Airplane! (1980)

USA
written and directed by: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker
starring: Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Leslie Nielsen
comment: 13th November, 2014

-"And that, as much as anything else, led to my drinking problem."

My parents grew up on this and that's why I knew many of the quotes way way before I saw the film itself or could understand some of them. And I am of course fascinated by the combination of seriousness and nonsense. (But I feel the need to add that there is a significant amount of moments where everything suggests a new gag or joke is on the way but then it does not happen.)

Psycho (1960)

USA
directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
written by: Joseph Stefano + Robert Bloch (kniha)
starring: Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Martin Balsam, Janet Leigh
comment: 12th November, 2014

I remember it like it was yesterday: My parents explaining to me, a ten-year-old girl, who Norman Bates is so I could understand a humorous remark in the legendary (in my family anyway) Red Dwarf series. By doing so they unleashed a classic spoiler my way and also caused me to always associate Norman Bates and Psycho with comedy rather than horror.  And to their defence, I believe that Hitch has also done everything in his power to force viewers to make this switch. The older I get (and I'm not getting cynical, if anything, I cry more during films now), the more I see Psycho as a cunning black comedy. And it's not only because of the scene with the boss on the crosswalk. A lot of the dialogue suggests it too. But it also doesn't mean that I would laugh and say "it's old and it's silly", because I see carefully crafted mischievousness.

An example of absolute mischievous beauty is Hitch putting Perkins as Norman next to the boyfriend played by Gavin. Gavin is a rock, a dummy, a blank figurine belonging to the old world (of cinema) because of the way he speaks and acts. Perkins is always moving and layering all kinds of emotions in his actions, he's uneasy and insecure and yet even during the most intense moments he keeps on casually munching on some candy. How much more evidence a viewer needs to determine that what he's doing is the future of cinema. (And of course I'm saying it after that future already had happened - and I'm not a native English speaker so those tenses  are definitely wrong but you get the gist. The actor died when I was a year and half old and I'm also sad to say that during the years after that I managed to see not only Psycho but also it's B-movie and maybe C-movie sequels which he also directed himself, oh God, why.)

Bernard Herrmann's music is so iconic that I always get the feeling that I remember it from one of my past lives, but what I really admire is the camera movements. And I am also in awe of Hitch continuously diverting the attention and constantly changing who the protagonist is.

When I saw the film for the first time, I fell in love with Perkins. Now is that special place in my heart occupied by the higway patrol officer who knocks on Marion's car window and then menacingly shadows her.

-"A man should have a hobby." ♥

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

USA
directed by: Francis Ford Coppola
written by: James V. Hart + Bram Stoker (book)
starring: Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Sadie Frost, Keanu Reeves
commented on 11th November, 2014

When I was thirteen and under the influence of Agatha Christie's detective story Five Little Pigs (you read that right), I began to write a novella about a vampire girl unable to convince her terminally ill, dying lover to become a vampire as well to share their immortal love forever. I felt I was not mature enough at the time to come up with a satisfying ending and the story remained unfinished. Some years later I read Dracula and realized two things a) life without end lacks sense (and therefore only the weak and cowardly desire immortality) and b) true, fated love (whether as an ideal or an actual relationship) is not possible without fidelity/loyalty.

Francis Ford endowed his adaptation only with a). (But thank the gods for that, because the world becomes more and more flooded with vampire stories that fail to understand even that.) He took fated love as the driving force of his story, but did not hold fidelity/loyalty (I can't decide which word suits my intentions better) closely to his story's heart. The closest he comes to it is when he mocks it sarcastically through Van Helsing. The result is a film about men understanding neither love, nor women. And we will never know if women understand some things, because they live in a world usurped by men. However, Keanu lets Winona leave and act on her own in the very end, suggesting a hope that this might change.

At least the director tackles things with a sense of humor and it is amusing to watch him have the rational and irractional fight in vain. Naturally, the thing I liked the most was Gary and all his incarnations (and the green mist and a bat monster most of all). The fight for Miss Lucy's soul was visually stunning. Mina getting to know The Count has its moments (they caress a wild wolf together, oh my), but I can't watch it without thinking that she's betraying Jonathan and that he is diluting his feelings by pursuing multiple women, which makes the love somewhat invalid in my eyes. I loved the primal animal growling sounds coming from the throats of comely maidens. As The Count says: "There is much to be learned from beasts." But still, my eyes are more intrigued than my heart.

P.S.: And I forgot my ears! Wojciech Kilar!

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973)

USA
directed by: Sam Peckinpah
written by: Rudy Wurlitzer
starring: James Coburn, Kris Kristofferson, Bob Dylan
senn: 11th August, 2014

The music makes my experience mostly unpleasant. Why the hell are all of the films of New Hollywood accompanied by an optimistic sounding music that obviously doesn't fit the realistic tendencies of the stories? "Why" probably isn't the most relevant question I could ask because I don't really need to know that, but it's certain that it will ruin my experience of the film. And why in hell are they presenting a "rough" western world where happy singing songs play along, that almost makes it a musical and that's more ridiculous than anything else. I suppose I prefer my westerns depressing and melancholic.

And keeping that in mind, what kind of film is this anyway? Am I supposet to be moved by the deaths of characters I don't know and hold no sympathy towards? Most of the shots are static in the beginning and only after a while the people start moving, you can almost hear someone shouting "action!" off camera. Nobody acts naturally. Nobody talks naturally. And what about the wtf scenes like Garrett's group hanky panky?

I believe I'm rather sensitive when it comes to things like dancing with death, friendly betrayals and such, but I sense none of that in this film. Alias was cute as heck, especially when smiling, and overall he was the only reason I was looking forward to see what will happen in the film (and with his character) next. But it should have been a fourteen year old boy and not a thirty year old Bob Dylan. That scary looking cross-eyed dude was also rather impressive, as well as the way one of the victims fell towards his death. But these are not the impressions I expected to leave with after a film with such a reputation as this one.

The Terminator (1984)

USA/United Kingdom
directed by: James Cameron
written by: James Cameron, Gale Anne Hurd
starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn, Linda Hamilton
seen on 27th July, 2014

Oh wow, it turns out I've been in love with Judgment Day for years without ever seeing the first one. It can get rather scary watching the eighties people doing the eighties things. But I did cry like a baby, the visions of future are quite impressive (sisters watching a fire burning inside a broken TV set!), Michael and Linda are beautiful together and Arnold is just a gosh-darn sweetheart. (And it's necessary to add that it takes special talent to convince me that synth music is great as quickly as Brad Fiedel did.)

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

USA/Germany/United Kingdom
written and directed by: Wes Anderson
starring: Ralph Fiennes, Tony Revolori, Saoirse Ronan
seen: 10th May, 2014, additional comment: 6th May, 2018

I went to see the film with a boulder-sized migraine and it still managed to make me laugh out loud like crazy. I guess the less real the "Wes-world" is, the more amused/engaged am I. Maybe it's true that the idea seems to get a bit lost under the surface, but when I see other directors no more being capable to even do form/style properly in their new films (my recent disappointments include Jarmusch - Only Lovers Left Alive, McQueen - Twelve Years a Slave, Burton - just about anything he does these days, Jackson - the dreaded second trilogy) I am very glad that I can say that at least Anderson still knows his stuff.

2018: And thinking back I now one hundred percent don't think that the idea gets smothered by the surface. There's nothing wrong with different types of stories being told. (And I have to make an honorable mention of Saoirse Ronan, who I subconsciously hated ever since The Atonement, courtesy of the character she portrayed there. Well, thanks to the part she plays here my hatred is gone an I am free to notice in different films as well that she is in fact quite an interesting actress.)