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November 2004

2004 Fall AFM Report

Nov 3-10^th marked the occurrence of the 25^th American Film Market in Santa Monica, CA. This is the event where (mostly) independent movie companies hawk their wares to TV buyers, home videos companies, and, very rarely, larger distributors that may secure them a theatrical release. The AFM is always of interest to schlock movie fans, as it is the premiere marketplace for the crap fare that will be showing up on video rental shelves in (mostly) the following year.

Here’re some highlights:

Emmanuelle Private Collection (Erotic): "These films bring back the adventurous spirit and sensuality that made Emmanuelle such a phenomenon." Stars Natasja Vermeer. Wow, finally a way for the consumer to get porn!

Jacqueline Hyde (Horror): "An erotic journey into horror based on The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." Man, that title is one bad pun. Presumably this is about a plain woman scientist who invents a potion that makes such a female really hot and horny. While I’m not speaking from personal experience, I believe this concoction is called ‘vodka.’ Stars ‘Gabrielle’ [sic—it’s actually ‘Gabriella’] Hall, who apparently is working her way through the classic British science fiction canon, having earlier appeared in The Erotic Misadventures of the Invisible Man and The Exotic Time Machine II: Forbidden Encounters.

Mesmeritz (Horror): "A doctor convinces a dying man’s family to allow him to put the man in a trance as he takes his final breath." This is, I would imagine, an adaptation of an Edgar Allen Poe story that already was featured in the Vincent Price anthology Tales of Terror and an episode of The Night Gallery. This version stars Neil Patrick Harris (!). By the way, good title. (Rolls eyes.)

American World Picture

Satan’s Little Helper (Horror): "A naïve boy becomes the unwitting apprentice of a masked psychopath on Halloween." Wow, that’s pretty naïve, all right. Stars the inevitable Amanda Plummer. Bonus points for having to gall to riff on the name of a Simpsons’ character.

The Curse of El Charro (Horror): "A group of college girls travels to Mexico for a vacation, and finds something more terrifying than could be imagined." Oh, then shouldn’t this be called ‘The Curse of El Charo’? Ha, I made a funny. By the way, if you make a movie featuring something, then technically it probably isn’t something that can’t "be imagined." You see what I’m getting at?

The Birthday (Horror): "A young man attends his father’s birthday party, where a sinister cult is preparing for the birth of their terrifying god." And, oh boy, it stars Corey Feldman! Looks like that stint on The Surreal Life really paid off.

Cracking the Da Vinci Code (Documentary): "An in-depth journey through the bullshit behind the bestselling [sic] novel." Wait, did I write ‘bullshit’? Because in the actual description is says ‘mysteries’. That’s weird.

Zombie Island (Horror): "Seven contestants have 70 minutes to survive the deadliest zombies ever created by a television producer." Wow, that’s impressive, because television producers have been creating zombies by the tens of millions in this country for about fifty years now. Ha, ha.

The Departure Lounge (Thriller): "Seven disparate characters enter The Departure Lounge to experience the extreme risk that follows." Huh? Does that sentence even make sense? And also, are the ‘seven disparate characters’ here the same as the ‘seven contestants’ on Zombie Island? Just wondering.

Three Dollars (Drama): "Eddie leads a detectivelike [sic!] investigation of his own life as he tries to put the pieces together that have led to his predicament." Seriously, who’s writing these blurbs, and is English even their third language?

Lucky Number Slevin (Thriller): "A man is confused with the friend whose apartment he is staying in and forced to assassinate the son of his arch enemy." Whose arch enemy? The central character’s, or the friend who owns the apartment’s? Seriously, could somebody proof these things? By the way, I hope you don’t find the premise interesting (assuming you understand it), since the film stars Josh Hartnett. Blech.

CineTel

Komodo vs. King Cobra (Action): "When a top-secret facility goes dark, a crack team of commandos is sent to investigate." Well, after Boa vs. Python was such a smash, you knew the rip-offs were coming. By the way, I’m betting the team of commandos isn’t actually all that crack.

Conquistador

Cruel World (Horror): "A scorned reality TV show runner-up traps nine college students on his own fictitious show in which getting voted off costs them their lives." Man, that’s already two films riffing on the totally fresh, cutting edge phenomenon of reality TV programs. Kudos. Stars Edward Furlong.

The Possessed (Horror): "A Goth girl is possessed by the soul of a dead, homicidal rock diva and goes on a murderous rampage." Wow, the Goth thing, reality shows…these companies really have their finger on our cultural pulse.

Downloading Nancy (Thriller): "A bored housewife abandons her husband when she meets a computer expert with whom she starts a dangerous affair." Yep, when you begin an affair with a computer expert, that’s got to be the very definition of ‘bored.’ This has a real cast, including Holly Hunter, William Hurt and Stellan Skarsgaard.

Angel Blade (Erotic Thriller): "A Las Vegas cop travels into the underworld of fantasy, power and passion to discover the other side of evil." Would that be the good side? Stars Heavener (who also wrote and directed), Margot Kidder and Richard Moll. Wow, uh, great cast. However, there’s no way I’m going to risk watching an "erotic thriller" whose top female cast member is Margot Kidder.

Curse of the Maya (Horror): "A couple purchases a house in the country only to find out a family was murdered THERE [sic] and the house has a curse." However, at least the sump pump works. Stars writer/director Heavener, Joe Estevez (!) and Todd Bridges (!!). Wow, uh, great cast.

Trollz (Children’s): "Five teen troll best friends must deal with boys, school and the mystery of growing up." First, spelling things with a ‘z’ in place of an ‘s’ is not ‘cool’ or ‘funny.’ Second, who the hell would rent this for their kids?

Dream:

Disaster! (Comedy): "A hilarious spoof of big-budget action films." Do we really need another of those so soon after The Day After Tomorrow?

No Money Down (Comedy): "A tale of two undaunted guy’s [sic] search for the ultimate bachelor lifestyle." Good title, because that’s my position on any film starring Ally Sheedy and Rob Schneider.

Praying Mantis (Thriller) "A young woman can sense the instinct of a praying mantis growing inside her." Yeah, it’s called ‘puberty.’ Zing! Seriously, though, I have no idea what that description means.

Premonition (Action): "After a violent car wreck nearly takes his life, a detective begins having inexplicable premonitions of horrible disasters." Since the detective is played by Casper Van Dien, they must be of his next ten movies. By the way, this was a pretty good movie the first time they made it, when it was called The Dead Zone.

The Moguls (Comedy): "A nice guy trying to prove he’s not a loser makes a porn film with his friends and neighbors." That’s weird, the film is described as a ‘comedy,’ and yet they also say that Ted Danson is in it. How does that work?

Cursed (Horror): "It started from one convenience store. It causes fear all over, as if it lives in and around the store." Uh, OK. It’s Japanese.

Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf: "Erotic, grotesque and the weirdest crime that you have ever seen." Boy, do I have a movie for Andrew Borntreger after he gets back from Iraq.

Fragile (Horror): "A hospital is closing its doors but there is something inside that refuses to be abandoned quite so easily." Stars Calista Flockhart (!), which explains the film’s original title, "Waaaay Too Skinny."

Snakes Curse (Horror): "A scientist combines the DNA of a human being with the venom of a dangerous snake to produce a miracle drug." Yes, that sounds logical. From Hong Kong.

The Holy Virgin vs. the Evil Dead (Horror): "During a picnic celebration, female students are chewed apart by the moon monster that appears when the moon turns red." Dude, you don’t even want to know what happens when it turns teal.

Vermin (Horror): "A rogue scientist is smuggling his genetically enhanced and anesthetized mutant rats to Europe." Actually, that’s OK with me. Produced by the one and only Roger Corman.

Bloodrayne (Action Adventure): "Agent BloodRayne is half-human, half-vampire and all woman." I crap you not, that’s the description. Stars Ben Kingsley (that Oscar on the mantle is a poor solace, isn’t it, Ben?), Kristanna Loken, Michelle Rodriguez and the inevitable Udo Kier and Michael Madson and Meat Loaf and Billy Zane and Michael Pare and… Directed, of course, by Uwe Boll.

Alone in the Dark (Thriller): "The film chronicles several days in the life of a detective of the paranormal who unravels a mystery that brings him face to fave with inescapable horrors." So…they kill him, right? I mean, they are ‘inescapable.’ Just want the world needed, a movie merging the talents of Uwe Boll and Christian Slater. And really, Tara Reid, what were you thinking?

Shadow (Horror): "A group of inmates must unite to wage an all-out war against a hungry horde of zombies." One of a bazillion zombie films this year (I’m not even listing all of them), but at least this one stars Tony Todd. Who, hmm, starred in the color remake of The Night of the Living Dead some years back. Also, isn’t this just Assault on Precinct 13 (a remake of which is coming out soon) with real zombies rather than zombie-like gang members?

Man About Town (Comedy): "Top Hollywood talent agent finds his perfect life threatened when he discovers that his wife is cheating on him." Stars Ben Affleck and Rebecca Romijn. This reminds me of a film idea I had, about a top studio executive whose perfect life is threatened when he discovers he’s greenlit a film starring Ben Affleck.

Perfect Creature (Action): "A stylish vampire movie in a retro-futuristic setting about race, murder and the capacity of human beings to hope." Stars Dougray Scott, who probably spends a lot of time wishing he had gotten that Wolverine gig, not that it’s done Hugh Jackman all that much good.

The Black Dahlia (Drama): "Two cops investigate the death of a young woman found brutally murdered." Let me get this straight: Josh Hartnett, star of Hollywood Homicide, is starring in an adaptation of a James Ellroy book? Kill me. It’s directed by Brian De Palma, so expect a *cough, cough* very understated picture. And when the hell did NuImage get involved in real movies, even potentially horrible ones?

Death Tunnel (Horror): "Five college girls stranded in an old diseased hospital are terrorized by the five ghosts of its tortured past." Oh, so it’s sort of like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

Spooked (Documentary): "Hollywood filmmakers set out to document the horrific past of a diseased and haunted Kentucky hospital."

Shadowbox (Horror): "Confined to a hospital for the criminally insance, a teenage boy is haunted by his tormented past." Well, somebody had access to a hospital, apparently. This one, by the way, stars "Supermodel Pippi." That’s what it says, anyway.

Dead Rail (Action): "As a train speeds through the desert, a meteor hits a car waiting at a crossing, releasing mysterious and deadly ferocious attackers." What, again?

Regent

Thralls (Horror): "Vampires must cast a powerful magical spell to release themselves from the cruel master vampire who created them." Finally, a vampire movie starring Lorenzo Lamas. ‘Bout time.

Solo (Thriller): "When a couple’s daughter is kidnapped, they embark on a supernatural adventure that explains her disappearance." Huh? Stars Jon Voight and Cary Elwes.

Patient 14 (Thriller): "The sole survivor of a U.S. Dept. of Defense experiment discovers radically expanded hearing abilities." Choose your own punch line: A) Oh, no!! Not radically expanded hearing abilities!! B) …and spends all his time running around and listening to people ‘doing it.’ C) "It’s The Man with the X-Ray Ears!!" The inevitable Costas Mandylor and John De Lancie get to make another mortgage payment.

Justice Corrupted (Thriller): "A counter-intelligence agent is pursuing one of Hitler’s top space engineers." Uh, Hitler had space engineers? And how would that ‘corrupt’ justice? To be directed by Andrew Davis, who once made good movies.

[This year’s Winner of the highly prestigious Jabootu Plot Originality Award]

Endangered Species (Sci-fi): "A police detective must battle an alien predator who preys on humans." Stars (who else?) Eric Roberts, Arnold Vosloo and John Rhys-Davies.

Dream Warrior (Sci-Fi): "A man with super-human powers is pursued by a tyrannical overlord." Stars the always sadly wasted Lance Henriksen (gee, I wonder what part he’ll play) and Sherilyn Fenn.

Warrior Angels (Action Adventure): "A female warrior must rescue her son from an evil warlord." Stars Joanna Pacula, Arnold Vosloo and Rutger Hauer (gee, I wonder what part he’ll be playing?).

Domino (Action): "Domino Harvey grew up to be a fashion model and then left it all behind to become a professional bounty hunter." Based (cough, cough) on a true story, although I expect we’ll see star Keira Knightley—about 5’6", weights roughly seventy pounds—kicking the asses of a lot more huge muscle dudes than the real-life Harvey did. Directed by Tony Scott (!).

Deadly Waters (Action Adventure): "Experiments to develop a deadly nerve gas go wrong and a genetically altered black mamba escapes." Wait, the guys at UFO are making a mutant killer snake movie?! Finally!!

Magma (Action Adventure): "Earth’s weather patterns have changed causing tornados to appear in L.A. and volcanoes to erupt in Europe." This is an even better year for red state voters than we thought! However, I have no idea what ‘magma’ is. (Ha, ha. Don’t worry about it, it’s a reference to an old review.)

Kraal (horror): "What Jaws did for the beach this film will do for innocent-looking fields of grass." Actually, I’m waiting for the sequel, when Kraal fights Kraa the Sea Monster and Krull.

Infestation (Action): "In 2080, a rescue teams is sent to the surface to investigate the disappearance of a research group where they find the living dead." Yes, that’s another well constructed sentence.

Corpses (Horror): "A mortician at a funeral homes finds a way to bring back the dead for one hour at a time to do his dirty work." I mean, seriously, wouldn’t it just be easier to hire a temp?

Note: For some of the films that have already hit theaters since this was written, I’ve provided updated comments.


After the Sunset: Love heist films, there’s nothing wrong with Pierce Brosnan or Salma Hayek (although Woody Harrelson I can take or leave). I’m mark this as a maybe. [Lame reviews have moved this to the DVD rental list.]

Alexander: Colin Farrell, Oliver Stone attempt to cut the Gordian Box Office Knot. Eh. [With the putrid stench of a monumental turkey already filling their noses, Stone and Farrell tried to pre-sell the approaching failure of the film by tying it to the ‘blue state’/Bush reelection/ignorant hateful Christian moralists meme favored by the chattering classes right now. (This is also being proactively employed by the makers of Kinsey.) The exact strategy was to push the film as paying the price for its putative bravery in their portrayal of Alexander’s possible homosexuality. However, the picture is a critical fiasco, with a dire 14% favorable rating on the essential Rotten Tomatoes site. Many reviewers are lauding the film as a camp classic, with most of the rest labeling it a turgid bore.]

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera: I’m not as Webber-phobic as many (although I got hives once after seeing a commercial for a production of Starlight Express—that couldn’t possibly be what it looked to be, could it?), and again, I’d like to see the musical come back, but if nothing else, the fact that it’s directed by Joel Schumacher just fills me with despair.

The Assassination of Richard Nixon: The true life story of some nutbag who wanted to fly a plane into the White House and bump off ol’ Tricky Dicky. Entertainment Weekly describes this film about "the American Dream twisted by bureaucracy, political corruption and suburban alienation" as "timely," meaning that they’re all hosed off about Bush getting reelected. Watch for this meme to be much replicated by the art house crowd. Stars the inevitable Sean Penn and the ubiquitous Don Cheadle.

Assault on Precinct 13: You can’t go wrong remaking films that were pretty much perfect to begin with. Oh, wait. Yes, you can. Stars Ethan Hawke and Laurence Fishburne.

The Aviator: Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese team up for another historical, this one a biopic of Howard Hughes. Eh. I’m not particularly interested, but I doubt it will be the debacle that Alexander has proven to be. Heaven knows Jude Law desperately needs to be attached to even a modest hit.

Beyond the Sea: Kevin Spacey (remember the brief period where you were excited to hear those two words?) stars in his next failed attempt at career resurrection, a bio pic about Bobby Darin. The buzz on this one is tepid at best, and it’s already doomed to be devastatingly compared with the critically acclaimed Ray, which despite fantastic reviews itself has hardly failed to set fire to the box office.

Blade: Trinity: Sure, why not? The first two were fun, and certainly a cut above apparent junk like Underworld or Van Helsing (neither of which, I admit, I’ve bothered to see).

Bride and Prejudice: "Jane Austin’s timeless story Is playfully reinvented by director Curinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham) in a Bollywood song ‘n’ dance spectacular." Good grief, how could something that insane fail?

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason: Oh, yeah. I’ll be there with bells on. (Rolls eyes.) [Even fans of the first film appear to dislike the sequel, which has achieved a feeble 28% favorable review rating on Rotten Tomatoes.]

Bright Future: According to Entertainment Weekly, "When one factory worker is jailed, his socially awkward friend comes of age while taking care of his tank full of exotic jellyfish." Man, I’m so tired of these high-concept movies. And when was the last time the claim, "Nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes," actually made you more likely to see a film? If you do go to see this, expect to see a lot of previews for similarly obscure flicks which feature glowing quotes from Janet Maslin.

Christmas with the Kranks: Unlike some people, I find Tim Allen moderately funny, but Dan Ackroyd raises the hackles on my neck these days, and the plot looks to be basically just an expansion of the ‘Tim goes crazy with the Christmas decorations’ episodes of Home Improvement. That title ain’t helping either, and why bother buying the rights to a John Grisham book (Skipping Christmas) if you’re going to call the movie something else?

Closer: Art house fare pumped up by a star cast including, well, Julia Roberts. After Alfie and Sky Captain, I don’t think Jude Law can reasonably be called a star, although I suppose Natalie Portman might more or less qualify. Helmed by Mike Nichols, a solid journeyman director who’s made quite a few memorable movies, although it says something that the film he’s still best known for is his second, 1967’s The Graduate. The selling point is a lot of promised nudity and sex, although of course it’s Portman and not Roberts who does the heavy lifting.

Coach Carter: Samuel L. Jackson is a basketball coach who benches his championship team because of their poor grades. Oh, it’s a science fiction picture. This will probably have a long life on DVD, as the latest of the perennial ‘tough but caring educator’ genre that goes back to To Sir With Love. Pretty much every black actor, with the occasional Hispanic one, makes a film like this sooner or later, and to be fair, most of them are pretty watchable.

The Darkness: Anna Paquin in a haunted house movie. We’ll see. Well, actually, no, I probably won’t. (And that was my reaction before learning that the film was made in Spain two years ago. Yeah, the good ones always sit on the shelf like that.)

Electra: Just what the world’s been clamoring for, a sequel to Daredevil. At least Ben Affleck won’t be in it. Oops, he has a cameo. Never mind. [I’ve now seen the preview for this, and it’s full of wire fu and mystical ninjas. Certainly topping Daredevil won’t be that difficult, although hopefully they raised the bar higher than that.]

Fat Albert: "Not so much a television adaptation as it is a postmodern deconstruction of the line between reality and artifice." In other words, it’s Fat Albert meets Cool World, as the cartoon characters emerge into the ‘real’ world. Man, if they pull this off it could be something. That’s a mighty big if, though.

Flight of the Phoenix: Dennis Quaid and planes? It’s The Right Stuff all over again! Not quite, but this remake of a fairly obscure Jimmy Stewart movie could be pretty cool. Unlike remaking Assault on Precinct 13, this makes sense. It’s a redo of a film that was solid, but not so good as to make a better version improbable. I’ve got my fingers crossed for this one, although hopefully the scale of the film’s action will be kept with the bounds of reason.

Gory Gory Hallelujah: "Four actors—including a bisexual hippie and a black revolutionary—audition for the role of Jesus. When none gets it, the group hits the road on a motorcycle trip. Soon a gang of Elvises and some badass zombies come into play." EW says, "We wanna see it," but this to me this sounds like somebody trying way too hard to whip up a prepackaged cult flick.

House of the Flying Daggers: Hero did well, if not the staggering sort of Hidden Dragon numbers, but anything that keeps fantastic Hong Kong kung fu movies coming to our theaters is OK with me. Advance buzz from the fan community has been very strong.

Imaginary Heroes: I began reading, "Dark suburban secrets…" and kept on moving.

In Good Company -- Although I’m not a diehard fan of That ‘70s Show (put me in the ‘occasional viewer’ camp), I’m always struck when watching the show at how fine a comic actor Topher Grace is. One can only hope, for sanity’s sake, that he will soon eclipse the career success of his much less talented co-star Ashton Kutcher. In addition, there are other promising elements here. The scriptwriter, Paul "About a Boy" Weitz has a good rep, and Grace’s co-star here is another favorite of mine, Dennis Quaid. The premise is strong, too. A Yuppie-esque Grace gets a job at Quaid’s company and is soon promoted above him. At the same time, he begins dating Quaid’s daughter (Scarlett Johansson). It’s all in the execution, of course, but it seems to me you could do a lot with that. Grace is playing against type as a shark-like character, but I have no doubt he can pull it off.

Kinsey: Liam Neeson stars as the sex researcher in a film that will no doubt be more comfortable with the more politically correct controversial aspects of Kinsey’s life (i.e., his bisexuality) than others (that most of his research, notably the wildly inaccurate canard that the population is 10% gay, is garbage). [From the reviews I’ve read, this appears largely correct, and unsurprisingly the film is being lauded as brilliant, although I doubt that will bring folks running to the theaters.]

Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events: I haven’t read the books, but the preview makes the movie look like it emanated from a "It’s Harry Potter meets the Addams Family!") The film looks immaculately produced, but that’s not nearly enough to get me to buy a ticket. Also, I was so burned by Jim Carrey in the atrocious Grinch movie that his presence here, in a Peter Sellers-esque variety of roles, sends up a lot of warning signals. We’ll see how the reviews look.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou: Sooner or later Wes Anderson will have a breakout hit, and maybe then I’ll actually see one of his movies in a theater rather than waiting for the Criterion DVD. The film revolves around a Jacques Cousteau-esque oceanographer played by Anderson vet Bill Murray, and sports one of his typically hip casts: Owen Wilson, Anjelica Huston, Jeff Goldblum, etc. When you think about it, Anderson is sort of the new Woody Allen. By which I mean, the new early ‘80s Allen, from before he started sucking.

A Love Song for Bobby Long: "Three broken souls hole up in a New Orleans hovel and come together as an unlikely family." Blech! (And that was my reaction before I learned that Bobby Long was being played by John Travolta!)

Meet the Fockers: A sequel to Meet the Parents personally strikes me, as with the second Lara Croft movie, as a follow-up that really never needed to be made. The fact that it stars Babs Streisand and the ‘when was the last time he interested me?’ Dustin Hoffman ain’t helping. And so Robert DeNiro sinks a little more from our cultural awareness. But hey, maybe he’s got a third Analyze This in him, eh? Or, maybe they could merge the third Analyze This flick with the third Whole Nine Yards picture. Then you’d have something!

The Merchant of Venus: Good cast, including Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons and Joseph Feinnes, but I’m wary of a film described as "The Godfather meets the Bard." And, oops, Pacino’s performance is already being lambasted in several corners. Hey, Kenneth Branagh, how about a Julius Caesar or MacBeth? Only keep it small, would you, like Henry V?

Million Dollar Baby: Hadn’t even heard of this one before seeing the poster for it two days ago. Boxing picture in which ornery boxing coach Clint Eastwood takes on a female pugilist, played by Hillary Swank. Co-stars Morgan Freeman. Eastwood hasn’t really made much that’s interested me lately, but there’s nothing there I don’t like.

National Treasure: I’m not much of a Nick Cage fan (like Sean Bean, though), and this will likely be this year’s over-bloated manqué Con Air, but the premise does seem potentially interesting (if conceptually ripped off from Alias), if they can just remember not to let the giganto effects get in the way of the script. [The critics have spoken, and bloat it is. A not too encouraging 40% positive review ratio at Rotten Tomatoes. Still, it’s making money. Like several of the films on the list, visiting Rotten Tomatoes and reading the snarky reviews will probably prove more entertaining than seeing the film.]

Finding Neverland: The always-interesting Johnny Depp plays J.M. Barrie, the creator of Peter Pan, and the film covers his relationship with some kids that led him to write the book. The title is kind of unfortunate, given the Michael Jackson connotations.

Noel: "Christmas Eve in New York isn’t holly jolly for a divorcee (Susan Sarandon), squabbling fiancés (Paul Walker and Penelope Cruz), and a street hustler (Drowning Mona’s Marcus Thomas)" Man, I could spend half an hour explaining all the various ways that sentence by itself made it unlikely I’d see this movie. However, then I read, "But with a few miracles—including an uncredited appearance by Robin Williams…" Good grief! Who thinks an "uncredited" (yeah, and I wonder why?) appearance by Robin Williams constitutes a "miracle"? The Cenobites?

Ocean’s Twelve: Love heist films, liked the first one, good cast. Plus, they added Matt Damon, another guy who gets where the action movie should be going (i.e., back to the ‘60s and ‘70s), or so I assume from his nifty Bourne films.

La Petite Lili: I got as far as "In this modern telling of Chekhov’s The Seagull, Swimming Pool’s Ludivine Sagnier…" before I feel asleep and painfully smacked my head onto my desk. If I did that over and over again for two hours, I imagine it would replicate the experience of going to see La Petite Lili, although at least I’d save shelling out twenty bucks for the ticket and parking.

The Polar Express: Maybe it’s just me, but the animation style creeps me out. And while I like musical production numbers more than most, the dancing waiters in the previews didn’t exactly amp up my interest. I expect I’ll pass on this one. [Looks that way, and the reviews and word of mouth haven’t changed my mind any.]

Seed of Chucky: Nothing against these, but I more or less lost track of the series after the third entry. Odd, though, that they didn’t open this for Halloween.

Spanglish: Adam Sandler again courts artistic respectability, and this time hooks up with James L. Brooks. Who knows, maybe it will work this time, and Brooks often manages the rare trick of making a film that gets good reviews and a decent amount of swag at the box office.

White Noise: Michael Keaton tries to stay on the audience radar with this supernatural thriller. A guy’s dead wife starts communicating with him over electrical stuff like radios, etc. Sort of a spookier Frequency, I guess. I see this one coming and going without a lot of static. Latest in the ‘failing older stars make ghost movie trend’, following in the footsteps of Kevin Costner, Harrison Ford, Richard Gere, etc.

Woman in the Moon
(1929)

DVD has been as kind to few directors as German helmer Fritz Lang. His greatest film, 1931’s M, is receiving a new release as part of the prestigious Criterion Collection next month, a follow-up to an earlier Criterion disc that is now out of print. His monumental silent classic Metropolis, meanwhile, recently was afforded a Kino release with all the bells and whistles. M certainly and Metropolis arguably are among the very greatest films ever made, and should be in any serious cinephile’s personal collection.

Criterion has also released his two pre-war German films featuring super villain Dr. Mabuse. Those discs were produced by Mabuse historian David Kalat, who through his own company had previously released Lang’s final film, The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse. This was also the first film Lang had made in Germany in over 25 years, after fleeing the Nazi regime back in the ‘30s. All three of these DVDs are highly recommended, as is the junkier but fun 1,000 Eyes follow-up The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, a remake of Lang’s second Mabuse film. (To make the story even denser, the original Testament features the same detective character, played by the same actor, who hunted the titular serial killer in M.)

Aside from these highlights, however, the bulk of Lang’s lesser films are also available on DVD, from the German silents to the American noir films he made in the ‘40s and ‘50s. Spies particularly is worth a look, and has just received a second, restored DVD release from Kino.

Woman in the Moon is definitely not one of Lang’s classics, and certainly has little offer to the many who wouldn’t even watch a much better silent film. It is, in fact, a greatly flawed picture, and will mostly be of interest to the more rabid fans of the director or those wanting to track the evolution of the space flight movie, a genre that hit it’s acme during the ‘50s, before real life space flight ironically killed the genre.

For what its worth, this remains a pivotal pioneer of that type of picture, appearing more than two decades before the more famous Destination Moon (1950). Like the films that would follow it, Woman in the Moon now appears hopelessly naïve scientifically, yet was earnest and ambitious in its attempts to present what at the time was considered a realistic portrayal of space flight. As well, several of the cheesier clichés associated with the space travel film, such as the (literally) lunatic inclusion of a dangerous criminal among the travelers, or a debate regarding the propriety of bringing a woman on such a mission, first saw light here.

Lang often liked to work at great length, apparently so that his films would fill both halves of the then traditional double bill, lest one of them were teamed with a lesser work by another filmmaker. Here this trait does him no favors. Woman in the Moon lasts a wearying all but three hours. Unfortunately, far too much of that running time is dedicated to a strenuously boring romantic triangle subplot, not to mention entirely too many of the sort of stagnant, ludicrously overly-emoted reaction shots that are the bane of those who hate silent films. Certainly it’s a little weird that Lang’s next film was the brilliant and fantastically more naturalistic M, which notably was both his first sound picture and nearly an hour shorter than this effort.

While this is anything but a worthless film, one suspects the original U.S. release print, which hacked the film down to 95 minutes, probably did audiences a great service. One the other hand, a reader review on the IMDB indicates that a 2003 restoration premiere featured a cut that was an even grosser 50 minutes longer than the one found here. Yeesh. Even with the ‘shorter’ version featured here, I admit to playing much of the film at double time to move things along.

We open with an epigram: "Never" does not exist for the human mind…only "Not yet." Then we cut to the dilapidated apartment of the unkempt Dr. Georg Manfeldt, who looks a bit like a down on his luck Trotsky. As his friend and benefactor Wolf Helius arrives, Manfeldt is literally tossing out a Mr. Turner. This quick introduction of three characters, including one who won’t return for a while, sadly implies a much faster pace than what we actually get here.

Manfeldt raves about Turner wanting to buy his battered notebook, which contains his radical theories about the moon. One of these, that the lunar mountains are chock full of gold, augers a flashback in which we see a decades younger, more eminent Dr. Manfeldt detailing his theories for a scientific society. As in many later films, his conjectures earn him the scornful laughs of his colleagues. He also reacts in time-honored fashion by calling them reactionary idiots. This, per tradition, sees him blackballed from their community, resulting in his current straits.

The rather more well to do Helius listens with sympathy, while often casting sidelong, piteous looks upon his friend. He manages to get the starving Manfeldt to share some dinner he’s brought, although the latter angrily returns some money Helius had slipped into his pocket on an earlier visit. There follows much comic business establishing Manfeldt’s poverty, although after Helius leaves—much later—the scientist shares the food Helius left with a mouse that lives in his wall. (The professor’s pet, the mouse is played, per the opening credits, by ‘Josephine.’)

Helius, a rich industrialist, announces his intention to go to the moon. Manfeldt is ecstatic to finally see his work possibly coming to fruitarian, and is assured that he will be among the crew. He asks if Helius will be taking along his best friend, the engineer Hans Windegger. This provides the introduction to the film’s most tiresome plot thread, that Hans has become engaged to Friede, despite the fact that its Helius she truly loves and vice versa.

Part of the reason, albeit only part*, that this all proves so boring is that we never learn why exactly Helius hasn’t just claimed her for his own. We can guess, based on other such films, that he’s always been too busy pursuing his goals, and that she got tired of waiting for him. Still, as is the nature of these things, Windegger never comes across as a legitimate rival for Helius—although Friede does seem to care for him—so the outcome of things seems inevitable.

[*For those interested, the other reasons this thread is so deadly is that it plays out at exceedingly languorous lengths, and inspires by far the most melodramatic and painfully exaggerated acting from the cast. At one point Helius observes the two embrace and reacts with an expression suggesting one watching one’s young children being consumed by ferrets.]

I’ll spare you a rundown of much of subsequent events, which includes several epically pointless scenes taking place at Hans and Friede’s engagement party. (In the film’s longest version, mentioned above, the IMDB reviewer noted that this section was greatly expanded from what we saw here, and that upwards of 40 minutes was spent observing this event! In the 95 minute American cut, meanwhile, we can safely assume that very little of this was seen.)

In the most Lang-esque section of the film, a criminal cabal executes a precisely timed and quite elaborate plan to steal Manfeldt’s notes from Helius, as well as all his other materials on the moon. The notebook itself, for instance, is grabbed by a ‘flower girl’ Helius unwisely picks up to ease his sorrow over losing Friede. When the unconscious industrialist awakens and returns to his apartment, he finds that his safe has been burgled under the nose of his domestic staff. This entire section of things recalls not only Lang’s Mabuse films, but the serials of French director Louis Feuillade, such as Les Vampires.

It’s after Helius has realized that everything is lost that Turner, the man Manfeldt cast out of his apartment earlier, reveals himself. He represents a group of Eee-vil Capitalists who control the world’s gold supply, and who have decided either to become part of the mission or to see it scrapped. With little say in the manner, Helius accepts Turner as part of his crew. Turner, by the way, is almost laughably super-villainous, as when he demonstrates his ability to utterly alter his appearance by rubbing his hands over his face (!).

About the halfway mark we finally get to the take-off. This is the heart of the film and given much prominence. The special effects are pretty amazing for the time, and the scale of things is outsized in that particularly German fashion. While much of the ‘science’ is forgivably off—for instance, the traditionally massive and finned ship is immersed in a water tank before blast-off, because it "is too light to stand freely" (?)—some of what we see is quite prescient, such as the use of a countdown before the rocket ascends, and the mass media attention the event draws.

As so the crew—Helius, Manfeldt, Turner, Windegger, Friede and the inevitable young stowaway, Gustav, endure the perils of the flight. Eventually they reach the dark side of the moon, which as earlier established, has an atmosphere that proves breathable (that’s right, only one side of the moon has an atmosphere!).

I’ve leave the rest to the interested viewer, although the comical sight of people nonchalantly walking around on the moon in their unmatched casual clothes, looking nothing more than a group of golfers, is worth noting. Other amusing moments entails the perhaps 12 year-old Gustav being instructed on how to operate the rocket ship during it’s blastoff from the moon (!!) and the use of a divining rod (!) to seek water on the lunar surface. In the end, the villainous and greedy and cowardly meet their appropriate fates, and I think you can probably guess who Friede ends up with.

Space Travel Clichés:

• A brilliant scientist with radical theories is cast out by his more plodding colleagues.
• A private citizen builds a space rocket. This particular trope would again hit its peak usage in the ‘50s (Destination Moon, When Worlds Collide, Mission to the Moon, etc. and so on), although it would continue to appear much later, as in the Andy Griffith TV movie, and subsequent series, Scavenger One.
• There’s a criminal on the rocket.
• There’s a stowaway on the rocket.
• Most everyone passes out from blast-off generated G-forces.
• There’s a brief sequence detailing the zaniness of zero gravity.
• There’s the traditional astronauts-gaze-with-awe-at-the-Earth bit.
• The moon has an atmosphere, at least on one half of its surface.
• At least a couple of the astronauts decide to pack heat with them.
• The presence of oxygen on the moon is established by lighting matches.
• Greedy characters wish to mine the moon for gold, although obviously it would in real life cost more to transport it back to Earth than it is worth.
• A catastrophic lack of oxygen for the return flight means someone will have to be left behind.
• After drawing lots, the more noble characters contrive to see that they are the one(s) left behind.

Summary: For hardcore sci-fi and foreign film fans only.

-by Ken Begg