Category Archives: Movie Night

Movies that I, my wife, our son, or all of us, watch.

Movie Night: Jack the Giant Killer

Year: 1962

Director: Nathan Juran

Production Company: Edward Small Productions

Leads: Kerwin Matthews, Judi Meredith

Tonight’s feature was a new discovery for both Little Satis and I. The name caught my eye, though it’s only now that I realize there’s a movie by the same name coming out next year. It’s certain to be a big, epic affair, with all the big guns like Ewan McGregor and Stanley Tucci, and it will probably be full of mind-blowingly spectacular CGI effects, and absolutely none of the charm that adorns this enchanting little film from fifty years ago (there – I challenge any of me readers to say they saw it in the theater).

Jack the Giant Killer is originally an English fairy tale, set in the southwest county of Cornwall. (As it happens, Cornwall is home to St. Michael’s Mount, from whence came the giant King Arthur slew.) The original tale (which I have not read, though I now intend to) appears to feature an awful lot of giants, an awful lot of blood and guts, and distressed damsels and princesses galore. It seems to have first come into being in the early eighteenth century, and presumably catered to the tastes of the time.

Orville Hampton‘s adaptation bears little resemblance to this tale, save in name and spirit, and a lot more to do with the campy evil wizard Pendragon. On the birthday of the royal princess, Pendragon visits the kingdom in disguise, and sends a giant to whisk her away. The giant, however, doesn’t get far before it is beset by handsome farmer Jack, who slays it with a scythe. Enraged, Pendragon sends his demonic witches to capture her as she flees to safety on a ship, and transports her back to his castle, where he bewitches her.

In a number of subsequent adventures, in which Jack takes custody of a young boy and befriends a viking with a leprechaun (you can’t make this stuff up), he fights his way to the dark wizard’s castle. Passing through the final trials, breaking the spell upon the princess and defeating Pendragon (who turns into, of course, a dragon), Jack finally rescues the damsel, and in true sixties style, wraps up with a wink at the camera and a great big smooch.

The film features a cast of second-rate actors and first-rate effects. I had to explain to Little Satis that they didn’t have computer graphics in 1962, and that all of the special effects were composited or rotoscoped afterwards, frame by frame (then I had to explain frames and film reel and…oh, the headaches). Considering this, the combination of animatronics, live-action footage, costumes, puppets and lighting make for an exciting showcase of the film technology of the time. While some of the stop-motion animation is mediocre (nothing compared to Jason and the Argonauts), particularly effective was the costumery of the witches and demons, and the striking luminescent painting as they flew down upon the stranded ship bearing Jack and the princess.

Another strength of the film, considering the nature and time of the film, was the surprising performance of Judi Meredith as Princess Elaine. From the introduction at the start of the film, we fully expected the damsel in distress to be just that – a helpless, shrieking frail flower, to be guarded and protected from the evil demons that want to capture her for the dark prince. And at first, that’s exactly what we got. Her acting was fairly poor, and her screams fairly annoying. The big surprise, however, came when she was bewitched, and transformed into an evil queen. It was as though, quite suddenly, she woke up to the role of a villain, and relished it. From the sly smiles to the dangerous hand movements, Judi appeared to come into her own. It would have been delightful to see more of her as a villain in other films, but sadly it seems she never really did anything of particular worth again.

I’ll be curious to see what the upcoming big-scale version of this tale will be like; from what I can tell, it will bear as little resemblance to the 1962 film as it will to the original eighteenth century tale. However, I won’t be holding my breath – there’s something rather charming about this one.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Movie Night: xXx

Year: 2002

Production Company: Revolution Studios

Leads: Vin Diesel, Asia Argento

It’s funny to think that xXx was released ten years ago; it feels like its been a lot longer. Perhaps it’s to do with the fact that I’ve consciously avoided this movie out of a small sense of shame for having liked it all the way back then. It’s not that it isn’t a good movie (it’s pretty average, in my opinion), but it’s such a ridiculously thoughtless, testosterone-fulled feel-good flick that it feels a simple admission of enjoyment would cause giant pecs to explode on my chest. It was also my introduction to Vin Diesel, who seems to have thrown away whatever potential acting career Saving Private Ryan might have spawned and spent the following fifteen years making movies about…Vin Diesel.

Anyway. It was certainly a romp; I recalled exactly why I liked the movie when it came out: the simple pleasure of seeing Rammstein blow shit up as a US spy gets killed by Russians. How very metal. This was novel to me (I hadn’t seen Ace Ventura: Pet Detective at that point, and was still blissfully unaware of the infamous Cannibal Corpse performance), and the idea of introducing metal to the mainstream was wonderful. It didn’t take me long to realize it for a bandwagon, but the simple trip of watching a movie scored my Rammstein, Drowning Pool, Queens of the Stone Age and Hatebreed was satisfying in its own reward.

xXx is a simple enough story; a straight-up James Bond rip-off, dirtied up and without the wit, Xander Cage (really?) is an anarchic criminal picked up by the NSA to become their newest secret agent. He is to infiltrate a crime gang in Prague, because they’re working on world-destroying biological weapons. Or something. There’s also a girl, who’s an ex-Russian agent who was abandoned and decided to hang around the bad guys for a bit, because there wasn’t anything else to do. Or something.

Basically, that’s all you really need to know; everything from there on in is lots and lots (and lots) of explosions. In fact, the stunts themselves are remarkable; the film won an award (it’s only win, it must be said) at the World Stunt Awards. Two scenes in particular: driving a Corvette off a bridge and then parachuting to safety (The Spy Who Loved Me, anyone? (incidentally, one of the best opening sequences of any movie, ever)), and the bit where he harpoons a speedboat and parasails behind it. Yep.

The James Bond shows through in plenty of places: the Russians, the mysterious head honcho, the gadgets and the car full of weapons and an ejecting roof. The most worrying thing about watching this movie was having to explain James Bond to Little Satis. Do you know I can’t find them on iTunes or Netflix? What’s wrong with the world these days?

There were quite a few more ‘sexy bits’ than I remember; particularly a scene where the bad guy wakes up draped in three stark naked women. Little Satis goes, “Boobies – eew!”. Had I recalled, I might have chosen a different film, but in hindsight, I remember being just as thrillingly scandalized at the scantily clad women and the gratuitous scenes in James Bond as a child, so I guess it all works out in the end.

Wait a minute…

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Movie Night: Swiss Family Robinson

Welcome to Movie Night: a chance to sit back, relax, and take in a new piece of cinematic wonder with Little Satis and I. This will (hopefully) be a once-weekly post about the movies we watch together, snuggled up in the dark with a cup of tea and a pack of M&Ms. Enjoy!

 

Year: 1960

Production Company: Walt Disney

Leads: John Mills, Dorothy McGuire

Little stands out in my memory from my childhood as well as Disney’s 1960 version of Swiss Family Robinson. Along with such swashbuckling epics such as Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe, its simple yet delightful tale of a (Swiss) family shipwrecked on a deserted island mesmerized me, and I lived and breathed the storms, the jungles, the fear and the smoke of the pirates’ attack. What young boy didn’t want to live in a treehouse with a monkey and an elephant?

This was something of a spectacle when it was released almost fifty-two years ago. A rare feat for Disney, it was filmed in epic widescreen, which allowed the luscious scenery of Trinidad and Tobago to sprawl across the screen. The opening scene, serving as a striking backdrop for the credits, shows a nineteenth-centry sailing vessel being battered to pieces in a savage storm. I marvel at this scene today; long before the age of terrible CGI sea storms, this looks, even now, stunningly realistic. The waves seem too large and detailed to be a miniature set, yet they clearly couldn’t have filmed it in an actual storm. My best bet is they made phenomenal use of the historic sets of Pinewood Studios.

Accompanying this dramatic opening is William Alwyn‘s beautiful, romantic-inspired score – strings, piccolos, timpani and haunting brass a musical match to the storm that could rival Wagner. Throughout the film, this score keeps pace, and though it occasionally descends into cartoonish cues, it provides a depth and drama to an otherwise amusing family adventure.

There are, of course, numerous instances that date the film, most notably the almost embarrassingly stereotyping of both women and races. There are only two females in the film – Mother Robinson and Roberta – and both are portrayed throughout as helpless and defenseless. I held a little hope when Roberta shows some skill at shooting, but she never ends up actually shooting any pirates – another terrible typecast. I’m pretty sure the oriental-ish pirates weren’t actually speaking any kind of language at all. Oh, for the sixties.

And of course, looking back on it now, how did I miss that the ‘Swiss’ family were all English and American? And why on earth did no one ever grow a beard? And for that matter, how did they build all that cool stuff? It’s sort of like someone had a sonic screwdriver to hand.

Either way, it’s a charming and lighthearted romp of an adventure, and Little Satis and I very much enjoyed it.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆