Film Week

A review of the films I've seen this past week.

MUSIC AND LYRICS (2007)
Well, it's cute, even if there's no real meat to it. The music is kinda nice. I always like Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore. But I liked them enough that I kept thinking about how good the movie might have been if it was less caught up in its romantic comedy fairy tale bullshit and had tried to be a better movie. It doesn't aim high, but it succeeds in its limited goals. I still think the ending is complete bullshit, but that's par for the course here. Still, a slightly wasted opportunity to do something better. **1/2 stars. The best bit is the first couple of minutes, with the 80s pastiche song. Hugh Grant does not sing badly at all.

I THINK I LOVE MY WIFE (2007)
Mostly, I just wanted to see what could be done with a remake of a great foreign movie, in this case Eric Roehmer's 1972 Chloe in the Afternoon, so long after the fact. Turns out the answer is: not much. I appreciate Chris Rock's attempt to make kind of a serious movie, but there's nothing more to say here than: Kerry Washington is amazingly fucking sexy. Oh, and if you're going to end a movie with a funk song parody, get two people who can sing, not Chris Rock and a surprisingly emotionless Gina Torres. **1/2 stars.

THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (2005)
Ouch. My TiVo and I need to have a long talk about automatically recording horror remakes when it knows full well that I'll watch just about anything on cable. To put it bluntly: this movie sucked. It may sound cheesy, but the original version is one of the scariest movies I've seen in my adult life. I only saw it for the first time around 1999 or so, but it genuinely scared me. When Margot Kidder looks out the window and sees those two red eyes glaring.... *shudder*! There was nothing close to that in this overly-gothic mess; it completely fails as a drama, as a character study, as a horror movie, and even as what horror remakes really are--an action movie. It just failed all across the board. No stars.

WHEN A STRANGER CALLS (2006)
Simon West at least knows that the first 30 minutes of the original version are the only truly classic part of it; the rest is forgettable and stupid. So, West smartly keeps all the action in the darkened house with the babysitter. But all that really does is drag it out to a conclusion that's predictable five minutes in. West does what he did in Tomb Raider--tries to create unearned excitement for no real reason. Camilla Belle is a cutie and she sure can scream. She bumps this mess up to * star.

THE MAD MAGICIAN (1954)
A surprisingly strapping Vincent Price stars as a magician who, naturally, takes revenge on the people who've done him wrong. Nice gothic atmosphere and slightly more fun that these movies usually are. *** stars.

THE TINGLER (1959)
Classic William Castle silliness about Vincent Price discovering a disgusting organism that lives in the spine and feeds on your fear; only screaming can kill it! This is the movie more famous for its marketing gimmick than its quality--there's a scene where Vincent Price chases the tingler into a movie theater, then the screen goes black and he shouts "The tingler is loose in the theater! Scream! Scream for your life!" And then, in some theaters, seats would buzz and scare the piss out of children. My dad, who was about four when this came out, remembers being terrified by it. It's kind of fun, but kind of lame now. Especially without the gimmick. **1/2 stars.

THE LAST MAN ON EARTH (1964)
Vincent Price in a film of Richard Matheson's classic I Am Legend, about a man left alive with a world full of vampires after a plague has mutated mankind. The film begins very moody and very interesting; the unpopulated world is genuinely unsettling. But the flashbacks sink the movie, and it becomes very dull and doesn't make it to the end. Too bad. ** stars. See The Omega Man instead.

TOWER OF LONDON (1962)
Roger Corman's take on Richard III and his rise to power. This is a real lost opportunity, because the story itself is so interesting and Vincent Price does some of his best-ever acting in it. Everyone else is cheesy and over-the-top, sinking this into grade C territory, which is really a shame. Price is so strong that I'd recommend seeing it once just to see him do some very good acting. **1/2 stars.

HOUSE OF USHER (1960)
Same as above: nice atmosphere, great Price performance, but not really very fun or interesting. This one pulls out the gothic stops a little better than Tower of London, but it's still not a pleasure. Sorry, Roger. **1/2 stars.