is an odd little film, but is
certainly worth revisiting in this new release. It deserves to be given some
attention, and serves a reminder of just how creative even low budget B films
could be. This DVD from Odeon Entertainment includes a booklet which mostly
focuses on Orson Welles. The most significant extra is the inclusion of the
short film Return to Glennascaul, an Irish ghost story also featuring
Welles which was nominated for an Academy Award in 1953. It is a creepy warning
on the perils of picking up hitchhikers, and is worth the purchase of this DVD
alone.
You can order Three Cases of Muder from Odeon
Entertainment by clicking here
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