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Daily Archives: January 1, 2017

The Scarlet Empress

01 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by vinnieh in Movie Reviews

≈ 23 Comments

Tags

1930's, Historical Drama, John Lodge, Josef von Sternberg, Louise Dresser, Marlene Dietrich, Sam Jaffe, The Scarlet Empress

Film Title

The Scarlet Empress

Director

Josef von Sternberg

Starring

  • Marlene Dietrich as Princess Sophia/Catherine the Great
  • Sam Jaffe as Grand Duke Peter
  • John Lodge as Count Alexei
  • Louise Dresser as Empress Elizabeth

An exotic, visually bursting at the seams movie that loosely follows how Catherine the Great became that very person of majesty, The Scarlet Empress has to be one of the most unusual and ornate movies of the 30’s. Which doesn’t come as a surprise because Josef von Sternberg is behind the camera and his favourite subject of Marlene Dietrich is shown in an almost fetishistic way that makes the whole package a spectacle and then some.

It is the 18th Century: Sophia is a German princess who is selected to marry Grand Duke Peter of Russia. the-scarlet-empress-posterPeter is the heir to the throne and nephew of the commanding current Empress Elizabeth, whose idea it is to marry her nephew to this girl in the hope that she can provide a son who will one day rule. The young Sophia is a sweet-natured and innocent young girl who sees this as her duty to perform. She is escorted to Russia by the darkly handsome Count Alexei, who is struck by her beauty and quickly falls for her. Upon arrival in Russia, the romantic Sophia discovers that her betrothed is nothing more than a slithering imbecile and she has to change her name to Catherine. And matters don’t much improve once she is married as the domineering Empress Elizabeth pressures the girl to produce an heir as quickly as possible. The newly renamed marlene-dietrich-catherine-the-greatCatherine frequently clashes with the Empress and though innocent, she starts to rebel against order. In this, she finds excitement with Alexei, as well as other men in the army. When the Empress dies, the drooling and malevolent Paul becomes ruler and sets about his duties with tyranny. Meanwhile, having slowly become quietly intelligent and able to use her allure to her advantage, Catherine evolves into a calculating and ambitious woman, who eventually strikes and seizes the throne for herself.

Historians will obviously take issue with the presentation of events here as they are romanticized to a high degree, but I don’t believe the intention of the film was to produce something of indisputable historical fact.sam-jaffe-the-scarlet-empress I think the overall presentation of The Scarlet Empress was to chart the transformative journey that Catherine took and of course to show off the luxurious detail and decadence, which Von Sternberg orchestrates with Svengali like precision and command. And when I say detail, man is this movie packed to the ceiling with a supernatural level of abundance that refuses to leave. Josef von Sternberg paints the Russian court as a phantasmagorical and almost logic-defying place of scandal and pressures. Darkness is never far, as visualized through the persistent shots of grotesque gargoyles and emaciated frescoes. Here is someone who doesn’t need you to feel credence towards what he displays, as he is drawing things through his expressionistic view. The director is clearly firing on all cylinders by utilizing a high level of techniques, from montages to overlapping shots, his detailed hands are never that far from the audience’s view. It’s like stepping into another world and it all feels rather mystical, something this particular reviewer enjoyed immensely. One of the best examples is the wedding dinner. banquet-sceneIn the scene, we are shown a gluttonous banquet as the camera surveys the residence, occasionally stopping to pick up on Catherine. The level of grotesque decadence is tangible and it enables von Sternberg to indulge in a most unusual spectacle of cinema at the height of fevered exoticism. The film covers a lot of ground and it does cram a hell of a lot into its running time; this sometimes making the venture a bit uneven and occasionally ponderous. Yet the sheer amount of frenzied excess is more than enough reason to view this film for lovers of striking cinema. The Scarlet Empress could almost play as a silent film and still have an impact, especially as it has intertitles that carry the plot on and the thundering score that you would expect to back up the strange happenings and demented display. Though saying this, the dialogue for the time is pretty suggestive and has a certain naughty value to it, that gets you to ponder how some of it made it past the censors.

Marlene Dietrich never looked more beautiful or aloof as she does here in the role of the changing member of royalty. catherine-the-great-scarlet-empressWhile the camera is in love with her and the main focus of the film is for Josef von Sternberg to circle and display the magnetic Dietrich, she also contributes a finely tuned performances among the excess. Morphing from a naive innocent to powerful seductress with her eye on power in a subtle yet expressive way, Marlene Dietrich holds the attentions with her spellbinding impact and unmatched aura of glamour. Sam Jaffe is scarily effective as the idiotic and very mad Peter; I will admit to shivering quite a few times watching his character sneak around the castle with his eyes ablaze with insanity. John Lodge, though a little flat, cuts a dashing figure as the nobleman entranced by Catherine, while stealing the supporting honors is Louise Dresser on bolshie form as the possessive and much angered Empress.

Lush in the extreme and stylish with a capital S, The Scarlet Empress won’t be too everyone’s taste because of its many excesses. But as an example of visual cinema at its most evocative and fruitful, it can’t be missed.

The Net

01 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by vinnieh in Movie Reviews

≈ 59 Comments

Tags

1990's, Dennis Miller, Irwin Winkler, Jeremy Northam, Sandra Bullock, The Net, Thriller

Film Title

The Net

Director

Irwin Winkler

Starring

  • Sandra Bullock as Angela Bennett
  • Jeremy Northam as Jack Devlin
  • Dennis Miller as Dr. Alan Champion

It isn’t the most compelling or exceptional thriller out there, yet The Net is competent entertainment filtered through a techno edge and having the luminous Sandra Bullock at the heart of it.

Angela Bennett is a shy and awkward computer analyst, whose life is largely confined to being indoors and debugging viruses in games and usually software of some sort. the-net-posterHer whole existence is through the Internet, where she is a talented worker and voracious scourer. One day, Angela is sent a piece of software that strangely allows her to access covert files. Thinking it is just another glitch as she has seen countless of them before, she doesn’t pay a lot of thought to it. Meanwhile, the man who sent her the disc is killed after something causes his plane to crash. Angela, has taken a small vacation to Mexico, as it is her first holiday in over two years and something of a break from her sheltered and self-imposed isolation. While there, she meets the rakish Jack Devlin, who takes an interest in her that she finds flattering due to her mousiness. He is in fact a contract killer dispatched to retrieve the disc that she shouldn’t have seen and kill her before she can alert anyone. Devlin works for a very mysterious organisation who want the disc so they can use it for their shifty and alarming means. After seducing her as well as swiping her photo identification, he attempts to go ahead with his plan to kill her. Thankfully, Angela becomes wise that there is something not right and flees before can kill her. angela-bennettUpon returning to America, Angela is shocked to discover that all records of her existence have been erased. To top this revelation off, the sinister powers that are tracking her have replaced her files with evidence that points to her being a known criminal. She soon has both the police and shady Devlin in pursuit of her as she attempts to outrun them. Desperate to reclaim her life and bring down the people responsible for this, Angela must use all her ability and decisiveness to uncover just what these cyber criminals want and why the disc is of such importance to them.

The Net attempts to emulate the Hitchcock staple of the innocent person caught up in something unexpected and I must say, Irwin Winkler does a credible enough job in getting that vibe across. Not saying that this film is anywhere near the iconic nature and mastery of Hitchcock, but it’s a decent enough stab. While some of the computer technology depicted in The Net is obviously dated, the message of being careful and how easy it can be to stumble onto something much darker than you thought comes through clearly. And if anything, it sort of rings with a timely essence as now the digital age is in full flow, strangely predicted to a certain degree in this film. the-net-jeremy-northamFrom the constant quick cuts of computer jargon and membranes, stylistically The Net is very good at pulling you in to its world of all things cyber and dangerous. If anything sort of lets the movie down it is the pace; at the start it is a little slow to get going, before eventually kicking into a thriller. But even then, some plot points are skated over a bit and fall to the background because the film then goes a bit crazy on the speed. And it must be said that a lot of the film is pretty predictable( you can tell straight off the bat that Northam is a wrong un from the get go), and yet I was still very entertained for reasons I will speak of next. The breathless action at least in part offers a distraction from the seen it all elements there, constituting some tense scenes of Angela being pursued and doing everything she can to survive along with a cool scene of her showing her mettle and playing them at their own game. A nifty score of unraveling beats and ominous intentions keeps the film largely entertaining as a slice of techno thriller.

Sandra Bullock is the glue that holds The Net together. Her infinite charisma and relatability stand her in good stead when playing the coltish heroine on the run. sandra-bullock-the-netThe vibrant Bullock has enough range and appeal to be convincing in the part and the movie’s best asset. She projects an intelligence and ordinariness that I think many people will find endearing, and I certainly found it just that. I mean how can you not like Sandra Bullock? She’s a bundle of talent and she is a strong part of this movie that keeps you glued, even when it gets over the top. Jeremy Northam represents the main villain contingent as a James Bond style assassin, only if 007 was bad to the bone. Northam does good work with the material he is given, though the shortage of meat on his character noticeably affects his work, even with him on charming form. Dennis Miller fares very well as Angela’s only ally who is at first bewildered by everything and then comes around to her ideas of corruption and conspiracy.

So it isn’t going to win any awards, but to pass the time The Net is pretty slick and tense, even if it has an air of predictability hovering over it.

A New Year’s Look Back

01 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by vinnieh in Movie opinions and thoughts

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

A Look Back

Happy New Year to all! I sincerely hope you enjoyed ringing in 2017 in style. I promised I would continue with my look backs at older reviews, so here is the first of this year.

Winter’s Bone

Thelma and Louise 

A Little Princess

Drowning by Numbers

The Prince of Egypt

Never Let Me Go

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Cracks

 

 

 

 

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