“If it’s not on camera, it’s like it never happened …. right?”

It sounded a little dodgy and I certainly didn’t want to be too hasty about being excited about this latest “official” installment in the Romero Dead series after Land (which I’ve watched most of again recently … in short, it really didn’t warrant a new review, it’s pretty unremarkable) ... but at the same time I kind of couldn’t help myself. Even though this mockumentary horror thing has been done almost to death now since Blair Witch leading through to Cloverfield, bringing the technique to the Dead series sounded pretty fascinating, and any time Romero returns to this series it’s exciting, as they’re always among the most important horror movies, if not always quite the best.

Overall, it works. While it’s not quite the “zombies in a mall” of the masterful Dawn, the social commentary here (though perhaps a little obvious: just about anyone who documents the dreary details of their life in a blog or who has neglected to truly experience a vacation because they were behind a camera the whole time will understand what it’s saying well enough) is certainly more pointed than that in Land.

It gets a little dull towards the end, the whole thing just isn’t as awash with the message as Dawn was, and it frequently becomes “just another teen horror movie”. But the end (“Are we really worth saving? You tell me.”) sends you out with genuine chills running down your spine. It’s in your face and feels like a hammer on the head, but it does the job of “implicating the audience” a million times better than, for example, Funny Games U.S.. There is some humour to counter this depressing stuff, however: I don’t think I’ve laughed more this year than I did over the “Hello, I’m Samuel” sign

The May Day staple Actually, I’m not sure if I’ve ever actually remembered to watch it on May 1st so this may actually be a first though it’s long been the plan. On this occasion I decided to watch the 15-minute-longer “director’s cut” – it took some deciding but in the end I remembered it’s really just the theatrical cut with deleted scenes spliced in so in a way you wind up watching both at the same time if you’re already familiar with the theatrical version.

I don’t think the extra scenes make a huge amount of difference – though it heightens our understanding of Howie to see him on the mainland at the start, the quality of the scenes (I’m not talking about the grainy nature of the print they had to use, I mean the general acting and production quality which dips below perfect more than a few times during the rest of the film) is the film at its most flawed and hokey. The sooner you get Edward Woodward in the same room as Britt Ekland or Christopher Lee here, the better, ‘cos that’s when all its failings go out of the window as it begins to soar into the ether.

It’s one of those films that can be taken many different ways depending on your outlook on all the fronts it addresses. Whether you’re religious or not, what religion that may be, what your moral views and more happen to be (and if you’re anything like me, all these things will tend to shift wildly over time), the movie will affect you differently, but every different interpretation will be just as extraordinary as the next.

Usually when I watch this movie, while I’m not exactly on the side of the Summerisle residents, I find myself just as against Howie as I am them: because of his stubbornness, it’s almost fun to watch him being made (literally, in the end) a fool of, that is, of course, until it all goes too far at the end. This time, I was struck at the end how everybody actually wins and I found his ending almost a triumph for his faith, a sacrifice as powerful as that of Karras at the end of The Exorcist, even though all control is out of Howie’s hands, he makes his own death into something grander … through his singing, his praying, his resoluteness to the end.

The way we see Howie almost wallowing in his religion throughout the movie, most particularly the struggle we see in him as Willow tempts him through the thin walls of the inn, his end here is almost inevitable and almost the only way he can resolve his devotion to that quite miserable form of religion. He wins because until the very end he insists on his own beliefs, he never gives into temptation; by the rules of his religion, not to mention the law, he’s done right.

Contrast that with, by law, the “murderers” of Summerisle, that horrifying image of Lee and others swinging from side to side joyously singing “Summertime is coming in,”: their end is happier, but it’s really no different from Howie’s. They’re just as trapped by the rules of their religion, and they win too.

It’s a stunningly simple set-up, and for me it works everytime, if sometimes a little differently than expected. As I said, it’s flawed, but there’s so much (I haven’t even mentioned the beautiful songs by Paul Giovanni, it’s one soundtrack I’ll never grow tired of) to make up for the dips in quality.

In the hopes of enhancing my enjoyment of the remaining films in my little Shirley Temple “season” lol … okay, the planned programme was delayed for technical reasons … I decided to finally watch this that’s been gathering dust in my room for quite some time. I was immediately more interested when I saw director Nadia Tass’ name in the credits but couldn’t quite remember why – looking up on the IMDb I was reminded, she did two of the American Girl movies including the best one, Samantha, and the even better (non-American-Girl) Amy.

Being TV bound, this production is closer in quality to the American Girl movies than anything, but that’s not bad company to be in. The script feels like it’s really just been culled from snippets of memories and anecdotes (a book by Shirley is credited as the source) and really just breezes through the more notable movies with occasional dips into her homelife which is almost clichéd, daddy spending her money, mommy being stage mommy, brothers being brothers.

I can’t imagine any actress could’ve done a better job than Ashley Rose Orr as Shirley. There’s something kind of tacky and cheap I find about movies like this from the outset (especially when they’re made for TV) and there’s something inherently “wrong” in seeing a young actress in the 21st century in those costumes in full colour*, not to mention how ridiculous it would be easy for the then 10-year-old Orr to feel prancing around in them, but she does it all, from the dancing to the “Good Ship Lollipop” (doing all her own singing), at times (particularly with the singing) almost startlingly well. The faithful reproduction of the movie sets etc, especially considering it’s a TV production, deserves mention too. At times if you caught in in your peripheral vision you’d almost be forgiven for thinking a colourized version of the real thing was on. For what it is, I really can’t fault it, and I personally enjoyed it more than a couple of the actual movies.

* Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with it – but at a time when just about every day now I read about someone somewhere going crazy about pre-teens being oversexualised, I feel like the only way to beat them is to join them.

Well, it took me a little longer than a year to get around to watching this a second time but I feel the distance (from Awards Season if nothing else) helped a lot – knowing where the dots are joined, however, definitely makes a second viewing more revealing.

The huge thing that prevented me from hands down adoring this movie the first time I saw it was, as I think was true for many others, the Rinko Kikuchi storyline, the entirely looser connection to “the whole” compared to the other threads being the main reason. Even that first viewing, I still wanted to overlook that flaw because the story in itself, primarily due to Kikuchi’s astonishingly moving performance, was the one that really got to me the most. That’s still true – but I realised something else about it this time around that makes overlooking the flaw entirely unnecessary. If you just look at the movie thematically rather than as interconnected stories, really, the Kikuchi storyline is perfectly connected to the whole. I won’t elaborate any more than that, there’s tons of speculation on the IMDb etc and it should really be left to the individual to make up their own mind.

The editing really struck me on this viewing too, the transitions between the stories are really old school juxtaposition, like from laughing Japanese schoolgirls to herding goats, the headless chicken in Mexico going to the wounded Blanchett on the bus, Blanchett screaming as her wound is stitched up to silence in Japan (and there, too, from a dodgy-looking needle to sterilized dental instruments), it sells the diversity of cultures across the world superbly in this manner and subtly (okay, not so subtly at times) guides your mind into joining the dots and drawing the message out. It’s perfect, even better a second time around.

December 21st, 2006:

“I’m not bad – I just did a stupid thing.”

Like Little Children, this one is just great in ways I can’t begin to start on after a first viewing. It covers so many things, so many stories, so many characters, so many places, but it’s never too much or too hard to follow. The performances are brilliant, most notably Brad Pitt and Rinko Kikuchi, even though I didn’t quite get the relevance of her story on this viewing (I get it, her dad had the gun, but it just didn’t strike me as being as important to the whole tapestry as the other threads – not that that stopped it from moving me). A movie I’ll definitely be watching again next year and I’ll write more then.

Finally Shirley gets a story. I felt like I could trust this from the off and in terms of pure production quality this is leagues above the other Shirley movies I’ve seen. The sets look right out of a storybook. I’m still left unimpressed by Shirley’s talent – there are a million 6-8 year olds who could deliver this stuff if you only threw discipline into the mix; to me the best child stars are the ones who can do it almost mystically of their own accord (I know, there are a million of those too, but they’re still more special) – but she’s mostly tolerable in the title role.

But though it’s better than some of the Shirley movies (Stand Up and Bright Eyes notwithstanding – I seem to remember enjoying The Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer way back when I saw it too), I still imagine any number of the other Heidi adaptations are more enjoyable (I’ll find out later in the year, I’ve at least 3 in the queue). Which I guess is my point when it comes to the Shirley Temple movies. The defense everyone always uses for them is that she cheered everyone up through the Depression etc. which is fine and dandy but it paints the movies themselves as of the “pure entertainment” variety (which I’m rarely too hot on unless they have something else to them) and on that front they just don’t deliver as much anymore. I won’t deny their historical value, and Shirley herself is “cute enough” ... but there are still hundreds of movies that are more worth anybody’s time.

This is another Temple vehicle desperately light on story. I’d say the songs were nice, especially the main “Codfish Ball” but 2 minutes after the end credits all I had stuck in my head was the awkwardly similar “Lambeth Walk”, lol. There’s an interesting surreal sequence with Shirley as a tiny nurse tending to a man dressed as a baby in an oversized highchair, complete with oversized props and a staircase for Shirley to reach him by. I’d raise the creepy card again, but it’s at least a little visual creativity amidst 75 minutes of bland nothingness.

Again, I probably made an error watching more than one of these in one sitting and this was the one that suffered but all I can do is write what I can about it. This struck me almost immediately as a little too much like Annie, everything that didn’t resemble it only making me wish I was watching Alicia Morton or even Aileen Quinn rather than Shirley Temple. Really nothing special unless you’re crazy for Shirley. It’s 75-minutes of everything going relatively smoothly, with songs liberally sprinkled to pass the time; this doesn’t do a lot for me.

“There ain’t no Santa Claus!”
“Don’t say ain’t! Say isn’t.”

Okay, this is more like it. I was surprised as I checked about 10 minutes into this that it, too, like the three Shirley Temple movies I watched at the end of last week, was released in 1934. She looks a year or two older to me as she appears at the start here, marching down the road in flying leathers hitching a ride to the airport, and she looks a lot more comfortable too.

But just 15 minutes later, I discover, yet again there’s something in this Shirley Temple movie that overshadows pretty much all her contribution. It’s Jane Withers, a screen brat who certainly predated but possibly also exceeds the likes of Patty McCormack in The Bad Seed. It’s astonishing given the clear value Temple held for Hollywood at the time that nobody seems ever to have stepped in and put a damper on Withers’ performance – if it can be called that even. Where Temple is as controlled and directed as ever, Withers seems simply to have been placed on the set with her full knowing that if anyone’s going to notice her over her co-star, then dangit she’s gonna have to scream, lol.

Anyway, the story worked for me and even moved me, despite Shirley’s complete inability to stir empathy in me. James Dunn as the godfather Loop is fantastic, particularly when explaining to Shirley about her mother – and the ending is one of the most beautiful ideas I’ve seen in a movie so old … early in the movie, Loop asks Shirley “how much do you love me?” and she gives him the tightest of hugs, and this he repeats in order to make her hold on as they bail out of a storm-wracked plane with one parachute. There’s some funny business with the Uncle in the wheelchair too. Well worth the watch, and I’ll likely bring it out at Christmas some time as that’s where the movie begins.