The Haunted Palace (1963): adapted by Charles Beaumont from the poem by Edgar Allan Poe and the H.P. Lovecraft novel The Case of Charles Dexter Ward; directed by Roger Corman; starring Vincent Price (Charles Dexter Ward/ Joseph Curwen) Elisha Cook, Jr. (Cheaplaughs), and Lon Chaney, Jr. (Simon): Delightful romp from Roger Corman loosely adapts H.P. Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and quotes the eponymous Edgar Allan Poe poem.
Vincent Price plays both an evil 18th-century sorcerer and his late 19th-century descendant whose body the sorcerer needs to possess in order to finish his nefarious plan involving some extremely rapey elder gods. It's set in New England, which doesn't explain one character's bargain-basement Irish accent. Alas, the adaptation doesn't include the "essential salts" of Lovecraft's superior, weird original. Recommended.
The Fast and the Furious Presents Hobbs & Shaw (2019): written and directed by a Vic-20 computer; starring Dwayne Johnson (Hobbs), Jason Statham (Shaw), Vanessa Kirby (Shaw's Sister), and Idris Elba (Slumming It for Money): Basically a Roger Moore-era James Bond movie that has suffered grievious brain damage.
At this point in his career, Jason Statham's charisma has no gas left in the tank. Dwayne Johnson, so jacked he's cartoonishly bulbous, goes full-camp. Idris Elba actually seems to be doing something called 'acting.' Vanessa Kirby is intermittently charming as Statham's sister. Ryan Reynolds wanders through as a CIA agent who seems to be channeling Deadpool. Occasional ridiculous fun can't outweigh the tediousness of most of the writing. Not recommended.
Good Boys (2019): Produced though not written or directed by Seth Rogen and the other folks who brought you Superbad, this is basically a middle-school Superbad, sort of. There are some genuine laughs, but it's all a bit thin and ends with an interminable slog of sentimentality. Still, an adequate time-filler -- the most shocking thing about it is how innocuous it all is. Lightly recommended.
The Masque of the Red Death (1964): adapted by Charles Beaumont and R. Wright Campbell from stories by Edgar Allan Poe, including "Hop Frog" and "The Masque of the Red Death"; directed by Roger Corman; starring Vincent Price (Prince Prospero), Hazel Court (Juliana), Jane Asher (Francesca), and Skip Martin (Hop Toad):
"And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all." - Poe, "The Masque of the Red Death."
Low-budget horror impresario Roger Corman got more money than he ever had before for this loose adaptation of a couple of Edgar Allan Poe stories. Further aided by British film credits and leftover sets from Becket, Corman made his horror masterpiece. It certainly didn't hurt that the great cameraman and later director Nicholas Roeg was cameraman for the movie.
Above all, the movie looks great. The set design and costumes are impressively bright, fanciful, and intermittently bleak when we visit the blasted heaths of the medieval Spanish countryside.
Set some time during the Middle Ages in Catalan, The Masque of the Red Death focuses on the sinister, Satan-worshiping local lord of the manor, Prince Prospero. The plague of the Red Death has fallen upon the countryside. So Prospero retreats to his castle with his favoured nobles and entertainers. And with a pure and virtuous peasant girl he has kidnapped, along with her lover and her father.
Prospero derives entertainment from the debasement and murder of those around him. The virtuous peasant girl (played solidly by Hazel Court) is someone to 'break.' But her faith in God impresses him, in part because of how seemingly misplaced that faith is in the plague and poverty and violence ravaged country side.
And so begins the Masque of the Red Death, the worst costume ball ever, at least from a survival standpoint. The Red Death isn't simply a disease -- it's a being. And it has promised deliverance to the peasant girl and doom for Prince Prospero and his guests. Prospero has faith that Satan will protect him. We'll see how that goes.
The Masque of the Red Death is a great and poignant spectacle, capped with a couple of show-stopping scenes. Back to back. I guess the second scene would have to be a show-stop-maintaining scene, as the show is already stopped. Vincent Price is magnificent as Prospero, a truly awful being with a certain bleak and oily charm. Skip Martin is also good as Poe's vengeful jester-dwarf Hop Toad. Highly recommended.
Never Say Never Again: written by Lorenzo Semple Jr., based on the story by Ian Fleming, Jack Whittingham, and Kevin McClory; directed by Irvin Kershner; starring Sean Connery (James Bond), Kim Basinger (Domino), Klaus Maria Brandauer (Largo), Barbara Carrera (Fatima Blush), Max von Sydow (Blofeld), Bernie Casey (Felix Leiter) and Rowan Atkinson (Nigel) (1983): Thanks to some bizarre copyright issues, the rights to the James Bond novel Thunderball were never completely held by the traditional Bond production team.
Thus, another movie or movies could be made by another company with a screenplay based on Thunderball. Never Say Never Again was the result in 1983, with Sean Connery returning as James Bond 11 years after he had last played the role in Diamonds are Forever.
Roger Moore's tenure as Bond was winding down in 1983, though that year's official Bond entry, Octopussy, still outgrossed this movie. Connery looks game but a little tired here, and the pacing seems off, and the movie overlong by about 20 minutes and one too many changes of locale. Klaus Maria Brandauer does make for a surprisingly sinister Bond villain, while Barbara Carrera and Kim Basinger do OK work as Bond girls evil and good, respectively.
The tone shifts even more abruptly than usual for a Bond film, from parodic to serious and back again. That may partially be because of the screenwriter, Lorenzo Semple, who helped turn both the Batman tv series of the 1960's and the 1980 Flash Gordon film into smirking parodies of themselves. It's not quite Camp here, but it's close. M and the rest of the Bond hierarchy take the most severe beating, though Rowan Atkinson's first big-screen appearance, as an MI6 operative played solely for laughs, also grates. Bernie Casey is fine as CIA agent Felix Leiter, and actually has something to do other than supply exposition.
The prime oddity of Never Say Never Again is that the first thirty minutes or so play like a dry run for the recent Bond movie Skyfall, as a rundown James Bond faces suspension and the Double-O program itself faces termination in the wake of political changes. An historical oddity, Never Say Never Again also acts as a weird psychological test -- viewing a James Bond movie without the familiar soundtrack never feels entirely comfortable. That the score for this movie, and the title song, are both unremittingly terrible doesn't help things. Lightly recommended.
House on Haunted Hill: written by Robb White; directed by William Castle; starring Vincent Price (Frederick Loren), Carol Ohmart (Annabelle Loren), Richard Long (Lance Schroeder), Alan Marshal (David Trent), Carolyn Craig (Nora Manning), Elisha Cook Jr. (Watson Pritchard) and Julie Mitchum (Ruth Bridgers) (1959): Producer-director William Castle famously tried 'gimmicks' with many of his horror movies. This one featured a skeleton model jumping out at the audience at the right moment. Oh, Hollywood!
House on Haunted Hill features Vincent Price as a henpecked, possibly homicidal husband who invites five strangers to a house he's rented to see if they can survive a night in a haunted house. Each survivor's reward will be $10,000. Why is he doing this? And why do he and his wife hate each other so much?
There's a lot of charm here, much of it on the Camp side of the equation. Also, some extraordinary screaming from two of the three female leads. The shock ending left me a bit disappointed -- it really seems as if there should be one further reversal because of the goofiness of what we've witnessed.
The acid-filled pit really didn't help my suspension of disbelief either. Maybe it was different in the 1950's. Maybe the audience members nodded and thought, 'Yeah, I've got one of those in my basement too!' Still, Price is his usual silky presence, and Elisha Cook sweats bullets throughout. Lightly recommended.
21 Jump Street: based on the television series created by Stephen J. Cannell and Patrick Hasburgh, written by Michael Bacall and Jonah Hill; directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller; starring Jonah Hill (Schmidt), Channing Tatum (Jenko), Brie Larson (Mollie), Dave Franco (Eric), Rob Riggle (Mr. Walters) and Ice Cube (Captain Dickson) (2012): Hilarious comedy reboot of the not-so-good 1980's TV series that introduced Johnny Depp and Richard Grieco to the world. Cops pretend to be teenagers and bust crimes at a high school. What could go wrong?
Almost obsessively filthy-mouthed, the movie makes good use of Jonah Hill's weirdly earnest nebbish personality by setting it off against Channing Tatum's seemingly dumb but well-meaning jock. They weren't friends in high school, but they become so in police academy. And now they're assigned to take down the suppliers of a dangerous new super-drug at a local high school. Will they also purge the demons that have haunted them since senior year?
Ice Cube swears and fulminates as the captain. Dave Franco stirs up echoes of the early, burn-out charm of his older brother James. Actors from the TV series make surprise cameos. Hill again shows his gift for slapstick, but Tatum also demonstrates comic timing and physical prowess. Who knew he was funny? Oh, and a guy gets his dick shot off. Also, Korean Jesus. Recommended.
The Raven: written by Richard Matheson, based on the poem by Edgar Allan Poe; directed by Roger Corman; starring Vincent Price (Craven), Peter Lorre (Bedlo), Boris Karloff (Scarabus), Jack Nicholson (Rexford Bedlo), Hazel Court (Lenore) and Olive Sturgess (Estelle Craven) (1963): Screenwriter Richard Matheson is an American treasure for his short stories, novels, and screenplay work, pretty much all in the thriller, horror, and fantasy genres. You can look him up.
Here, he takes Edgar Allan Poe's poem and turns it into a horror-comedy about dueling wizards (Karloff and Price), a snivelling second banana (Lorre), and a shockingly young Jack NIcholson as a young romantic lead. The wizard's duel is witty and surprisingly good-looking given the technical and budgetary limitations the film faced. Roger Corman's direction is relatively sharp. The acting is pretty much all first-rate, with Karloff uncharcteristically loose and funny as the nefarious Scarabus.
Price is great as he usually was. Holy crap, though, The Raven really highlights his height -- Price, an uncharacteristic-for-Hollywood 6'4" towers over 5'11" Karloff and dwarfs the 5'5" Lorre. Everyone seems to be having a good time, and Matheson even sneaks in a reference to The Day the Earth Stood Still, a movie he had nothing to do with. The only creepy moments involve the really nice make-up design on a couple of corpses. And by 'nice', I mean 'grotesque.' Recommended.
