PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 997

Alicia En El Pueblo De Las Maravillas 1999 Screenplay by Aldo Busto Hernández, Luis Felipe Bolaños and Daniel Diaz Torres, directed by Daniel Díaz Torres. A movie about the social state of Cuban in the 1980s that alludes to Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland but isn't an adaptation of the book. It was considered controversial when it came out and was banned in Cuba 3 days after release.

Alice travels to a small town where she has some weird and disturbing things happen to and around her. It's a horrible filthy town that's home to failed officials. Like Alice in the novel Alicia gets caught up in local activities that hardly make any sense to her.

It's a satire that's rather confusing if you don't know much about the country and the era. I had to read the Wikipedia page to get details that the movie didn't always provide. You can watch the movie and decide for yourself, it's not a great copy but it's watchable. There's a DVD on Amazon but it's not worth $15.43 to me, plus tax. I'm not likely to watch it again.

Pig 2020 Story by Vanessa Block and Michael Samoski, screenplay and direction by Michael Samoski. It's his first film. I normally avoid a drama but I'll make an exception for Nicolas Cage on occasion. 

Nic lives in the woods with his pig, they hunt truffles for a living. They sell them to Amir who sells them to fancy restaurants in Portland. One day Nic is attacked  and his pig stolen. The movie has Nic travel around with Amir and it leads to some trouble for them.

They locate the scummy crack heads that stole the pig and learn it was taken to Portland. They travel to Portland where a whole lot of story is heaped on our plates before they find out what really happened to Nic's pig.

I enjoyed the film and would watch it again.

Winter Passing 2005

Winter Passing 2005 Written and directed by Andy Rapp.

Zooey Deschanel is a an actress called Reese, she works as a bartender for her income. She's depressed, takes cocaine and cuts her arms. Reese goes to visit her father Don after she gets an offer of $100,000 for some letters said to be in Don's house. She arrives in the small town to find her father living in the garage. Her father Don, played by Ed Harris, is a famous novelist. Don lives in his garage and a Christian musician called Corbit occupies the house. Will Ferrell plays Corbit, he shares the house with Shelly, a former student of Don's. They sort of take care of Don who's still depressed about the death of his wife. She hung herself in the bedroom and Don didn't want to sleep in the room anymore so he set up in the garage and threw the bedroom furniture out in the yard.

It's not the sort of movie I care for anymore. The actors are fine but there's just too much personal drama for me. I got little time for that. I bought the DVD cheap somewhere, I'll keep it but doubt I'll watch it again.

3 Idiots 2009

3 Idiots 2009  Screenplay by Abhijat Joshi and Rajkumar Hirani, directed by Rajkumar Hirani.

A Bollywood film that mixes comedy, child abuse and suicide. It's way too long for me and there are too many songs. The comedy works most of the time but they keep ruining the mode with horrible stories of men forcing their children to do things they don't want to do, like going to engineering school instead of following  the career they want. Some of those young men commit suicide from the pressure. Sadly the horrible men aren't punished enough.

I enjoyed some of it but wouldn't watch it again.

Keeping Mum 2005

Keeping Mum 2005 Written by Niall Johnson and Richard Russo, directed  by Niall Johnson.

Maggie Smith comes to work for Rowan Atkinson and Kristin Scott Thomas as their new housekeeper. She fails to mention that twenty five years ago she killed her husband and his mistress, went to jail and has just been released. She handles some of the family problems swift blinding violence.

It's rather droll and amusing. I got a few laughs from it but it might be a while before I'd need to see it again.

Final Flesh 2009

Final Flesh 2009 Written by Vernon Chatman and directed by Ike Sanders.

Vernon wrote a 4 part script about people living near where a nuclear bomb is supposed to hit. He sent the scripts to 4 companies that produce made to order fetish porn and had them shoot the scenes. There is nudity but no real hardcore porn.

The script makes little sense and the actors are mostly people reading lines. It's barely interesting for how it was made. It isn't fun to watch and I wouldn't bother again. I wouldn't recommend it to  anyone. Plenty of other better things to watch.

Cor, Blimey! 2000

Cor, Blimey! 2000 Director Terry Johnson adapted his 1998 play Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick. Geoffrey Hutchings and Samantha Spiro played Sid James and Barbara Windsor in both the play and the film.

It's a TV movie about the romance between Sid and Barbara, they meet in 1964 on the set of Carry On Spying and Sid chased her for years, their 3 year affair started in 1973, in 1976 Barbara broke it off, Sid started drinking heavily, he died the same year, passing away from a heart attack on opening night of The Mating Season.

Some of the real incidents in Sid and Barbara's lives have been altered in the film, the Wikipedia page for the film lists several changes or inaccuracies. Like any biopic it needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Sid started acting in 1947, appearing in a good number of films before moving into TV, his sitcom Bless This House, always a favorite in our place back then, had 6 series under it's belt when he died.

Barbara's first film is a favorite of mine, the 1954 comedy The Belles Of St Trinians. She made a name for herself in the Carry On series, appearing in 9 of the films, and she had a great run on the popular soap EastEnders. She stopped acting at 80 and died 3 years later in 2020. Her life makes good reading, plenty of interesting things happened to our Babs.

I think I first started seeing Sid in the Carry On films, he appeared in 19 of the 31 films. They were on Canadian TV when I was a kid and I would have watched them, they had a certain adult level of humor even though they're fairly innocent by today's standards. The films through 1962 were written by Norman Hudis and the ones after were written by Talbot Rothwell, the wholes series was directed by Gerald Thomas.

There's a wealth of comic talent on screen, beside Sid and Barbara there's some of my favorite British character actors: Kenneth Williams, Joan Sims, Charles Hawtrey, Kenneth Connor, Peter Butterworth, Hattie Jacques, Bernard Bresslaw, Jim Dale and Leslie Phillips.

I've always enjoyed Sid as an actor but I think I wouldn't care that much for him in real life. This is true of so many of the interesting writers, artists and film makers who's work I've liked.

Both Sid and Barbara were married at the time of their affair. Being married never stopped Sid from chasing women. His passion fruit seduction technique is depicted in the film. Don't know if it's true or just a joke so they can wrangle the word cunnilingus in there. It's the sort of thing some of his characters on the Carry On films might do.

Sid seems to be homophobic in the film, he picks on Kenneth Williams, something Kenneth recounts in his diaries. I haven't read the book that came out with pieces of Kenneth's diaries so I don't have much to go on. Some say Sid was a man of a different age and in England being queer was a jailable offense before they got rid of that law in 1965. I have downloaded a TV movie about Kenneth, with Micheal Sheen as Kenneth, the clips I looked at make him seem rather sad and bitter. Cor, Blimey! is similar in it's take of Kenneth. Kenneth wasn't friends with Sid but he was friends of many show people including Babs.

Interesting movie but more for those that have an interest in Sid and the Carry On films. Another series I should dig out and watch again.

Tidal Wave 2009

Tidal Wave 2009 Written and directed by JK Youn.

It's a 120 min Korean disaster movie that takes about 75 mins to get to the tidal wave and all the destruction. First we meet a whole bunch of people and then many of them get slaughtered by the water. It's always a good idea to live far inland. The melodrama is a bit tedious and the CGI is fair to good. I wouldn't need to see it again.

Nature's Grave 2008

Nature's Grave is part of a Triple Feature DVD from Screen Media Films. It's a 2008 Australian film about a couple who go camping and die. It's pretty awful. Jim Caviezel and Claudia Karvan are the couple. Everett De Roche is the screenwriter and Jamie Blanks is the director. The Aussie landscape is nice. I can't say the movie is.

Bad Day To Go Fishing 2009

Bad Day To Go Fishing is a 2009 film from Uruguay. It's about a German wrestler and his manager. They try to make money going from small town to small town and pitting the local wrestlers against the German. There would be a prize if the local won. They don't have the prize and this coming match looks like it might not go their way. It's all pretty low key, I found myself speeding up the film because nothing was happening. It's not a bad movie, just not what I'm wanting to watch. I wouldn't want to watch it again.