Three Lives and Only One Death (1996)

three lives and only one death poster

Chilean director Raul Ruiz created a weird, wild, fantastic world with Three Lives and Only One Death. Marcello Mastroianni plays four different characters in as many different stories that at first seem completely separate, but by the film’s end are wholly intertwined. It is beautifully, almost mystically shot, effectively using shadows, light, and computer imagery to create painted-like images. It is a bit confusing, but a wholly satisfying film.

In the first story, Mastroianni plays a salesman who walked out on his wife (Marisa Paredes) twenty years ago. The wife has since found another husband (Feodor Atkine) and is living a seemingly happy life. For reasons left unexplained Mastroianni suddenly decides he wants his old life back. He catches the new husband, at a Tabac and offers to pay him 1,000 francs for an hour of his time.

What proceeds is an imaginative, fantastic tale of why Mastroianni has been gone for twenty years. It is far too complicated to explain here, but let’s say it involves a room with moving walls and tiny fairies who prefer to eat franc bills, but will settle for newspaper. The end of the story finds Mastroianni wanting to leave the second husband in the fantastic room, while he moves back in with his wife.

In the second story, Mastroianni plays a successful professor who, for reasons that are all his own, becomes a beggar, and a rather successful one at that. He befriends a prostitute (Anna Galiena), who he later finds out isn’t all she pretends to be, and whose husband (Jacques Pieiller)is something of a psychopath.

In the third story, a young couple (Chiara Mastroianni and Melvil Poupaud) find themselves being mysteriously supported by an unnamed friend. After months of finding 1,000 francs in their mailbox each week, they learn this mysterious stranger has died and left them his mansion. The catch is they must keep on a peculiar butler (Mastroianni of course) or lose everything.

The fourth story is really a means to tie all three stories together, and yes, it is weird. There is a lot is going on throughout the film. It is visually stunning, complex in story and a delight throughout. It is the type of film that really deserves a second, and third viewing to allow thoughtful absorption of the many details. In what was his second to last film before his death, Mastroianni does a masterful job playing these varied, and interesting characters.

It is a film not meant for everyone. The story is as weird and complex as anything put out by David Lynch. But for the lover of cinema, there is much to appease the appetite. It is a beautiful, layered, surreal film that is a true pleasure to watch.

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)

< austin powers poster

It’s hard to believe it has been 8 years since Austin Powers was unleashed on the world. A couple of sequels and far too many “Yeah Babys” later, and seemingly we’ve all had enough. I sat down and watched International Man of Mystery for the first time in a year, a few nights ago. What I found is a pretty solid comedy, which still manages to hold up, even after being parodied to death.

The jokes are no longer wet yourself funny. They are more oh-I-remember-when-this-was-hilarious cute. I did laugh out loud on a few occasions, but mostly I felt a kind sense of nostalgia, for jokes that were nostalgic in themselves. The scenes I remember most, still hold up rather well. The dancing credit sequence and the bits where we almost see nudity are beautifully done. Classics of cinema really.

Mike Myers created a very lovely character in Austin Powers. He is truly charming, funny, and a great send-up of all the classic spy characters. Jay Roach does a very nice job of bringing the manic energy of Myers’s creation to the screen while maintaining the feel of all the 60’s spy films.

Elizabeth Hurley proves once again that she has a pretty face, and looks great in a short, tight, silver skirt, but whose acting skills are less than desirable. Her character’s straight (wo)man to Power’s swinger is the weakest aspect of the film. She is way too boring playing it as a 1990s gal trying to make it as an Agent on her abilities alone. Yet, her transition into a groovy chic is unbelievable and rather insipid.

While watching, I kept forgetting which bits were in this one, and which ones actually belong in the sequels. Here there is no Mini-Me, no Heather Graham, and no references to genitalia when referring to a rocket. Too bad, too, because those are great sources of humor and I don’t have the strength to watch any of the sequels just yet.

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery is a great film to throw in while having a party. There is no need to see and hear everything clearly. There is nothing, really to analyze. It works well as background filler to supply some hearty laughs when there is a lull in the conversations.

Various Ramblings about U2

In high school, I drove a 1986 Plymouth Reliant. It was a hand-me-downs hand-me-down. From my mother to my brother to me, it had seen more than a few hard miles. But, it was my first car, and for what it was worth I loved it, except when the fan belt made that horrible squealing noise as I was pulling out of school. I had a new tape deck that literally hung in the dash. My father, never willing to spend more than he had to on car repair, decided to install the stereo himself. The new one was a bit smaller than the old one so it left a good half-inch space around the new stereo. I wedged some cardboard underneath it to keep it from taking to many bangs and was good to go.

In those days I had a habit of listening to one cassette over and over again. One month I listened to Paul Westerburg’s 13 Songs nonstop. I had the Doors soundtrack completely memorized, beat for beat, Morrison wail for Morrison wail. There was a several-week period that I listened to U2’s 4 song EP Wide Awake in America and nothing else. Since it is so short it contained the same music on side B as on side A. I didn’t care, I loved every moment of it. It was also just long enough to listen to the entire EP in one drive to school.

During this same period, I began driving one of my sister’s friends, Amy, to school with us. She was a pleasant girl and lived close enough to me that I didn’t mind picking her up. Two or three weeks went by like this: driving Amy to and from school, me listening to the same four songs over and over again. One afternoon we loaded into the car after school ready to head home. At that very moment, I decided I was tired of listening to U2 and ejected the tape after half a verse of Bad.

“That was a tape?” Amy asked.

“Of course, it’s a tape. We’ve been listening to it repeatedly for the last several weeks.” I replied.

“Well, I thought the radio was playing that song a lot.”

“Yeah, and playing it at the exact same moment in the afternoon that we left off in the morning. That’s nice of the radio station to do that for us,” I joked.

I think she was a little more than embarrassed.

————

That particular song, “Bad”, is a particular favorite of mine. It’s got a cool, elevating jam in it on the live version. It sparkles like the stars in the sky. Truth be told, it is the main reason I listened to the EP over and over again. It’s got some great, mysterious lyrics.

There’s a great story about the band playing some awards show way back when, and Bono spends their entire slotted time trying to get a fan on stage with him. The band keeps playing the riffs, and security keeps trying to stop the fan from climbing the stairs. And there is Bono, world savior, persuading the fan to come up with him. Meanwhile, everyone else is begging him to come back and sing the song. Minutes roll by, the band’s time slot is almost up, and they haven’t even finished this one song yet. Something like 8 minutes roll by, their entire time slot, and Bono is still trying to get this one fan on stage. Finally, security lets up and the girl runs onto the stage, into Bono’s arms. There he is, one of the biggest rock stars around and he’s hugging a fan. Bam! Superstardom forever.

The song doesn’t have a proper chorus. There is a repeated refrain, but its lyrics are obscure. I listened to that song a hundred times and I could never figure out what he was saying.

I’m Wide Awake
I’m Wide Awake

But after that, it was just a mumble. I was sure it was a powerful, amazing lyric, but I could never penetrate its meaning.

One day, months after keeping the tape in my deck for weeks on end, I threw the tape back in my player. Cruising the Oklahoma back roads I cranked it up.

If I could, yes I would
If I could, I would
Let it go

Bono sang. The Edge jangling his guitar, the music crescendos higher and higher.

If I could through myself
Set your spirit free
I’d lead your heart away
See you break, break away
Into the light
And to the day

To let it go
And so to fade away
To let it go
And so fade away

I’m loving it. It’s a perfect summer day. My windows are down, my left arm soaring out the window. The road is untrafficked by other drivers, and unwatched by the cops. There are a series of hills we used to call “the Rollercoaster” because they dipped and rose like an amusement park ride. I used to take them real fast and try to get some air between the road and my tires. Life was good.

I’m wide awake
I’m wide awake

And then it hit me. Out of the clear, blue sky, I suddenly knew what he was singing. It made perfect sense, and fit perfectly with the previous couplet. There it is again, this time I can’t help but understand. How could I have not heard those lyrics before? A smile crept to my lips as I sang along:

I’m wide awake
I’m not sleeping
Oh, no, no, no

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)

the life aquatic poster

Wes Anderson pictures are always an event. His first three pictures (Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and the Royal Tenenbaums) have all been brilliant bits of quirky genius. I have waited not so patiently for his fourth picture, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, to make it to France. Though I tried to read little in the way of reviews, I couldn’t help but notice quite a bit of negativity being garnered it’s way. After viewing the film, I too, couldn’t help but feel a little letdown, but this has more to say about my expectations of a Wes Anderson picture, than the actual picture itself.

Bill Murray proves once again that he is a better actor post 50 than anyone could have imagined. He plays Steve Zissou, a Jacques Cousteau-esque oceanographer who has seen better days. He has spent the last decade scrounging harder and harder to find the funding for his voyages and the subsequent documentaries from them. It seems the critics have been harsher as his fans have become increasingly few. The film opens with Zissou showing his latest documentary to a bored audience. He is attempting to find funding for a second voyage, one that will allow him to exact revenge upon the jaguar shark that killed his friend. He finds the money through Ned Plimpton (Owen Wilson) who may be Zissou’s son, but no one is really quite sure.

Zissou and his might-be son, are accompanied by a ragtag crew and a reporter, Jane Winslet-Richardson (Cate Blanchett) who forms some kind of love triangle with Zissou and Plimpton. Aboard the rusty, ancient Belefante all hands set out to find the mythical shark. Though before they find the beast they encounter many adventures such as found in any road trip film.

Anderson fills his film once again with plenty of quirky, oddball characters. This time he seems to have filled the action as a means to pay homage to various movies and television shows from the 70s and 80s. There is an action sequence towards the middle that is straight out of a Charlie’s Angels or A-Team episode. The much-discussed animated fish seem to be copied from the Incredible Mr. Limpett. Many of the camera movements, including extensive use of close-up zoom on a single character only to zoom out and zoom out again to find the character surrounded by others, seem to be out of some classic television director guidebook. Before I realized Anderson was mimicking that style I was annoyed with the whole thing. Once I caught on I found a few of these moments to be brilliant put-ons, but often I felt like I was watching the last 15 minutes of Adaptation. Where yes I get the joke, and yes I find it funny, but it got tiresome rather quickly.

One of the joys of The Royal Tenenbaums is that each character is fleshed out to some degree. It is a large ensemble picture, but even the smaller roles have moments in which to give them some dimension, to make them real. The Life Aquatic similarly has a large cast, but all but the major characters are never given a chance to become three-dimensional. Why, for instance, does the navigator spend most of the film topless? If this is to present that she is a free spirit, why does she argue with Zissou over sailing over unprotected waters? Or why is she so upset with him for stealing the equipment? Her character is given no reasoning behind her behavior, and her actions only force the plot along without any purpose. She is not the only character like this. Either Anderson is again mimicking the plotless plotlines of classic television, or he has done a poor job of filling in the details of his characters.

Many things work in The Life Aquatic. Bill Murray proves again he is more than just a funny, funny man. The characters that are filled out, are aptly acted. Though just what is the deal with Cate Blanchett’s accent? She sounded like she was still hanging onto a bit of Katherine Hepburn. Anderson has again made a fun, funny, quirk of a movie. Yet, when compared to the rest of his output, I can’t help but feel a little disappointed. Here’s to his next film, and hoping his brilliance continues to shine for a little while longer.

Nightmare Town by Dashiell Hammett

nightmare town

In 1999 fans of hard-boiled detective stories got a fresh treat, from writings at least 70 years old. That was the year a collection of Dashiell Hammett’s short stories were combined and released as Nightmare Town. Many of the stories had been unavailable for decades, and several had not been released since the date of their first publication in pulp magazines such as Black Mask. It is a mostly hodgepodge collection filled with some real classics and some failed duds. It’s more of a rarities boxed set than a greatest hits package. But for fans of Hammett, it is a real gem.

The stories run the gamut of Hammett’s writing. There is a small collection of Continental Op stories, Hammett’s nameless tough guy private detective seen in his first two novels, Red Harvest and The Dain Curse. We get a couple of short sequels to The Maltese Falcon starring Sam Spade. There are plenty of murders, bad guys, and even an early draft of The Thin Man, minus any appearance of Nick and Nora Charles.

Many of the stories suffer from the necessary short length of a short story. It is a difficult feat to devise a tense, terse plot, find a crime, create interesting characters, and solve the mystery within 20 odd pages. On several occasions Hammett misses. He takes shortcuts with the plots or explains away the mystery without giving sufficient evidence within the preceding pages.

My favorite Hammett character, the Continental Op, makes several appearances. He is a quiet, tough, private detective who works by his own set of morals. Some of his stories work like gold, while others seem rushed, or as if Hammett was still working out his craft. Too often the Op repeats the details of the case to himself (and the reader) and wonders who to trust, and what to believe. It is an unbelievable detail and one that thankfully Hammett gave up as a writer.

There are a few real gems in the collection “Ruffians Wife”, “His Brothers Keeper”, and “The Thin Man” among them.

“Ruffians Wife” is the story of a tough guy’s wife who spends her days romanticizing her husband’s work. When that work is brought home and the violence made real her, instincts change and she sees just how awful those things are. It is written in a sparse, bleak style, giving every gritty detail the right color to feel reality rushing in.

“His Brother’s Keeper” is minus the murders and plus on wayward kids trying to get their one shot at being a contender. “The Thin Man” has nothing to do with the novel of the same name but may be the best story of the bunch. It is a breezy tale about an insurance man more in love with poetry than trying to find a swindler. There actually is a bit of Nick Charles in him in that he is light-hearted and bent more on romanticism than fighting crime. The detectives seem to follow him around and kid him more than try to do their own jobs. The story unfolds in a light easy flow.

The real thrill of “Nightmare Town” is an unfinished early draft of The Thin Man. While some of the plot details are similar this is a completely different novel in terms of tone. Nowhere is the cocktail-drinking, wise-cracking Nick and Nora Charles. Instead, we get the silent, tougher-than-nails detective John Guild. He is sent to investigate a bad check and winds up for a long twisted ride helping a young District Attorney on his first murder case. This is only the first ten chapters, but it leaves me wishing for more. A wish I’ll never get granted. Much the same can be said about all of Hammett’s writing.

Nightmare Town is probably not the best place for a Hammett newbie to begin. Any of his full-length novels would serve as a better starting place. But for those of us who have read every other published word he has written, this is a great way to see some of his early work and unfinished texts. A welcome addition to your mystery bookshelf.

Finding Neverland (2004)

finding neverland

Peter Pan, is, of course, the immensely popular story of a boy who wouldn’t grow up. The Internet Movie DataBase lists 8 movies with that title, and there are many more films that have been made using the same story. Finding Neverland is about Peter Pan’s creator, JM Barrie, and his relationship with the Davies family and how they inspired Barrie to write the story.

We begin the film finding Barrie (Johnny Depp) having just completed the staging of a very expensive, new play, which also turns out to be a bomb. His marriage is falling apart because while Barrie is himself a childlike man, his wife seems to be very much an adult who cannot participate in her husband’s whims and dreams. Enter Sylvia Davies (Kate Winslet), a widow trying to support four children with very little money. Barrie immediately falls in love with her children. He takes them to the park, plays cowboys and Indians, dances with bears, and indulges every childlike fantasy they can dream up. He is every bit the child they are. They in turn are the muses for his next play. Throughout the film, we see the children acting out bits, which we know of from Peter Pan. We see his inspiration in celluloid.

This is a good, well-made film. It is aptly directed, and the actors all do fine jobs. My English friend notes that Depp does a decent job with a Scottish accent, and as always, the remainder of his performance is top-notch.

My problem with the film lies within the characterization of Barrie, himself. He is made out to be a wonderful, beautiful dreamer. A man who has the heart of a child. He is someone who lives in his imagination. We see the world through his eyes. While dancing in the park with his dog, we see it transform into a circus and the dog into a bear. Anyone who dares to question his fancies, to expect him to act as an adult, is shown in an unfavorable light. Both Barries’ wife, Mary (Rahda Mitchell), and Davies’ mother, Emma Du Maurier (Julie Christie) do not care for Barrie’s behavior and both are made out to be villains. Yet his behavior is to be frowned upon. A married man gallivanting about town with a widow and her children is neither acceptable nor Right.

The film does its best to show us that Barries’ marriage is not doing well besides the problems with the Davies household. They quibble about other issues and we can tell there has not been much love under that roof for quite some time. It is also quick to point out that the relationship between Barrie and Ms. Davies is anything but sexual. In fact, Barrie seems to be quite asexual. There is never a hint of masculinity or sexuality portrayed at all. But these are all excuses for allowing a grown, married man to spend all of his time with a woman who is not his wife, and four children who are not his own.

The film wants us to believe. It wants us to believe that life is worth dreaming about. That the eyes of a child can see mysteries forgotten by the likes of grown-ups. That they contain a secret joy we too, could experience if only we believed. It also wants us to see that if we do not behave as children, if our minds are lost in the responsibilities of adults, then we are missing out on life. It is hard to refute such beliefs. Life is hard. To be able to escape into a world of pirates and fairies is a miraculous thing. We should all be able to slip into the world of fantasy and make-believe for just a while and let the stress of being an adult slip away. But, there is the cusp of the matter, we can slip away and dream for a time, but life demands that we return. It is irresponsible and shameful to drop the responsibilities of our life, to live our fantasies. To leave the bonds of marriage for another woman, even if you never technically have an affair, is irredeemable. To accept and love a character for doing that very thing is irresponsible.

All of this is not to say that Finding Neverland is without merit. In fact, it is an enjoyable, well-made film. It is an interesting portrait of the author of one of the English language’s most beloved stories. Barrie, as seen here, was a gifted, flawed man. It is a beautiful thing to see a man filled with such whimsy. But we must be careful not to believe that being whimsical gives us the freedom to give up on being grown up.

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

the sweet smell of success poster

This is the kind of film that could coin an expression like “They don’t make ‘em like that anymore,” except that people have been using that line for every piece of crap that was made more than two years ago. Go ahead and say it to yourself, and I’ll say that David Mamet’s Glengarry, Glen Ross comes close. Both feature snarling and biting dialog. Both have irredeemable characters that will do anything for success. Mamet’s characters are mostly down-and-outers who are scrapping at each other to find some sampling of their former successes. In Sweet Smell of Success, there are successful characters and losers, both of which need each other to survive. It is a tale of a successful columnist and his need for a low-life press agent. It is a bitter, bleak story of power, success, and the desire to have more.

Burt Lancaster plays JJ Hunsecker, a powerful columnist who is at the top of his game. He gets what he wants when he wants it with no questions asked. He can make or break celebrities with a quick blurb in his column. He dines with politicians and gets any girl he wants. Tony Curtis is Sidney Falco, a low-rent press agent who needs Lancaster’s blurbs for his clients to keep in business. The problem is, Hunsecker has cut Falco out of his columns because Falco hasn’t delivered on a deal they made. Though Hunsecker can garner the love and admiration of anyone he chooses, the one woman he cannot win over is his own sister. As he repeatedly says throughout the film, she’s all he has. The problem is she is in love with a jazz singer, and they plan to marry. Hunsecker can’t bear the thought of losing his sister, so he forces Falco to get rid of the boy by any means necessary.

The film is relentless. From beginning to end it never stops its pounding. There is never a breath of kindness. The two characters with some redeeming characteristics Hunsecker’s sister, Susan (Susan Harrison), and her boyfriend, Steve Dallas (Martin Milner), are so overshadowed by the continual foul play by Hunsecker and Falco that they come away with a foul stench.

Tony Curtis pulls a performance that reminded me of his turn as the Boston Strangler. It is not difficult to see his Falco turning to murder if it helped him succeed. Though as the strangler, he seems to have found some remorse for his actions, whereas Falco is irredeemable to the very end.

There is a scene in the middle of the picture where Falco pulls a trick to convince a mid level performer to make Falco his press agent. At this point, Falco needs all the clients he can get. Later the performer comes to Falco, ready to sign him as his agent. Falco, now feeling some signs of success brushes the performer off without a second thought. It is a telling scene of just how heartless and uncaring Falco has become.

Where has Burt Lancaster been all my life? Sadly enough, the only film I can remember watching him in is the 1986 toss-off comedy Tough Guys. His performance here is nothing short of astonishing. He is the king of his castle, never stepping off his high throne, treating everyone as servants. Even his shows of affection for Susan are grotesque and menacing.

This is a story that is hard to watch. It is brutal, and menacing with nary a redeeming aspect. But it is a film that must be watched. The craftsmanship of the filmmakers and the performances of the actors elevate it above so many others. It is nearly a morality tale of the horrors that befall humanities greed.

The Elephant Man (1980)

the elephant man poster

David Lynch’s second full-length film contains the odd assortment of freakish characters we’ve become accustomed to in his films. Yet, despite having one of the more outlandish characters he has ever put on celluloid, it remains his most sentimental film. The Elephant Man is based upon the true story of John Merrick, a 19th-century Englishman with massive deformities throughout his body. He performed in freakshows for many years until he was found by Dr. Treves who cared for him and placed him in Whitechapel hospital. It is his time in this hospital that the film concerns itself with. For here, Merrick is able to live, more or less, as a gentleman. He is well-fed, well-kept, and educated. He can read, write, speak eloquently, and even begins to entertain the well-to-dos of society.

It is filmed beautifully in black and white. It is a very well-made piece of cinema. Lynch, for the most part, stays away from his trademark imagery and symbolism and sticks to more traditional storytelling, although the opening sequence is a straight Lynch nightmare. That the characters come from real life and not Lynch’s twisted imagination only serves to add to the surrealism of the film.

It has been said that Lynch is too sentimental in this movie. That he manipulates the audience too much. Ebert even goes as far as saying Lynch tricks the audience into believing that Merrick is a noble and courageous man. He suggests, that rather than being noble, Merrick is merely doing the best that he can, under poor circumstances. It is true that the film is sentimental. There is hardly a scene that does not prick the audience’s emotions.

How many of us would dare to get out of bed each day with similar difficulties? And here, this man, though physically plagued, manages to keep up his spirits and even write and build card sculptures. It would be a poor director at that who could not produce a tear at such a sight. If we pretend it is not a noble feat for such a creature to retain his humanity and good cheer, while being constantly bombarded with inhumane indecencies are we any better than those who stand outside the carnival and jeer?

Yet there is something in these critiques of sentimentalism. Lynch continues to use his tricks as a director to keep our eyes wet. There is a scene in which Merrick meets Dr. Treve’s wife and breaks down with tears at her simple kind acts. His tears state that no one has been so kind to him as to treat him like a gentleman. Though effective, this is using the craft of filmmaking to do nothing but manipulate emotions. In other films, I would lambaste this type of sentimentalism and chastise the audience for falling for it. Yet the overall sadness throughout the story makes me fall for it here. I cannot commend such use of it in the film anywhere, and yet it works for me in this particular instance.

Overall, The Elephant Man is a fine achievement for a young director. Lynch would go on to make more articulate, less sentimental films. But here we find him assured in his imagery and storytelling. He effectively sweeps the viewer into the emotional turmoil of such a sad, hopeless story.

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

the hound of the baskervilles

In my determination to read all of the classic detective fiction I recently picked up Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Hound of the Baskervilles. I have a collection of Sherlock Holmes short stories, but those are a little too simplified for my tastes. They consist of a setup for the mystery and then a detailed description of Holmes using his near supernatural ability of observation to determine the culprit. Most of these never develop any real sense of mystery because Holmes is too brilliant for the reader’s good. We are briefly marveled by his powers of observation and deduction, to the point that we begin trying to concentrate our own powers on the mundane tasks of our lives. Upon some contemplation, though, it is easy to realize that paying attention to details will not bring us the answers the super detective seems to collect from the air at will. There are too many possibilities as to why our neighbor has a bit of mud on the cuffs of his pants to be able to surmise the reason out of sheer reasoning.

This being said, I was looking forward to reading a longer-length novel about this super sleuth. With more pages, surely Doyle would prepare a better mystery for his hero to unravel. Still with a mere 174 pages, Doyle managed to create a more well-rounded story and develop enough mystery to satisfy my tastes.

The story revolves around Henry Baskerville and his inherited homestead amongst the moors of England. It seems his family has been haunted by a demon hound for generations. The patriarchs of the family have befallen many a beastly end in this home. Not one for superstition, Henry moves to the homestead from America after he inherited the land when the previous owner, Sir Charles Baskerville, fell dead of fright. After a series of threats and strange circumstances, Dr. Watson travels to the Baskerville home to investigate. Holmes has announced himself too busy in London to be able to make the trip himself.

This point was a brilliant maneuver by Doyle. Allowing the more human Dr. Watson to do much of the investigation himself allows the mystery time to develop rather than be solved immediately by Holmes. Dr. Watson investigates the few residences around Baskerville Hall and finds them all to be rather suspicious in their own way. Suspense is built by the appearance of an escaped convict loose in the area, and the appearance of a mysterious stranger roaming the moors.

When Holmes does appear back on the scene, Doyle allows the action to take the place of Holmes’s usual verbal pomposity. Though, we are told numerous times that this is a most interesting and difficult case by the detective. As if the reader is too dumb to appreciate the difficulties of the case, we need to be reminded by Holmes over and over again. Once the case is solved, the novel is concluded with a meeting between Holmes and Dr. Watson months after the case had occurred. Here Holmes once again must amaze us with his brilliant deductive powers. Once again, a mystery novel must tie up loose ends with a lot of verbiage.

The Hound of the Baskervilles was a light, enjoyable read. It is easy to see why Sherlock Holmes mysteries were so popular. They are easy to read, quickly paced, and pack enough muscle to keep the page turned. Holmes penetrating powers of observation and deduction are fascinating. Like magic tricks, they entrance the reader and make us feel that with a little help and a lot of practice, we could also perform such feats. As serious literature, the book fails to be scrutinized. I will read more of the Holmes mysteries, and these books will hold a place on my bookcase, but they will have to hold a second shelf to the true masters of the genre.

Around The World In 80 Days (2004)

around the world in 80 days movie poster

There are some films that I make no plans to watch, nor have any desire to see. Yet, sometimes, through circumstance, watch them is exactly what I do. Recently, I was invited to dinner at a friend’s house. Another invitee decided to rent this Jackie Chan vehicle. Never to be one to turn down a free movie, I watched.

I am not one of Jackie Chan’s fanboys. The action sequences in his films are generally spectacular, and often hilarious. But his film’s lack of a cohesive narrative, god-awful dialog, and horrid acting turn me off, more than any stunt can save. From time to time, I do manage to catch one of his films, even enough to notice their general degeneration of late. His earlier, non-English films, though containing worse overall production value, had more bang for your buck. His American-made films seem to be bent on adding plot and characterization to the detriment of the action. This might be commendable if the additional plotting was any good. But more often than not, it’s just a glossy version of the same old schlock. Around the World in 80 Days follows this formula.

Waiting thirty minutes into a Jackie Chan film for the first action sequence is an atrocity. When that action sequence is lame, you might as well take up the pooper scooper and walk the dog. The movie followed this pattern. Thirty minutes of mind-numbing story development followed by tame, lame action sequences.

The plot is old and rehashed. Loosely based on the Jules Verne novel of the same name, Chan plays Lau Xing masquerading as Passpartout, servant of snooty inventor Phileas Fogg (Steve Coogan). Through a bet, they impart on a journey around the world in…oh, who cares? Who watches a Jackie Chan film for the plot? And if you don’t know this story by now, stick around and I’m sure they’ll make another TV movie of it shortly.

The film is scattered with high-profile cameos. Most interesting of which is the now California governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s turn as a Turkish prince. The others are mostly pointless and unfunny cameos designed to make the audience go “oh that’s Rob Schneider” and miss the fact that he’s amazingly unfunny and his character serves no particular point. The casting of Kathy Bates as the Queen seems most spectacularly ill-placed. Her British accent is appalling. Was it too hard to find a real Brit to play this role? Some of my French friends have better British accents than that.

With the exception of but a few moments, the fight scenes, few that we get, are unspectacular. The joy of Jackie Chan is in his ability to stage acrobatic action sequences while using an odd array of props. Chairs, stools, flags, and culinary devices have all served as weapons in previous pictures, yet here he is mostly intent on using his hands to fight against regular swords and blades. It’s not that the action is terrible per se, but that they pale in comparison with so many of the others he has performed.

There is really nothing to recommend this movie. It is age appropriate enough. There is little to offend the younger sensibilities (besides the acting, plot, and production values)If you have children, I suppose, they might find it silly enough to enjoy. But, with so many other quality films out there appropriate for children, I can’t make myself recommend this one to them either.