The Guns of Navarone: David Niven and the Scene of his Career

The Guns of Navarone, Directed by J. Lee Thompson.

There are few movies that get my attention like J. Lee Thompson's Navarone.  (It was actually Alistair MacLean's first, though the screenplay strays from the book quite a bit.)  Full of action, tension, exotic locations, all centered around a band of men on an epic mission, it never fails to captivate.  With a strong ensemble cast, led by Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn, and David Niven, there is plenty of action, drama, and even a bit of comedy to go around.  Filmed in 1961, the cast includes the obligatory teen star James Darren (in a failed attempt to break out of his teen-idol status into the role of a serious actor), a fairly unknown (and troubled) Gia Scala, Greek actress Irene Papas, British star Stanley Baker, and the veteran stage and screen Shakespearean actor/director Anthony Quayle.  Producer Carl Foreman was aiming for international appeal when he assembled this group.  I suppose he just couldn't figure out how to stick an Asian into this story.

I won't spend much time on the plot of this movie.  It is largely a fantasy, or as Gregory Peck suggested, a parody (he even went so far as to complain that it was more like a Keystone Cops caper).  Simply put, this band of intrepid, quarreling, reluctant men are sent to destroy massive guns that are blocking the one shipping lane that is holding up the entire war effort.  It seems that there is no way that the Allied Navy can avoid this island.  But that hardly matters.

David Niven as Corporal Miller

Early in the film, as we're getting to know the crew, David Niven shows off his comedic flair as the men prepare to sail a decidedly un-seaworthy boat into the German-held Aegean.  An explosives expert who's been assigned this mission against his will, Niven's character, Corporal Miller, spends most of the film cracking jokes and making sarcastic remarks about Captain Mallory's (Peck) determination to win at all costs.  He complains to Mallory: "Sir, I've inspected this vessel and I think you ought to know that, ah, I can't swim."  This sums up his character perfectly.  He's smart enough to know the limitations of their equipment, determined to make sure Mallory knows how disgruntled he is, and is not ashamed to point out that his main concern is for his own safety.

Anthony Quinn, a Mexican playing a Greek, as Andrea Stavrou.

Niven is not the only actor showcasing his skills in this film.  Anthony Quinn, already a two-time Oscar winner for supporting actor (Viva Zapata!, and Lust for Life) and three years away from his signature role in Zorba, the Greek, displays his wide range of skills.  Despite his intimating presence (his character has sworn to kill Peck's character when the war is over), one of his best scenes is when he grovels before the German officer as he attempts to con the man into believing that he has nothing to do with the resistance fighters.  He can be mesmerizing, even when he is only in the background.

Anthony Quayle, who actually organized resistance fighters in Albania during WWII, takes something of a backseat in this film, spending most of his time on a stretcher, merely a prop brought along to spur on Miller's debates with Mallory over which is more important; the men or the mission.  Darren, in what must have been his best attempt to be a serious actor, just looks mad all the time, and impatient, and well, basically a teenager.  I've always been intrigued by Irene Papas in this movie.  She is full of mystery, and I always felt that her character should have been brought to the front more.  She's tough, but retains her dignity and humanity.  But in this massive story there wasn't much room to do this.

Now let me explain why I've written this post.  It isn't for the massive guns that are inevitably destroyed.  It isn't for the large, talented international cast.  It isn't for the chase scenes and the intricate rock climbing scenes or the silent, lengthy infiltration scene as the men break into the gun emplacement.  (Which, by the way, is marvelously filmed like the nerve-wracking heist scenes in movies like Rififi and Topkapi.)  The one scene that really sets this movie above so many of its fellow WWII escapades is when David Niven's Miller exposes the traitor in the group.

(Severe Spoiler-Warning: If you haven't seen this movie, and you want all of the surprises to be intact when you watch it, simply know that you've got to see this movie, then stop reading.  Come back later to read the rest of it.  I'm not a fan of spoilers, but no matter that this is supposed to be a major revelation in the movie, I don't feel that this ruins anything.  I've seen this movie over a dozen times, and the impact of this scene is never diminished by my foreknowledge.)

David Niven points out the traitor.

Miller, the explosives expert, discovers that his toys have been tampered with.  Ruined, in fact.  Piecing together all of the pitfalls they've encountered, he has finally figured out who's to blame.  Like Hercule Poirot, he methodically talks through his reasoning to the entire crew and when he finally reveals the traitor, the assembled team is shocked: he suspects Anna (Gia Scala), the emotionally disturbed mute island girl who had been tortured by the Germans.  His accusation is easily proved.  Tearing the back of her dress, they see that her scars are non-existent.  She had never been tortured.  To avoid this, she'd agreed to spy for the Germans.  While this is good drama, it is not yet that which sets this movie apart.  That comes next.

Niven, stripped of his humor, delivering the performance of a lifetime.

Miller now goes after the real target of his anger: Mallory.  The man who has been constantly putting every man's life below the success of the mission.  As I said, Anthony Quayle's character, Franklin, is a prop who has been carried around on a stretcher this whole time for just this purpose.  You see, Miller is Franklin's best friend, and he knows that Mallory doesn't give a damn about what happens to Franklin.  And now Miller goes after Mallory.  He demands that Mallory be the one to shoot the girl.  They can't leave her behind to warn the Germans, and they can't take her with them.  Someone's got to shoot the girl.  And Miller wants his pound of flesh.  Mallory must be the one to shoot an unarmed and terrified young girl.

Niven is riveting in his delivery of this speech.  His comedic lines are all gone, his jaunty, British ease now vanished, made all the better by the director cutting to Peck and his iconic, jaw-clenched simmering-to-a-boil glare.  Niven's Miller has set the trap, and Peck's Mallory is caught in it.  Will he do it?  How can he not?  Gregory Peck, our once beloved Atticus Finch, the white knight of this film, is going to have to execute what is essentially an innocent girl.  Sure, she was helping the Germans, but it was out of fear, not ideology.  And now Peck/Mallory is going to have to put a bullet in her.

What happens next is pure cinema gold.  Not because the writer found a way to get Peck out of his trap.  That was a given.  Gregory Peck was not going to gun down a girl who is splayed on the floor, half-undressed and crying.  Especially not when he was wearing a German uniform.  They couldn't pay him enough money to tarnish his reputation like that.

Let's look at the sequence:

First, Peck is goaded into killing the girl by Niven who says "Come down off that cross of yours, close your eyes, think of England and pull the trigger!"  Exasperated, Peck stalks over to the girl.  She looks up at him, eyes filled with tears.  He unholsters his gun.  A cut to the profile of Niven, who turns apprehensively to see what Peck will do.  A shot of Quinn, then Papas, the girl's only friend.  Back to the girl, who raises her head, as if placing her head on the chopping block.

Gia Scala, as Anna, awaiting her fate.

  Now Peck, raising the gun.

Gregory Peck as Captain Mallory.  Will he kill the woman?

  And a quick shot of Niven, suddenly dashing forward, a split-second realization that Peck is actually going to shoot her.  A sickening realization that this girl is going to be executed because of him.  A last second decision to stop what he has started.  But it is too late.  A close-up of a gun firing.  A gun with a silencer.  The girl now, rocked back by the impact of the bullet.  She looks at her killer, shocked.  Now, a second close shot of the gun, pan back, and we see Irene Papas, a grim, bleak stare smoldering from her dark eyes.  The girl slides to the ground.  Reactions from Peck and Quinn, then a wide screen shot of everyone, the girl's body in the foreground.

No more debates, no more flippant one-liners.  Nothing more to say.

Niven drops his hands, all of his anger and sarcasm drained away.  Peck, still conflicted, stares at Papas, trying to fit the facts into his ordered mind.  We, the viewers, take a breath, trying to process our own feelings on what just happened.  Some of us, who had been rooting for Niven, now doubting our own judgement in wanting Peck to shoot her.  Some of us, firmly believing in Peck's fatherly leadership, refusing to believe he was actually going to kill the girl.  All of us in awe that Papas took on the role of executioner.

Well, not all of us.  See Anthony Quinn there in the background?  He's watching this whole scene almost casually.  He's a hard man in this film, and he not only isn't fazed by violence, he's rather attracted to the tough character of Papas.  As I said, he stands out, even when he doesn't have lines.

Oh yeah, they still have to destroy those guns.

For me, the rest of this movie is just tying up loose ends.  It's all grand adventure, but the execution of the traitor raises this movie to the upper echelon of war films.  It is no wonder that it was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including best picture.  One rarely finds an action epic of this proportion with such a profound and disturbing scene tucked inside it.  And David Niven never had such a plum role as that of Corporal Miller.

Now that you've read about it.  Watch the movie, and this scene and decide for yourself.  I'd love to hear your opinion of it below.  (Oh yeah, one more thing.  At the end of the scene, don't miss Gregory Peck's delivery of one of his best lines ever as he threatens to shoot Niven.  Just the icing on the cake for this scene.)

You can watch this movie at Amazon, just click on the link.

The Monuments Men: A Room With No View Movie Review

The Monuments Men, Directed by George Clooney

As I mentioned in my last post, I would put up a review of the new George Clooney movie, The Monuments Men.  Since I promised to do it, I will fulfill my promise.  However, as much as I loved the book, I was not impressed with the movie.  I try to keep things upbeat and positive on this site, but I plan to take a slight break from that and get a little critical.

Something you know about me is that I do not disparage movies based on books just because I am a book lover.  I know plenty of people who are condescending when it comes to Hollywood presenting their version of a much loved literary classic.  And much of that is well-deserved.  However, I don't mind Hollywood taking a book and tweaking it a little bit to increase the cinematic effect of a story.  After all, it is a movie, not a book, and it should have elements that make it worthwhile to watch in a dark theater.  I don't even mind if they change a few things.  The best example of this I often discuss with movie buffs and book lovers is the way Peter Jackson switched out Glorfindel in the Ford of Bruinen with Arwen.  As a kid, reading the Tolkien story, I was in awe of Glorfindel, holding off the Black Riders with his elf-magic.  However, though at first I squirmed to see Arwen--a girl, no less--saving Frodo instead of Glorfindel, I quickly saw just how great a switch it was.  It is now one of my favorite moments in the entire movie trilogy.

However...

The director, George Clooney, having a drink and some
fun with pal Matt Damon in The Monuments Men

When making a movie based on historical events, I don't like to see major changes just to make things more interesting.  Tighten the anxiety a little in a scene that is historically accurate?  That's fine, I get the need to gig the audience a little.  But when several characters are smashed together to form a completely new character for time savings, or when a character is portrayed almost one hundred per cent accurately but their name is randomly changed...these things bother me.  If the story can't be told in two hours and you feel you have to make amalgamated characters, just don't make the movie.  So right off the bat, George Clooney, the producer, director, screenwriter (with co-writer Grant Heslov), star, and promoter of the film, uses both of these tricks to muddy his historical film.  And that didn't sit well with me at all.

But let's ignore the fact that he chose to change most of the story of the Monuments Men.  After all, you can read Robert M. Edsel's excellent book of the same name as the film if you want the facts.  We'll be generous and suggest that the film is simply meant to be an entertaining look at an odd little historical bit of World War Two.  And maybe we'll give a nod to the noble cause of championing the importance of culture and art in a civilized world and how much of that culture was in danger of being lost.  How, in fact, a few men saved the soul of Western Civilization.

So full of expectations, having waited nearly six months to see what I figured would be the film of the Christmas season, I set out to the theater in February (due to its being delayed from a Christmas release--more on that later) to see a movie set in World War Two about the importance of Western Art.  It seemed too good to be true.

Yeah...

First, let's hit the high points:

Clooney does a flawless job of recreating Paris and greater Europe at the end of the war.  I wasn't there originally, since I wasn't exactly in existence then, but I feel pretty certain he did an above average job of giving us a peek into that time period.

Bill Murray And Bob Balaban in The Monuments Men

As a fan of Bill Murray, I was thrilled to see him working again.  It has been a few years since I've seen him do any serious work.  And here he is mostly used as light (very light) comic relief, with a scene or two that is meant to be poignant.  The same can be said of John Goodman, though his moments of comic relief are much more heavy-handed.  Sadly, his are mostly clownish in nature.  Goodman is a great dramatic actor, and like Murray, can handle the deft skill of presenting a comedic character as both funny and heartbreakingly tragic.  This was a movie that should have used more of Goodman's skills in this area.  Instead, Clooney chose to give Goodman the bright red nose with the balloon animals.  A poor choice, I thought.

I thought the strongest character was the Frenchman Lt. Clermont, played by French actor Jean Dujardin (known most recently for his lead role in The Artist) who brings a natural charm to a role that allowed him to showcase his little known skills to the American public.  He should have been in Hollywood years ago.

As entertainment goes, the film was fun to watch.  Lots of laughs, good guys catch and punish the bad guys, and famous works of art are rescued in a dramatic and timely manner.  We feel great about what the Monuments Men have done,  a little sad at all the destruction, and proud that we spent some time watching a movie that had a tad more culture in it than the latest Superheroes CGI extravaganza.  Roll credits and walk out of the theater with a slightly good feeling.

Now, let's examine why that feeling was only slightly good.

The guys, having fun fighting Nazis.

From the beginning, George Clooney seemed to have one goal in mind for this film: let's get my friends together to make a cool, fun film.  So with Ocean's Eleven/Twelve/Thirteen pal Matt Damon in tow, he goes around and collects some old film stars to help him make a fun movie.  Neat-oh!  And don't think I'm being cruel here, folks.  You can see the gleeful smile on Clooney's face from the moment he is briefing the shadowy figure of FDR to the very end, when he is lecturing the evil Nazi on just how evil he is and how little he means now that he has lost the war.  Heh-heh.  If you need an example of this sort of oops-didn't-mean-to-smile-during-that-scene atmosphere, just watch Ocean's Twelve.  In that movie, Clooney wasn't the only one doing it.  The whole cast did it.  You know that each and every time Clooney yelled "Cut!" the crew let out chuckles, a few giggles, and some good-natured finger-pistol pointing that ended with a wink.

But I exaggerate.  Not in the whole film.  There are many moments when the film turns serious.  Bill Murray gets his ten dramatic minutes during a shower scene, of all things, that should have been the stuff that wins him an Academy Award nomination.  I'm serious.  It is a great scene, lost in the silliness that is this film.  It even has a great Christmas song that covers the scene, and could be added to the traditional Christmas movie favorites list.  I loved it.  Especially if it had opened Christmas day as it was supposed to.  Did I mention that before?  I did.  In fact, I said I'd get back to that.  So let's do that now.

Damon and Clooney with some British guy in between them
with those smiles that filled the picture.  (Actually, that's Hugh
Bonneville in the center, who handled his role quite well.)

The movie was supposed to come out at Christmas, but it was delayed.  Most of the time these delays come from the director tweaking his film, trying to fix something or other.  It turns out Clooney was having trouble getting the mix of drama and comedy right.  (This he admitted to TheWrap, which I only discovered while researching for this post.  But I knew it was the problem as soon as I saw the finished picture.  Honest.  Ask my wife.  Oh never mind.)   Pushing the film back didn't help.  Clooney never did solve the riddle.  Instead, he left the film muddled, and I felt this ambiguity acutely early in the film.

I won't spoil the film for those who haven't seen it, but members of the troupe die along the way.  And as this happens, we should feel a shift from the early, eagerness to join the war, to a sobering reality that all war movies tend to produce.  But Clooney never seems to settle in his mind that he wants to go there.  It is too bad, since all the elements are there to bring this off.  But inexplicably, it just doesn't happen.

Take for instance when the a Nazi who is set up at the beginning as a really bad guy finally gets captured.  It should be a tense scene that ends in the sudden relief that comes when a villain is captured.  A moment of "finally!"  Instead, there were chuckles in the audience.  It was funny that the really bad guy was captured.  What a lark.  Hee hee!  I have no idea what Mr. Clooney was thinking here, but whatever it was, he should have discarded the thought and tried again.

I'm a fan of Bob Balaban, and love the dry, emotionally drained roles he often takes.  Here he gets a great one.  A somewhat shy, slightly grouchy sensitive man who wants to get in the war and do something, despite just being an art expert.  He has some good chemistry with Bill Murray but he gets relegated to the clown role, much like Goodman.  However, Balaban is the sad clown, with the tears painted on his face instead a big red ball on the end of his nose.  Man, that really burned me up.  For what he did to Goodman and Balaban, Clooney deserves this review.

Cate Blanchett, hiding behind a veil of
smoke, hiding her acting skills in a role
that did not ask much of her.

I still wouldn't say the movie is a total wash.  It has some value, especially as a starting point for the discussion of the role and value of art in a world gone mad with war.  It is fun to watch, and there are performances that probably shouldn't be missed.  I've said little about Cate Blanchett's role.  And that's on purpose.  She sleepwalks through this thing, and it is mostly because her character is terribly boring.  Not much more to say about it.  She's prim, determined, secretive, and the fact that she sort of throws herself at Matt Damon was uninteresting to the story and not accurate to the history of the book.  But I'll give Blanchett this much--she can looked worried really well.  I believed her.  She looked worried that Nazis were in her Paris.  Really worried.  Maybe she was channeling her inner artist, who knew that Clooney's screenplay was full of bad dialog.  For someone like her, this had to be something to worry about.  After all, it was bound to make her character boring.  And it did.

The best moments of this film are captured in the trailer, with Shawn Lee's haunting song Kiss the Sky as the backdrop.  For me, I think this trailer sunk the movie.  It made it look like an Oscar contender.  Like a movie that would reach inside me and rip out my heart with the dramatic story of how courageous men stood up to the Nazis and saved the world's most precious non-living treasures.  For that, I'm mad at the man who edited this awesome trailer and that other man, George Clooney, for not making a film that stands up to its trailer.

So watch the trailer only if you want to risk ruining a slightly entertaining movie.

Avalon: A Thanksgiving View of the Past

Avalon, Directed by Barry Levinson

There are many movies that families watch as annual traditions.  When we were kids, it was Mary Poppins, Gone With the Wind, or The Ten Commandments.  These were common holiday movies.  As video tapes became available, we began to choose our own movies, and movies like A Christmas Story became a part of our yearly tradition.  And let's not forget all those Rankin-Bass greats like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus is Coming to Town.  But around our house, a completely different movie has become a Thanksgiving tradition.  One that is not your usual holiday fare.

Here at our house, the kids have grown up watching a Barry Levinson film with the mysterious name of Avalon.

Avalon, written by Levinson as well, is a semi-biographical story of Levinson's family.  Set in Baltimore of the 1950's, it tells the story of Sam Krichinsky, who came to America in 1914 (or was it 1915?).  You see, as the family gathers every holiday, Sam tells the younger generations about when he came to America.  We hear these stories through the eyes and imagination of Sam's grandson Michael, played by a very young and precocious Elijah Wood, long before he became a hobbit with a dreadful journey ahead of him.

As the holiday dinner proceeds, we learn more and more about the Krinchinsky family, both past and present.  Despite the fact that this is set in the 1950's, I felt right at home when I watched this scene for the first time.  My own childhood was full of such family gatherings in the 1970's, and it was much the same as in Levinson's film.  It is why this movie became such a favorite of mine, and why my kids came to like it so much.  I often pulled it out to watch, and they loved to watch along with me.  I was always narrating over the dialog, telling them how the film matched my own memories, or how they differed.  I didn't know it then, but I've since heard some of my kids say they have the same nostalgic feelings for this film that I had simply because we watched it so many times and they identify it with my own past.  This is somewhat ironic considering Levinson's objective with the movie.

The Krichinsky family, at the outset of the film, is very close, and aunts, uncles, cousins, and parents are all friends, highly involved in each other's lives.  Holidays are spent in one house together, sitting around after the massive dinner, talking about the home country, telling old stories.  But as television begins to enter the picture, and shopping creeps into their holiday traditions, the family begins to splinter.  Objectives change and tempers flare.  Eventually, there is a split, and half of the family goes its own way.  By the end of the 1960's, Michael, now a young father, must visit his grandfather in a nursing home, where Sam is still telling the same old stories, though his memory is not what is used to be.

Elijah Wood and Amin Mueller-Stahl in Avalon

The character of Sam is played by Armin Mueller-Stahl, whose magical performance stands out in this cast, though there are few cast members who do not shine in this ensemble.  Joan Plowright, as Sam's wife Eva, is a delight to watch, and Aidan Quinn turns in the best performance of his that I've ever seen as Michael's father.  Elizabeth Perkins takes on the role of Michael's mother; her attempts to make sense of her husband's family is both entertaining and extremely realistic.  Lou Jacobi steals the show as Sam's obstinate brother Gabriel, though Kevin Pollack gives him a run for his money as the swift-talking cousin Izzy.  I could name cast members here until I've listed every one of them.  One of Levinson's strengths as a director is the way he draws such natural performances out of his cast, including the smallest of the roles.

The movie wouldn't be half as good without Randy Newman's painfully beautiful soundtrack.  This is not the Randy Newman of his Short People style of music.  Here he is more like Gershwin and Mozart mixed together.  There are moments when a simple piano, accompanied by a single trumpet, will melt your heart.  It is a soundtrack that should not be left out of anyone's playlist.

Sam and his extended family, captivated by that new
gadget, television.

Filled with humor, tragedy, and a few bitter truths, Avalon pans across the wide vista of a family's struggle to adapt to the technological and sociological changes that transformed America in the middle of the Twentieth Century.  And for some odd reason, it has become a family tradition in our home to watch it.  We watch it nearly as often as we watch A Christmas Story.

For some viewers (my wife foremost among them) Avalon might be seen as a bleak movie.  But I've never seen it that way.  Instead, it is always a great reminder to push back against the isolating influence of progress and to hold on to family traditions.  Why my kids like to watch it, I'm not entirely sure.  You'll have to ask them.

The movie can be seen on Amazon's Instant Watch (the left link) and the soundtrack can be found at the link on the right.

Parkland, Not Your Average Kennedy Film

Parkland, directed by Peter Landesman

I'd only seen a few glimpses of this movie in the last week; a small display at Wal-Mart, part of a commercial during a football game.  I had no idea what it was about.  But I saw right away that Paul Giamatti and Billy Bob Thornton were in it and I had that funny feeling that this was one of those sleeper films that would turn out to be a real gem.  When my son and I went looking for a movie to watch (simply to have an excuse to make nachos and chill out for the night) we found Parkland listed in the pay-per-view queue.  Discovering that it involved the Kennedy assassination, we decided to give it a try.  Honestly, there wasn't much else that looked interesting.

It turns out I was right.  This was definitely a gem.  To start with, the cast was very impressive.  In addition to Giamatti and Thornton, who both turn in strong performances, there were plenty of other cast members who caught my eye.

James Badge Dale turns in a stronger than usual performance as Robert Oswald, brother of the infamous shooter.  Dale, who had the early distinction as Jack Bauer's partner in season two of 24, works his role with understatement, as if he is sleepwalking through the nightmare that hits his family when it is announced his brother has shot the President.  That's not an insult.  He does it well, allowing us to see the unfolding tragedy that overtakes his average life.

I've always liked Ron Livingston since his tour of duty on Band of Brothers.  Here he plays Federal Agent James Hosty, and he brings his world-weary persona to a role that was a pleasant surprise.  Hosty is a bit of a cynic, but he hasn't given up.  He is still in the game, working leads, and trying to make some sense out of the crazy guys in the world like Lee Harvey Oswald, a man he's been tracking simply because he was a real mess.  That his guy ends up killing the President leaves Hosty defensive, confused, and ultimately in some very hot water.  Livingston is well cast in this role, and I only wished his role had been expanded.

Macia Gay Harden in Parkland

Marcia Gay Harden takes a very small role here, but her presence is palpable despite the fact she is mostly a bystander in the hospital, responding to the shock of the President's bloody arrival by clinging to her role as head nurse, executing her duties as if she were attending a king in his court, instead of a patient in an emergency room.  I can't hardly remember any of her lines, but her eyes were saying enough every time the camera focuses on her, which is what this movie is really all about; watching as events overtake everyone in the room.

Other cast members fill out this film with similar understated performances; Zac Efron, Glenn Morshower (another 24 veteran), and Colin Hanks.  But really I could list most of the actors involved in this movie.  So many of them had small, nameless parts, passing in and out of scenes as needed by the script, having few lines but lending their emotional weight to every scene.  And that's what makes this film unique.  The dialog is not the focus of this story.  Often, the action carries through without dialog, save for the chatter that crowds around an emergency.

Landesman is to be praised for his approach to a story that has been seen too many times before.  He is well aware that we know the story.  He's not trying to tell us what happened to John F. Kennedy that day.  What he wants us to do is take a trip with him away from the main event.  Yes, the events we all expect to see are there in the movie, but do you really see them?  They are always off to one side; a reflection in someone's glasses, a noise off to the left, a blur of action to the right.  It's okay.  We already know what's going on.  We know Jackie is hit with spatter from Kennedy's wound.  We know she inexplicably crawls out onto the trunk.  But Landesman wants us to look away from all of that, and see what is happening around this historically momentous event.

Why?  Because everywhere you look, you see people who are deeply affected by this horrendous attack.  We tend to forget that violence was not so prevalent in our visual horizons back then.  The Vietnam War had not yet invaded our living rooms.  And Kennedy, a young, exciting leader with terrific charisma, was not only cut down with a rifle, he was murdered on live television, an act that left so much of the nation shocked and as off-balanced at Jackie climbing onto the back of that convertible.  And that's what makes Parkland something special to watch.  Landesman takes one of the most sensational historical moments of the last century and reminds us that it had real emotional impact on the people caught up in the middle of it.

We've allowed conspiracy theories to cloud our perception of that day.  Mention the Kennedy killing and most people will pause, take on a thoughtful expression, and say "you know, I don't think we'll ever really know what happened that day," or "I'm pretty sure I can guess who paid Oswald to do it."  The puzzle of it fascinates us and long ago we learned to ignore the sheer tragedy of the moment.

Paul Giamatti in Parkland

Not Landesman.  He doesn't even begin to nod in the direction of a conspiracy.  If you want that, go see Stone's JFK.  You won't get any of that foolishness here.  What you'll get is an idea of how this impacted our people.  Giamatti, taking on the role of amateur film-maker Abraham Zapruder, really brings this point into 8MM color focus.  As he's filming, giddy at the chance to see his President, we hear him gasp in shock as the bullets hit.  He continues to film, caught up in the moment.  When he finally drops the camera and stumbles away, he is nearly sick to his stomach, overcome with grief.  It is an important moment.  I felt as if the director were reminding me that I can't just be a voyeur at this killing.  He wants us to be more than that.  Because at that moment, our nation was staggering from a tremendously powerful blow.  And instead of obsessing over convoluted theories, we too, should be staggering from this blow.  

I was tempted to think he'd gone overboard, watching secret service men and cops and admirals who were overcome with emotion, tears in their eyes, losing their comportment.  But I was reminded of what my mother told me.  She told the story of how she and my father sat on the steps of her parents' house and wondered if the world was coming to an end and how they decided right then to go ahead and get married, since no one could be sure of anything any more.

Parkland keeps its focus on this emotional trauma, though it never blinds us with it.  Yes, there is that macabre scene when Jackie is discovered in the emergency room with hands cupped, still cradling what bits of her husband's skull and brains she had been able to save.  But this isn't a sensational moment.  After all, this is long after Kennedy arrived at the hospital, after the doctors and nurses had done everything to save him.  After they had lost their battle.  You realize with sympathetic admiration that Jackie has been holding this the entire time.  These are stories we've heard before, but it is sobering to see it in the context of all that happened that day.

If you are any sort of casual history-buff, you won't see anything you didn't already know.  But when it is put all together, you get a clearer picture of that day in Dallas, and it is well worth taking a little trip back in time.  I was especially impressed by a little scene that involved the President's casket and Air Force One.  Keep an eye out for it; a perfect demonstration of the passion and confusion that must have overcome so many professionals that day.

Carnival of Souls: A Cult Classic Reviewed

Carnival of Souls (1962), directed by Herk Harvey

As the classic horror movies of the Universal Monster era evolved throughout the 1930's into the 1950's, creatures remained the at the top of the genre.  That decade saw such gems as The Blob, Tarantula!, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Giant Claw, Attack of the Giant Leeches (a personal favorite!), and William Castle's The Tingler.  Rarely did horror not include a monster or an alien that was out to get you.

However, in the 1960's, even as creatures continued to menace theaters, horror fans began to see a new type of movie.  Darker themes lit up the big screen.  Man became a terror all his own.  Thanks to Alfred Hitchcock and a little known author from Wisconsin (Robert Bloch, a friend of H.P. Lovecraft), audiences all over the United States discovered that we need not fear giant ants or alien parasites when a man like Norman Bates is lurking behind a shower curtain in the 1960 classic Psycho.  Horror directors began to delve into the creepier aspects of what scares us.  Around this time period, Herk Harvey, a director of educational films from Kansas had an idea for a thriller-horror movie while on vacation in Utah.

For only $33,000, he filmed his movie, Carnival of Souls, using a professional actress (Candace Hilligoss) while filling in most of the cast with local talent, including himself.  In just three weeks, he completed his film.  As a "B" movie, it did poorly, and Herk Harvey never made another feature film.  Most of his crew came from the company he worked for making educational films.  The music score was done by Gene Moore, a co-worker who is also credited with such great films as How to Run a Filling Station and Embryology of the Chick.  (And no, those titles aren't humorous.  The films were actually about running a filling station and embryology...whatever that is.)  Actress Candace Hilligoss only made a few more films.  Carnival of Souls might never have been remembered had it not been seen again.  But as often happened, as cable television sought out more and more old movies to show late at night, Carnival of Souls was resurrected in the 1980's, and over time has become a respected film of 1960's horror.

So let's get to the movie.

Filmed in black and white, with Gene Moore's hypnotic organ score that saturates the film, Carnival of Souls begins with an accident during a drag race between a car full of young men and a car full of young ladies.  One of the young ladies, Mary (Hilligoss) miraculously crawls out of the river three hours after the car she is in runs off a bridge.  Stunned, she staggers home and continues on with her plans to take a new job as a church organist in Utah.

Candace Hilligoss in Carnival of Souls

Traveling to her new home, Mary passes an abandoned bath resort/carnival on the shore of the Great Salt Lake.  She begins to see apparitions as she is driving.  Basically, she is not feeling well, and greatly disturbed.  Taking a room in a boarding house, she discovers that her neighbor across the hall is John Linden, a creep who spends his days on the make.  Actor Sidney Berger, who later became an acting instructor, plays John Linden, and does so with a delightful job of being creepy and distasteful.  His performance helps to cement the disturbing atmosphere of this bizarre movie.

The real terror, however, comes from the apparition that begins to stalk Mary.  A white-faced ghostly image of a middle-aged man wearing a suit.  No, he wasn't a radio-active creature, not an alien with eyes on the end of two long stalks.  Just a man, whose intense stare is too much for the unbalanced Mary.  At first she does her best to keep away from this silent watcher.  But finally she can no longer stand not knowing who he is and what he wants.  Unable to get any help from a local doctor, she begins to see more ghouls around her.

The Ghoul (Herk Harvey)

Finally, she is drawn to visit the abandoned carnival.  And there, she will eventually find the answers she is seeking.  Harvey makes use of the abandoned location with well-crafted scenes that are bizarre, ghoulish, and surreal.  I was expecting something over the top, but was happy to find that Harvey keeps the whole movie understated, with just the right amount of creepiness and dreamlike atmosphere.

Hilligoss is cast well as the doe-eyed blonde who stumbles around in this dreamy fantasy.  She never looks like the typical stupid young girl that so many horror movies offer up.  Instead, though she can't seem to figure out what is going on, she retains her dignity even as she is slowly overcome by the ghouls that haunt her.

Carnival of Souls is available on Amazon Instant Video.  Use the link below to check it out.

Carnival of Souls

Those 70's Horror Movie Stars

Boris Karloff, Frankenstein (1931)

Back in the day, actors like Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff became huge celebrities as they helped to create a class of films that became known as Horror.  They were (and still are today!) household names.  But as horror movies evolved, and involved more, uh, odd behavior, morphing from Gothic classical material to shamelessly campy and graphic horror, the top roles in horror movies seemed to go to unknown actors who remained as such.  Vincent Price might be an exception to this rule.  And even Bela, Boris and Vincent were never really accepted as mainstream actors.  Horror was their shtick and to horror they shtuck.

Today, it is mostly the same.  Horror films are made with few known actors in their casts.  You might see an actor or actress whose career has tanked take a role in a horror movie because they can't get any other work.  But you rarely see an A-lister seek after a horror role.

But something funny happened in the 1960's that led to a rash of top Hollywood stars who dove head first into the horror genre.  Maybe it was the success of such films as Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) that allowed horror films to drag themselves into respectability behind the casting of such mega-stars as Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland.  Also, as the 70's dawned, there was a great revival of spiritual interest in the United States.  Unlike the spiritualism kick of the 1920's, this new interest did not just see the spiritual plane as something benign, where old relatives sat around wishing to speak with their great-nieces and great-nephews.  Just as the churches were experiencing a rise in popularity of the charismatic movement, secular society was becoming more intrigued by the spiritual battles between God and Satan.  This turn of attention was noted in Hollywood, and some very big stars were suddenly willing to lend their name and image to some rather strong horror...uh, shall we say offerings?

Oliver Reed, Burnt Offerings (1976)

And since we've used the word, I'll start with Burnt Offerings, a film from 1976.  This is a very good haunted house film, and it starred Oliver Reed, who was just beginning to reach his stride in what would become a very big career.  He was no stranger to horror, having played a local thug in The Shuttered Room, the 1967 adaptation of Lovecraft's short story The Dunwich Horror.  And though Reed was not yet the iconic celebrity he would become, Burnt Offerings also attracted such stars as Burgess Meredith and Bette Davis.

What I liked about this movie was the slow tension as Reed's character slowly, and ever so slightly, begins to change as a husband and father.  It never fully degrades like the father character in The Shining, but this more subtle change is unnerving coming from a man of Reed's brute frame.  He always had that smoldering undertone that made us believe that acting or not, you wouldn't want to turn your back on this guy for long.  And in this film, he uses it to great effect.

Gregory Peck, The Omen (1976)
Not the usual image we have of Atticus Finch.

Next on my informal list is The Omen (1976), which of course starred that stony-faced megastar Gregory Peck.  His appearance in this movie definitely gave credibility to the idea that any actor could consider appearing in a horror movie.  After all, he was arguably as big a star as Bette Davis.  And while she had an image as a bit of a feisty woman who never wanted to follow the rules, Peck had impeccable credentials as an all around good guy.   And Lee Remick had already been cast opposite some very big names.  She was already becoming a star.  As for the movie itself, I can't endorse it.  I tried to watch it, and it was so silly, I gave up early on it.  It just seemed so corny.

As mentioned in an earlier post, the 1979 Dracula starred none other than Laurence Olivier, often considered Britain's greatest Shakespearean actor.  In this film he plays Van Helsing, the Dutch doctor who is summoned to help puzzle out the malady that is afflicting the anemic Lucy.  What I like about Olivier's performance is his near perfect accent that truly mimics the syntax of Stoker's Van Helsing character.  He also manages to portray Van Helsing just as the character is written.  He is at times cute, odd, mysterious, bold, and even frail.  Olivier exhibits all of these mannerisms in a way that makes sense and is in no way forced.  I will point out that this is no stretch for Olivier to take on this role, since the source material is part of the classic canon.  However, he was also willing to join in on the bloody fun of Marathon Man in 1976, where he maniacally tortures Dustin Hoffman with a dentist's drill.  Obviously he did not seem to worry that such movies might hurt his respectable image.

George C. Scott, The Changeling (1980)

George C. Scott, a bigger-than-life star, took on the haunted house theme in the 1980 film The Changeling.  (Yes, 1980 is still the 70's for all you nit-pickers out there.)  And for me, this is one of the better modern haunted house stories.  Also drawing in Golden Age of Hollywood film star Melvyn Douglas (the man who made Garbo laugh in 1939's Ninotchka), a personal favorite of mine, this movie is saturated with atmosphere and will make you wary of old, high-backed wheelchairs.  At this point, Scott was definitely a major player in Hollywood, having been nominated for an Academy Award four times (and winning best actor for his signature role in Patton).  This was not his only outing in the horror genre, later playing the mystic Native American Indian in Firestarter and even joining the cast of The Exorcist III.

Of course, some horror fans out there would suggest that the biggest film for this genre in the 70's was The Exorcist, which certainly drew its share of Hollywood talent.  Max von Sydow was already an accomplished actor in 1973, as were Ellen Burstyn and the irascible Lee J. Cobb.  However, I'll concede they do not fit the profile of my A-listers whose impressive notoriety aided Horror as it matured into a respected film category.  But a little known fact about this movie should be highlighted here: the original actress offered the lead role by director William Friedkin was none other than Hollywood's most respected lady of the silver screen, Audrey Hepburn.  And she was actually willing to accept the role.  Unfortunately for Friedkin, she was something of a recluse by this time, and would only take the role if the filming could be done in Rome.  The studio said no, and Anne Bancroft eventually accepted the role, only to be forced to back out due to a pregnancy.  I often wonder just how Hepburn's casting might have changed this movie, and how it might have changed her already legendary career.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr., John Houseman, Fred Astaire,
and Melvyn Douglas, Ghost Story (1981)

This is not a complete listing of movies that fit this profile, but it gives you an idea of how the genre was changing.  By the 1980's, we would see more of the same.  Ghost Story, in 1981, starred no less than four classic actors: Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and John Houseman.  (And I shouldn't leave out Patricia Neal, a great lady from the Silver Age of Hollywood best known for her roles in Breakfast at Tiffany's and The Day the Earth Stood Still.)  Silence of the Lambs boasted stars Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins.  Hopkins, of course, ended up winning the Best Actor Oscar for his horror role.

Will we see such casting again?  I'm sure it will happen.  Perhaps Sean Connery could be lured from retirement to star in a ghost or haunted house story.  Maybe Tom Hanks could be tempted into something more diabolic than his light-weight Dan Brown religious thrillers.  After all, Robert De Niro did play Frankenstein's monster in Kenneth Branagh's 1994 version of Frankenstein, though very few people saw it.

Sadly, much of the horror genre has been hijacked by the recent obsession with torture-porn, and this has drained a great deal of credibility from what these classic actors and actresses helped to create.  Will there come a time when the A-listers decide to take back what their predecessors built up?  Only time will tell.

Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity: A Movie that will Sweep You Off Your Feet

Gravity, Directed by Alfonso Cuarón

Think back to when you were a kid.  Your parents told you that they were taking you to a movie.  This is way back, like when you were so young that you barely knew what a movie was.  And they told you they were going to take you to see...it doesn't matter, any movie will do.  I'm talking about that point when you were so young, you went to the theater and sat in awe staring at the wonders of that giant screen--it looked bigger than a football field at this point in your life--and everything you saw then was a miracle.  Towering images burned their way into your young brain and, though you didn't know it then, they would stick there on the pulsating wall of your mind's eye for the next three or four decades.  Have you got the picture?  Do you remember this?  Do you realize that is the reason we continue to go to the movies, again and again, despite the fact that time and time again we are disappointed by the overall impression made by dozens and dozens of mediocre movies filmed simply to sell popcorn?

But we never give up.  We try again.  Just one more.  And the next one after that.

For once, a modern-day director has finally managed to satisfy that longing.  There have been rare occasions when I feel I've nearly touched that sacred peak where entertainment is engulfed by the sheer awe and wonder of the world as seen through the eyes of a child.  Most of the time, in the midst of this yearning, I'm taken out of the moment by what is now too common in movies--a jarring political statement, a crass cheap-shot played for laughs, or a nod to the bitter, cynical world that we all discovered is awaiting us on the other side of youth.  Any one of these little devils wreaks havoc with our ability to sit back and just be engulfed in wonderment.

Alfonso Cuarón, Director of Gravity

Alfonso Cuarón has been able to tap into that child-like need for astonishment with the help of his son, Jonás Cuarón.  Together, they have written a story that is full of humanity, set in the cold vacuum of space.  That would have been enough, just to tell a story about the remarkable astronauts who orbit above us without much attention anymore.  But if they had, they would have ended up creating a film that we've seen before.  A little conflict between the astronauts, a longing for home, a moment of courage or desperation.  It would have been moving, a nice tribute to all of those who have ever strapped themselves to a rocket.  Once we left the dark confines of the theater, we would have returned to our normal lives without giving it much more thought.

With today's overabundance of CGI, as witnessed by the throngs of underwhelmed theater-goers who sat through monstrous action-epics like Man of Steel and White House Down this summer, it would have been easy for the Cuaróns to rely on the dazzle of CGI to carry the story.  Filmed in 3D, there would have been plenty of chances to startle the audience with the studio's whiz-bang, now-you-see-it-now-you-flinch usual bag of tricks.  Maybe use the over-used shaky-cam to ratchet up the nerves.  Today's filmmakers have a fairly limited supply of gimmicks and regularly overindulge in them.  

Cuarón does not.

I know what you're thinking.  You want me to get on with the review.  Forget the mystical ramblings and just write about the movie.  But that is nearly impossible, since this movie is too perfect to give much of it away.  For this same reason the trailer was astonishingly short.  If they put out a longer trailer than that first teaser trailer I never saw it, and I'm glad I didn't.  So don't get impatient.  And don't be disappointed.  I'm not going to tell you about the movie.  But I am telling you about it when I wax poetic.  But if you insist, I'll say what I can about the film without spoiling it.

Sandra Bullock as Ryan Stone in Gravity

It is nice to see Sandra Bullock return to her roots, playing the damsel-in-distress as she did the first time she won our hearts as that wildcat bus-driver in Speed.  And just as she played off Keanu Reeves so well in that movie, always looking to him to save her, yet surprising us with her own inner strength, in Gravity she does much the same thing with George Clooney.  However, as her world shatters around her in the terror of zero gravity, something more than inner strength shines through.  She does not transform into a superhero who curses the gods and overpowers the fates.  Instead, as the terror rises around her, suffocating her in that black expanse above our world, Bullock allows us to see a very human, traumatized, yet trained astronaut fight off the inertia of her inevitable doom.

George Clooney, who I believe has been slowly ingesting little bits of Cary Grant Elixer, and increasing the dosage lately, turns in a fine performance as the one man you would want to depend on in a crisis.  He is believable, and has perfectly engineered chemistry with Bulluck.  As the film spun out of control, I was glad to have Clooney there as an anchor.  A nice touch for this casting includes the voice of Ed Harris at mission control.  It gives us a sense of continuity, since Harris was in the same role in the spectacular film Apollo 13.

But never mind all that.  Let's get back to Cuarón and his creation of something...amazing.  Never before, including the awe-inspiring 2001: A Space Odyssey, has a director been able to pack so much heavy atmosphere into the vacuum of space.  Usually, when I give in and watch a 3D movie, I'm distracted by the many different things going on across the screen.  But in Gravity, I was so sucked into this world-outside-a-world that I remained fixated on the movie from beginning to end.  My daughter, who attended the film with me, asked later if something was wrong.  I usually make comments throughout a film; this time I barely said a word.  It might have been because I didn't want to waste the oxygen in the theater.  After all, oxygen levels become terrifyingly critical.  Trust me.

Mostly, though, I think it was just that little kid in me, staring in awe at the screen, as a vision filled with miracles, nuts and bolts, and the need to grab hold of anything captured my imagination for 90 minutes.  That little voice that said "finally, it's here, this is why we go to the movies."

Don't miss your chance to see this on the big screen, in 3D.  Just be sure you find something to hold onto.  But if you don't, it won't matter, because the father and son team of Alfonso and Jonás Cuarón will grab hold of you and never let go.  

A Monster in Paris: A movie review that took one year to write.

  A Monster in Paris is one of those movies that caught me completely by surprise.  A French animated movie that took an odd path to the shelves of American stores, it has already found an audience, despite the fact that is has been nearly impossible to see in the United States for over a year.  Not only was the movie difficult to view, but it had several other factors that should have kept me from seeing it.

  First of all, I am increasingly suspicious of most animated fare that gets stamped onto DVDs all across the shopping spectrum.  Even if an animated feature is given screen time at the local cineplex, I've learned that this hardly is any sort of barometric measurement of its worth, Horton Hears a Who being the last time my high hopes of enjoying a modern animated "classic" were dashed.  (And just as a side-note, please, please, please stop calling new movies classics!  No one can label something new a classic.  That is something only time can determine.)

  Secondly, I'll be up front about this, Bibo Bergeron's directing experience does not impress me.  He is the man who brought us The Road to El Dorado, and Shark Tale.  These looked so bad, I never sat down and watched them completely.  I stood in front of the screen, leaned on one foot then another as I tried to find anything worthwhile in them, almost sat down during Shark Tale, but that had more to do with how tired I was, then walked out of the room on both of them.  So I never really saw them.  And for all I know they were better than the few moments I gave them.  If I'm wrong about them, let me know.  The point is, however, that my knowledge of Bergeron's movies was both limited prejudiced against them.

  So how did I end up watching this new, modern, animated film from Bibo Bergeron?  Funny you should ask.  Let me tell you a little story.

  On the flight back from our two week trip to Paris, I was unable to sleep.  I'm six foot something or other and the seats were basically built for five footers who have no something or other to add to their dimensions. So as most of the people around me struggled to find that perfectly skewed position from which they could grab a little sleep, I played around with the small viewscreen that stared at me from the back of the seat in front of me.  It was a whiz-bang little device which allowed me to watch movies, see the nose of the plane as it flew through the black night, and play tic-tac-toe.  I opted to watch a movie, and tried a few that didn't really interest me.  Then I came across A Monster in Paris.

  This French movie could be viewed in its original French version with English subtitles.  Having just spent two weeks in the most wonderful city in the world, I was already missing it, and looking for anything that would ease the pain.  A cartoon set in Paris was good enough for me.  I would have watched French TV commercials.  Anything to see more of Paris.

  Okay, I'm rambling, I know.  Let's get to the review.

  This delightful movie has a number of themes mixed in that make this a great adventure for more than just children.  As a monster movie, it is much like the old Phantom of the Opera, with a dash of King Kong tossed in, as well as those old Universal Monster movies like The Invisible Man, or any other movie where science has run amok.  At the same time, there is a wonderful nostalgic feeling of the old Paris as it was recently showcased in Midnight in Paris, Hugo,  and Julie & Julia.  The animation backgrounds are flawless, extravagant, and capture the enduring spirit of the streets of Paris.  I can say this with great confidence, since we'd just been walking those streets the two weeks prior seeing this movie.

  The characters were just as well crafted.  We meet Raoul, a deliveryman/inventor whose suave, charming personality is a poor disguise for his excitable, low self-esteem.  He walks among the fashionable people of Paris wearing a fur coat that everyone thinks is made of hay.  Never mind that is really is made of hay, he denies this emphatically, all the time.  His best friend, besides his strange truck which he has named Catherine, is Emile, a shy movie projectionist who spends his days dreaming of slaying the dragon for the love of his life-- a woman he works with every day and is too afraid to ask for a date.  Emile is something like a cross between Bob Newhart and Woody Allen.  He's nervous, mumbles a lot, and comes off as the sort of guy you'd love to have as a friend.  His character reminded me of one that was actually played by Bob Newhart years ago: Bernard, the mouse hero from The Rescuers.  These two characters, both of whom could be seen as losers, keep a strong measure of dignity about them regardless of their weaknesses.  This is often something that is lacking in children's movies today.  The tendency is to make buffoons out of the leads, who fail to engender any empathy from the viewers.

Lucille examines her makeover of Francour

  Lucille is the heroine, and she walks yet another fine line that is often crossed by other animated films.  Come to think of it, this line is usually crossed by most films, animated or not.  The trend today is make the heroine a strong, feisty woman who is actually stronger, smarter, and more competent than the male leads.  Then we often get an absurd helping of excessive fighting skills tossed in for good measure.  I'm thinking of Kate Blanchette riding around in armor as Lady Marian in the 2010 Robin Hood, or Keira Knightley dashing about in the 2004 film King Arthur, with blue paint smeared all over her as she cuts Roman soldiers to pieces.  Those are extreme examples, but the basic spirit of these roles has taken root in many female roles since.  But in A Monster in Paris, Lucille, voiced by Vanessa Paradis in both the French and English versions, manages to be strong, intelligent, sweet, and a bit vulnerable all at the same time.  She even manages to be one part alluring and one part tom-boy at times, which is hard to pull off.

  Often movies like this fall apart when the villain is introduced.  He is often too silly, or too mean, or simply not interesting.  The villain here is Commissioner Maynott, who is wonderfully droll.  As expected from the villain, he is arrogant, though his own self-doubt shines through in odd moments.  It is something I've never seen before in a character like this.  The writers, animators, and the director have done a great job of making this work.  Watch for the scenes where this loud, commanding politician suddenly deflates, as the other characters in the scene seem to ignore him, or at least confuse him, and he stands with his hands at his side, at a loss for words, obviously unsure of himself.  It might easily be missed with all of the quick dialog and spectacular animation, but if you catch it, you might just find it as endearing as I did.  Maynott's inevitable descent into madness is certainly comedic, but I was able to sympathize with him a little with this added quirk to his personality.

  The star of the show, however, is the monster, a giant flea.  Francour, named for the passage in which he is found, dresses like the Phantom of the Opera, sings like an angel, and plays a mean jazz guitar.  He's pretty light on his feet as well.  Kids will love his chirps and trills, which make him adorable, and adults will love his trendy music.  (Sean Lennon's voice adds an ethereal quality to this overgrown Phantom Flea in the English version, though I thought the popular French singer -M- was a better fit in the original.)

  The humor is often quick, more often dry, and at times decidedly French.  But I don't want that to worry any Americans out there.  There is lots of slapstick and plenty of belly laughs.  What separates it from Hollywood is the lack of bathroom humor and cruelty.  All of the characters have a healthy dose of sincerity, which is so lacking in many Hollywood family films.

  The movie mixes its musical scenes into the narrative quite well, keeping the pace moving along even as it detours into a montage or two.  With Paris as the background, there is nothing dull or corny during these interludes.

  Having been won over by this impressive film, I watched it a second time on the AirFrance flight with Jennifer after she woke up.  She loved it as well, and we came home and raved about it to the kids.  The problem was, it wasn't available in the States then.  We kept looking for it, but there was no information on it.  Scores of people were on the movie's IMDB page, asking when it would be released in the US.  No one knew.  A DVD came out later in the year, but it was only made for Europeans, and the disk wouldn't work with our Region 1 machines.  There are ways to get around that but I am not that tech-savvy, so I had to wait until the film finally reached America properly.  It finally hit the stores yesterday, April the 16th.

  The Blue-Ray version is flawless, of course, though the original French version is not on it.  I was disappointed at that.  The English voice actors did a great job (standouts include Danny Huston as Maynott, Adam Goldberg as Raoul, and Bob Balaban as Maynott's assistant), but the French songs are far better in their original form.  My wife and I are pretty sure that one song was cut from the original, though there seems to be some question of this.  At any rate, we intend to purchase the original French soundtrack soon.

  So if you're looking for a great family film, and enjoy comedy and adventure in the midst of a beautiful city, be sure to check out A Monster in Paris.  It's an instant classic!  (Okay, I'm guilty.  I know.  So sue me.)

For those of you in the United States, the link on the left will take you to the English version.  For those of you in Europe, the link on the right will take you to the original film.