Tag Archives: Film

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…

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Tales of Despair: Cup of My Blood

In a dark, cold apartment, two young men stare at the small box in front of them. One, at least, is clearly very afraid. The box must never be opened, one says. We must, the other replies. And so they do.

Moments later, a man and a woman burst in. One man is found in a closet – burned to ash. The other, cowering in the bath. The woman takes the box, and in cold blood kills him.

Jack Fender used to be a renowned photographer, famous for his stark black and white style, and the subtle eroticism of his work. Used to. Three years ago, his wife – his soulmate and his muse – committed suicide. Now he shoots soft porn. Locked off and dead to the world, Jack wanders around in a haze, filled with the dark visions of his wife’s final moments. Then one day, nearly run down in the street, he witnesses the fatal car crash of the woman who took the box. With her dying breath, she bids him to take it, and never to look upon it. And he does.

Jack locks the box away; turns back to his empty life. Continues to pile the cash from his porn shoots on a shelf, never spending a dime. His previous life made sure he doesn’t need to. He puts the box out of his mind – until dark and disturbing visions begin to appear before him. Those around him – the few he interacts with, that pretend to care about him – are certain he’s going insane.

And then – emptying his mind late one night at the pool – he meets Iona. And she listens to him. She speaks to him. And finally, she breaks through to him. They become close, and they begin to love…and after so long, his muse returns. Slowly, his creativity returns, and he begins to feel that he might finally be able to leave the demons behind him.

Janina Gavankar as Iona.

Little does he know that the demons are, in fact, yet to come, lying in wait. As the darkness closes in around him, he begins to realize that Iona may not be all she seems – and the powers of evil are intent on the contents of the box. As everything he knows comes crashing down, he discovers the box holds an ancient and unimaginably powerful relic: the holy grail. And the terrible visions that continue to fill his mind hold an even darker secret from his past.

Cup of My Blood is not a great movie. Mediocrely acted, poorly color-graded and uncomfortably scripted, it is a low-budget B-movie in every possible sense of the word. Yet the editing is strong, and it manages nonetheless to be both visually striking and stylistically unsettling. It is graphic, violent and disturbing, mysterious and frightening, and ultimately charts an artist’s descent into madness in the face of unspeakable horror. Had it had a bigger budget and better actors, it could have been a significant film. As it stands, it’s a visceral depiction of sex and death, haunted by despair.

Some of you may find this film disturbing or upsetting; some of you may simply laugh at it. Either way, approach it with caution: it isn’t as simple as it appears.