Classic Film Review: Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte (1964)

HUSH...HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE
Directed By:  Robert Aldrich
Starring: Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Joseph Cotten

"You're a vile, sorry little bitch!"
~Charlotte Hollis (Bette Davis)~

I've caught glimpses of this film on TCM off and on over the years but had never sat down to watch the film in its entirety. Over the years I've slowly been working my way through Bette Davis' lengthy filmography. The woman had a long, illustrious career in Hollywood for a reason: she was a wonderful actress who never conformed to Hollywood's standards of beauty. Like Katherine Hepburn, Davis was her own person and no other actress in Hollywood could recreate her blend of talent and dark glamour. With her smokey voice and intense glare, Davis has fascinated me ever since I saw Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? when I was only 12. It was only a matter of time before I finally made my way onto watching Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte.

Charlotte Hollis (Bette Davis) is an aging recluse, living in her deceased father's secluded house with only her housekeeper, Velma (Agnes Moorehead) for company. A wealthy spinster, Charlotte is the subject of gossip in the small town in Louisiana where she lives. Charlotte has lived a life devoid of human contact for nearly 40 years, after the brutal axe murder of the love of her life, John Mayhew (Bruce Dern), a married womanizer who promised Charlotte he'd run away with her. On the night of John's murder, Charlotte is found covered in his blood and, although she is never formally charged with murder, everyone in town suspects she did the deed out of anger and jealousy when John refused to leave with her after all. Later on, when Charlotte's old plantation house (which acts as a shrine devoted to both her overbearing father and John) is threatened with demolition she enlists the help of her cousin, Miriam (Olivia de Havilland), her last living relation whom she hasn't seen since the night of John's murder. Miriam even brings along Dr. Drew Bayliss (Joseph Cotten) to assess the mental stability of Charlotte. Along the way, there are twists and revelations that culminate into a dramatic and violent conclusion.

By early 1964, director Robert Aldrich had planned on re-teaming with Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, the feuding stars of his 1962 hit, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Crawford soon dropped out of the project (reportedly due to an illness) and Davis was paired with Olivia de Havilland instead; an actress known for her gentle portrayals of sweet and virtuous women (from Maid Marion in The Adventures of Robin Hood to Melanie in Gone with the Wind). It was a strange casting choice, putting de Havilland in the role of Charlotte's conniving cousin, Miriam; however, under Aldrich's direction de Havilland made her characterization of Miriam worthy of Charlotte's insults (see opening quote).

The film is part Southern gothic, part psychological thriller; something Aldrich excelled at when directing Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and really capitalized on with Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte. The prologue of the film, which shockingly depicts the violent murder of John Mayhew, was incredibly chilling and graphic for a movie released in 1964. It's not hard to see why this would have upset audiences back in the day. It could still easily have the same effect on viewers today, even those desensitized by today's violent film standards. Not everything is constantly dark and violent, however, as the film manages to both amuse and terrify in equal measure. Witnessing Davis standing on her porch, pointing a rifle at trespassers and yelling at them in her thick Louisianna accent is downright campy and her performance is reason alone to check out the film. Yet, on a darker note, the longer Miriam and Drew remain in her house, the more erratic and dangerously unhinged Charlotte becomes.

A genuine whodunit, Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte is an eerie, violent and schlocky film blessed with two wonderful actresses in starring roles. As the film goes on, it gets progressively creepy and unsettling (example, the twisted nursery rhyme made up by townsfolk who believe Charlotte was the murderess: "Chop chop, Sweet Charlotte/Chop chop till he's dead/Chop chop Sweet Charlotte/Chop off his hand and head"). The film is over-the-top but very satisfying, although its main fault may be that it borrows too heavily from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

Despite its campy and outrageous plot, this film will sit with you long after it's over.

FINAL GRADE: B+

Movie Review: Barney's Version (2010)

BARNEY'S VERSION
Directed By: Richard J. Lewis
Starring: Paul Giamatti, Rosamund Pike, Dustin Hoffman, Scott Speedman, Minnie Driver and Bruce Greenwood

I went to a Toronto International Film Festival gala last night which was a nice surprise considering I hadn't expected to attend TIFF at all this year (too much school overload). Yet, lo and behold, free tickets to a much-buzzed about Canadian indie landed in my lap.

Based on the novel by Canadian author Mordecai Richler, Barney's Version follows the life of Barney Panofsky, an alcoholic, cigar-chomping womanizer who has three ex-wives, a string of broken friendships and an eccentric elderly father. Like Richler's novel, the plot travels through both the highs and lows (and there are a lot of lows) of Barney's life between the ages of 28 to 65. The only things that appear to truly matter to Barney are the Montreal Canadiens hockey team, his brutally frank father and a woman named Miriam.

I didn't know what to expect going into the movie. As it turns out, the trailer for the film is quite misleading as it portrays Barney's Version as an outright comedy about a middle-aged man, the women he both loves and leaves and his kooky father. There's no real indication of the bleak vision and tone that permeates the film. It's actually an honest look at a flawed human being making very human mistakes, often with tragic and fatal consequences. Barney is actually a miserable, often self-loathing man full of residual anger and depression. It's not all a barrel of laughs. Barney struggles in his relationships with women and is even accused of the murder of a friend.

Barney's Version is an unflinching portrayal of a man in a perpetual state of decline. Barney is a man who never seemed to actually be "on top" at any point in his life. When the audience first meets him, he's a mixture of alcohol-fueled resentment and wicked one-liners; a sad old man with one too many tragedies in his life (many of which were self-inflicted).

Right from the opening sequence the viewer is at the mercy of Barney's fragmented memory. The film opens with Barney as a lonely 65-year-old trying to reconnect with the love of his life. As disjointed memories of his younger days both spent traveling Europe and living his later life in Montreal invade his thoughts, the viewer is left wondering how exactly Barney became Barney. His self-destructive behaviour makes for a compelling character study. Barney's Version truly is a grown up film tackling adult issues.

As Barney Panofsky, Paul Giamatti is an early front-runner in the Best Actor category, for those keeping tabs on this years Oscar race. If put in the hands of a lesser actor, Barney could have been a loathsome curmudgeon, undeserving of any sympathy from the viewer. It's hard to imagine loving a man with such an unhealthy and selfish lifestyle; however, Giamatti makes him a likeable anti-hero who is trying to get by on a day-to-day basis while systematically destroying those around him by his mistakes.

Giamatti benefits from a really strong supporting cast, specifically from his main leading lady, British actress Rosamund Pike. As Miriam, Barney's third wife and the love of his life, Pike is nothing short of radiant. Pike makes Miriam more than just a beautiful face; she's the strong-willed, faithful and gentle centre of Barney's erratic life. Without her, Barney would have faltered long ago. Despite their differences in personality, Miriam and Barney work so well as a couple struggling with marriage because Giamatti and Pike work so well alongside one another.

The rest of the supporting cast is just as stellar. Minnie Driver, as the Second Mrs. Panofsky, is hilariously shallow and crass. Canadian actors Scott Speedman and Bruce Greenwood are both charming in their roles as Barney's best friend, Boogie, and Blair, Barney's rival for Miriam's affections, respectively. There is even a memorable cameo from homegrown talent Paul Gross, who appears as an actor playing a Mountie in Barney's television series, O'Malley of the North, in a nod to his days on Due South. Dustin Hoffman nearly steals the film out from under everyone's feet as Barney's raucous, inappropriate father, Izzy, a retired police officer from the Montreal Police Department who spends his days drinking, sleeping with prostitutes and telling people about his exploits and misadventures as a cop.

Despite the strong supporting characters, the attention always goes back to Barney. How much do we really know about this bundle of violent emotions?

In the end, the viewer is left overwhelmed by the fates for many of the people in Barney's life. How much of it is the actual truth and how much of it is simply Barney's version of the truth? And, does it matter?

As Mordecai Richler himself said about his protagonist, Barney Panofsky: "He's not automatically sympathetic, so it's up to your own cunning or craft as a writer to involve the reader with him because the novel wouldn't work otherwise."

Considering Richler worked on an early version of the script before his untimely death in 2001, I'd say the success he had with creating Barney in his novel translated just as well onto the silver screen.

GRADE: A

30 Day Movie Meme: Day 9

Day 9: FAVOURITE MOVIE SCORES

I've always loved film scores. I believe they can add a lot to power of specific scenes. It's tough to only come up with one, so I'll list a few that immediately come to mind.

FILM SCORES
-Nick Cave for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)
-Howard Shore for The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003)
-Trevor Jones & Randy Edelman for The Last of the Mohicans (1991)
-John Williams for Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
-Hans Zimmer for Gladiator (2000)
-James Horner for Titanic (1997)
-James Horner for Braveheart (1995)
-James Horner for Legends of the Fall (1994)
-Michael Kamen for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)
-Gustavo Santaolalla for Brokeback Mountain (2005)


-Abel Korzeniowski & Shigeru Umebayashi for A Single Man (2009)



-Ennio Morricone for Cinema Paradiso (1989)

Movie Review: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)
Directed by: Edgar Wright
Starring: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin, Ellen Wong, Anna Kendrick, Alison Pill, Brandon Routh, Mae Whitman, Chris Evans and Jason Schwartzman

This review has been a long time coming, considering I saw this film nearly three weeks ago. Better late than never, I suppose.

When I first saw the trailer I didn't understand what all the pre-release hype was over. Sure, it looked pretty fun and I knew it was based on a graphic novel series, but it didn't seem like that big of a deal. I'll be the first to admit that the main reason I eventually went to see Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is because it was set in Toronto. It's so rare for a non-Canadian, mainstream Hollywood film to actually let Toronto play Toronto, as opposed to Chicago (in Chicago) or Baltimore (in Hairspray).

Based on the comics by Canadian Bryan Lee O'Malley and directed by Brit Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz), the story revolves around 22 year old Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera). All you really need to know about Scott is pretty straightforward: He's from Toronto. He plays bass for his band Sex Bob-omb. He lives with his gay roommate, Wallace Wells (Kieran Culkin). He's dating a high-schooler named Knives Chau (Ellen Wong), but he's in love with an American girl, named Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who recently moved to Toronto. However, Scott soon learns that, in order for him to date Ramona, he first has to defeat all seven of her "evil" exes. Despite Ramona's obviously bad taste in men (and one woman) aside, Scott thinks she's worth the battle.

That's literally all a viewer needs to know about the plot. Scott Pilgrim isn't so much a film as a series of colourfully vibrant vignettes. Scenes move at a rapid pace and not all of them actually add anything of substance to the plot; however, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. If you are looking for vivid characterizations or a complex plot, you aren't looking in the right direction. Scott Pilgrim plays out the way one would expect great summer entertainment to play out: action sequences, comedy, romance and the battle of good vs. evil. What's not to like?

For Torontonians, there are plenty of in-jokes and famous sites that only we may fully appreciate: from Casa Loma to Honest Ed's to Pizza Pizza to Second Cup and the prominent use of the TTC, the film isn't so much a "love letter to Canada" as some international critics have been saying, but a "love letter to Toronto." Our city was transformed into a winter wonderland full of swirling colours, fierce battles between local garage bands and, apparently, a safe haven for people with the ability to kick ass.

The cast is what makes Scott Pilgrim work so well. Granted, Michael Cera is essentially playing another version of himself, yet there was something a little more ironic about his performance this time around. It felt more like a send-up of his earlier, endearingly awkward roles, as though Cera himself realizes he's been typecast one too many times. The supporting cast is all strong, especially Kieran Culkin as Wallace and Ellen Wong as Knives. With the force of both of their comedic powers, they almost steal the entire film out from under Cera's feet. Wong, a Scarborough native making her film debut, is almost impossibly adorable as the deceivingly innocent girlfriend to Cera's Scott. She plays Knives as a teenage neurotic; a hyperventilating mass of energy, love and devotion. You almost expect her to explode into a million pieces at any moment. As Scott's best friend and gay roommate, Wallace, Culkin is so wonderfully hilarious you almost wish he got to be more of sidekick to Scott. His droll, dry sarcasm and one-liners work so well simply because Culkin knows how to play the character. In the hands of anyone else, Wallace could have been an annoyingly smart-ass stereotype. I haven't seen Culkin this good since Igby Goes Down.

The only two characters that really suffer from lack of great lines and anything resembling character motivations is Ramona and Kim Pine. Mary Elizabeth Winstead doesn't do much other than scowl and change her hair colour. It's a little hard to understand what exactly Scott sees in her in the first place. Kim Pine (played by Alison Pill, who is usually wonderful in smaller roles), on the other hand, is one of Scott's ex-girlfriends and all she does is scowl, play the drums and pretend to shoot herself in the head. She's probably the most pointless character in a film full of secondary characters running around, competing for attention.

The movie is, essentially, a live action video game, albeit one from the 1980s (think Super Mario Brothers or Pac-Man). I'm no gamer, but the majority of the references are funny and clever enough for anyone with a knack for pop culture to pick up on. Who wouldn't love a movie that also includes the KAPOW! of punches thrown, a la the 1960s Batman. Plus, any movie that includes defeated villains exploding into a pile of loonies and toonies earns extra brownie points in my book. If nothing else, it's movie made by geeks for geeks.

FINAL GRADE: B+

30 Day Movie Meme: Day 8

Day 8: FAVOURITE OPENING/CLOSING CREDITS
When I watch films at home I tend to fast-forward opening credits. There are some exceptions to the case, though. When a director makes a statement, either visually or in terms or story or character, I will stop and take notice and watch the credits every. single. time.

Some of my favourite opening credits are:

-A Clockwork Orange (1971) for scaring the shit out of me and being perfectly Kubrickian. Malcolm McDowell + a glass of milk = evil
-Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) for managing to put a car crash and a cracked glass doll into the same sequence
-Psycho (1960) for its score and the fact that it was ahead-of-its time
-Ed Wood (1994) because it couldn't be more Ed Wood if it wanted to be
-Amelie (2001) for its whimsical introduction of its heroine as a young child
-Se7en (1995) for its success in setting up the dark, ominous tone of the film
-Catch Me If You Can (2002) for animating the adventures of the anti-hero at the centre of the story
-Watchmen (2009) for simply being awesome and integrating actual historical footage into the sequence with Bob Dylan on the soundtrack

Sometimes, though, it's simply just a matter of "less is more". One of my favourite opening credits is Fargo (1996). Bright blue sky. Dead of winter. White snow. A car passing the camera's frame. The word Fargo in black against a screen of blue. Perfect choice of music. And, so starts the Coen Brothers masterpiece.

Some of my favourite closing credits are (although there aren't as many):


-Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004) for its wonderful, old-school animation that makes you wish the film itself had been filmed that way

-Moulin Rouge! (2001) from being all overly melodramatic
-The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) for featuring a drag queen lip-synching to Vanessa Williams and being a perfect conclusion to an outlandish little film

30 Day Movie Meme: Day 7

Day 7: THE MOST SURPRISING PLOT TWIST/ENDING

Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Written and Directed By: Quentin Tarantino

There aren't too many movies out there that have had endings that surprised me. I knew the outcome of The Usual Suspects before ever having seen the film. It was the same case with both Se7en and The Shawshank Redemption. While I do remember being surprised by the ending of The Sixth Sense, I don't necessarily consider it a favourite twist. The same goes with Fight Club, which is one of my favourite films of the 1990s, but the ending doesn't stand alone as particularly awesome. It's more cool than shocking.

The most recent surprise twist that came to mind was Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. As one of my favourite directors, I always trust Tarantino to bring the goods. When I first heard he was finally bringing this much-delayed script to the silver screen I had never imagined he'd literally change the outcome of the Second World War. Tarantino took revisionist history to a whole new level.

Set aside for a moment the already-surprising double-death face-off between the films heroine, Shoshanna (Melanie Laurent) and Nazi superstar, Frederick Zoller (Daniel Bruhl). I honestly never anticipated that Tarantino would kill off Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Hitler in a hail of bullets and flames in a movie theatre in France. Shoshanna's final act of vengeance against the Nazis coincided with the elaborate Operation Kino, which was under the control of Lt. Aldo Raines (Brad Pitt) and his Basterds. The end result was explosions and raining bullets, killing every person in the theatre (who had gathered to watch Nation's Pride, featuring Frederick's Nazi victory over a troop of Russians), while the image of Shoshanna laughs on the movie screen.

I was already surprised by the fact that Shoshanna died at the hands of her admirer, Frederick. It definitely was a bittersweet moment and I had never anticipated that Shoshanna and Frederick would wind up killing one another, let alone before they could both witness the destruction of the Nazi party. However, it's just like Tarantino to keep his audience on its toes when it comes to the fates of his characters, both good and bad. As it turns out, even historical figures have to watch their backs in a Tarantino feature.

Just when I thought it couldn't get any more outrageous, both plans by Shoshanna and Operation Kino take full effect and kill everyone trapped in the theatre, effectively changing the outcome of the Second World War and ending it well before 1945. In Tarantino's world, we have a young French woman and group of angry Jewish soldiers to thank for the end of the war.

Taking the Fun Out of Robin Hood

I finally got around to seeing Ridley Scott's Robin Hood last month. Despite the critical lashing it got from critics and audiences alike, I still wanted to see the film and judge for myself. Before the film's release, I was really excited by the idea of another take on Robin Hood. Since film adaptations of Robin of Loxley have always been light-hearted or straight-out comedies, I thought a more realistic take was long overdue. I love the mythology behind Robin Hood and whether he was real or not has had little impact on his enduring popularity as an English folk hero.

I suppose it was inevitable that it would fail with audiences. The script was plagued from the start. I remember reading that, initially, the Hollywood bigwigs were in talks of taking a more unique angle on the medieval tale, by focusing on the Sheriff of Nottingham, Robin Hood's greatest foe, instead. Russell Crowe was attached to play the Sheriff and, as of the article's publication date, no Robin had been announced as of yet, however, the hero's role would have been reduced significantly in favour of his arch nemesis. I thought this sounded like a really cool idea; I was curious to see if they'd make the Sheriff an out and out villain or a more sympathetic figure. The story of how Nottingham became Robin Hood can be found here. Supposedly, the screenwriters for Nottingham were (understandably) upset that their script was thrown to the wind. Then, Scott's team supposedly lied and told actors vying for the role of Nottingham that the role would be bigger than it actually was (which allegedly didn't impress Matthew Macfadyen, the actor who wound up taking over the role from Crowe).

When Ridley Scott jumped onboard to direct, Crowe agreed to play Robin instead of Nottingham. This is where I think the problems began. They had to re-write the entire script and, as a result, it became a big, jumbled mess with far too many separate subplots and not enough time spent on the stories we wanted to see. On paper, the idea of a film about the origins of Robin Hood seemed like an easy sell to audiences. You take a beloved folk hero and give his tale a new spin by giving him a prequel. And, since very little is known about the actual Robin Hood (if he was indeed real), screenwriters were free to do with his character as they pleased without upsetting purists.

Scott's Robin Hood is bloated, with too many characters and too many stories to tell. Considering this is the story of one of the most exciting of folk heroes, no one seems to be having any fun. I love Russell Crowe. I think he's a wonderful actor who has been robbed of nominations and awards on more than one occasion. That being said, I couldn't help but feel disappointed with how he played Robin Hood. He was far too serious and didn't seem to have an ounce of fun or charm in him. It was, essentially, like watching Medieval Maximus. What happened to Robin Hood and his ever-so-Merry Men? You can still make a gritty, realistic and exciting historical epic while having a bit of fun at the same time. But this Robin Hood strives so hard to be everything that the other film versions are not that it loses itself along the way.

One of the biggest flaws in this revisionist take on Robin Hood is its decision to give our hero a brand new nemesis. His name is Godfrey (played by Mark Strong) and he's very bald and very angry. Why is he angry? Well, there's a variety of reasons, mainly that he wants to be king and he doesn't like Robin all that much. Godfrey is not interesting. He tries to be, but he's not. He's not frightening, he's not diabolically evil and he's not witty. It's unfortunate it took the entire film's running time before he was killed off.

I think introducing Godfrey was a major error on the part of the screenwriters. In introducing yet another  character to the already bloated cast only serves to take away from what I presume most audiences came to see in the first place: Robin of Loxley vs. the Sheriff of Nottingham. Where is this Sheriff? Well, if you blink you may miss him. He's the grubby grump with about five minutes of screen time. The scripts went from having Nottingham as the main character to barely giving him a moment to string more than two sentences together. Everyone loves a good villain and the Sheriff is a great villain. When you talk about Robin Hood, be it another film version or the historical mythology behind him, you always have to mention the Sheriff. However, in Robin Hood he's nothing more than a footnote. Granted, it's likely this will be made into a franchise and Nottingham will get more screen time in future films, however, it just left me thinking, what's the point? Why diminish the role of this character? Why not take advantage of it and show the early stages of his rivalry with Robin? I can't even judge whether or not Matthew Macfadyen gave a good performance as Nottingham or not because you barely have time to register his character's existence.

I guess I just prefer Kevin Costner's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. That's right. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it. Prince of Thieves knew how to take the myth of Robin Hood and make it pure entertainment. Despite Costner's limited acting abilities, American accent and 1990s hair, I thought he made a great and passionate Robin. He's charming and has great chemistry with his costars. He, and the movie itself, never took itself seriously. It didn't pretend to be something it wasn't, unlike Scott's Robin Hood. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio was a lovely Maid Marion in Prince of Thieves. She was feisty on the homefront without having to charge into battle to prove it (I cringed when Cate Blanchett took up the cause in Robin Hood, in full armour, no less!). Robin's Merry Men were all amusing in Prince of Thieves, especially the ever-shitty and craptastic Christian Slater. If his "brother-from-another-mother" speech as Robin's step-sib Will Scarlett doesn't make you smile, I don't know what will ("I was the son of the woman who replaced your dead mother for a time! You ruined my life!"). And, of course, the main reason most people aren't ashamed to admit their love for Prince of Thieves is because of the incomparable Alan Rickman as Sheriff George of Nottingham (pictured right). He's so outrageously over-the-top and clearly having the time of his life, that you can't help but love him.

Ridley Scott and his bevy of script writers did a rush job. They could have done so much with their revisionist telling of an old tale. Instead, they went the dull and bland route. No new dimension was added to any of the characters. In fact, I left the theatre annoyed with the portrayal of some of my favourites, especially Marion. The only two standouts were Danny Huston as King Richard (although his role was too small, but that's no surprise in this version) and newcomer Oscar Isaac as evil King John. I thought those two were wonderful and could have done some great things with their characters if given more time. In the end, you leaving the theatre thinking, what was the point? Robin Hood is supposed to be fun and the plot should be in constant motion. No one wants an emo Robin who spends the first half of the film discovering his uninteresting family history. It's not what we as an audience signed up for.

Should there be a sequel, here's hoping it's a revisionist take on an aspect of Robin's life we all want to see: his rivalry with the Sheriff of Nottingham. Robin Hood wasn't all terrible. It was visually appealing and had some solid battle scenes. I just know there's a great film in there somewhere, waiting to come out. Here's hoping the sequel corrects all of its flaws.

In the meantime, I'd recommend swallowing your Kevin Costner hatred (for those of you who have it) and revisit Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves instead (pictured above).

FINAL GRADE: C+