The Changling (1980)

Not to be confused with the 2008 Angelia Jolie vehicle Changeling, which is based on real events, The Changeling is a haunted house movie filmed in 1979 and staring George C. Scott and his real life wife Trish Van Devere, one of several films the couple made together. I saw this in a revival showing at The Tower theater in Salt Lake, immediately after seeing the 1932 film The Old Dark House, interestingly both movies feature Melvin Douglas. This movie helped me coin a phrase for a certain type of film which I'm calling 'a big grin movie'. 'A big grin movie' is a film in which something I'm not expecting to happen happens, and I'm so happy about it that I wear a big grin on my face. The 'big grin moment' in this movie happens about half way through and I so didn't see it coming, and it so changed the character of the film for me that I just fell in love with it. I owned a copy of this movie within an hour of finishing it in the theater. If your looking for something you likely haven't seen this Halloween id'd recommend. ****

This would probably have been a *** or ***1/2 star movie but the Big Grin moments pushed it up a notch.

The Old Dark House (1932)

The Old Dark House is a 'old dark house movie', five travelers get standard at an isolated mansion one dark and stormy night, and the proprietors of said property, well they be hiding something, but what? A real good cast including Boris Karloff, Melvin Douglas, Gloria Stuart, Raymond Massey and Charles Laughton in his screen debut. Directed by James Whale this is his follow up horror feature to the tremendously successful Frankenstein, The Old Dark House however was a disappointment at that US box office but did well in the directors native England where the story is set. Whale's good friend Ernest Thesiger has a part in this film as one of the odd residents of the titular old dark house, Thesiger would later appear as Dr. Pretorius in Whale's The Bride of Frankenstein, by far the theater actors best known screen role. The story of The Old Dark House is based on the 1927 novel Benighted by J. B. Priestley, that novel apparently has a lot to do with post World War One disillusionment, there are some remaining vestiges of that plot element in the Melvin Douglas characters backstory, but for the most part that is left out of this screen version, makes me curious about it though. This is an extremely satisfying movie, it has everything you could want from the premise, and packs a lot into a lean 72 minutes, which is good because I think this film benefits from a short running time, you wouldn't want to stretch this material out unduly. I was lucky enough to see this movie in an old theater that dates back to the era when this film first came out, that definitely added to the experience but I'd say it is well worth seeing at home. ****

Winter's Bone (2010)

This is the movie that really launched Jennifer Lawrence's career, and she certainly deserved the attention and credit she got, it is a true breakout performance. Winter's Bone is based on a novel of the same name by Daniel Woodrell and is directed by Debra Granik, who has a very small cinematic canon of only three features, but I should probably check those other two movies out because this was an excellent film. Set among the rural poor of the Missouri Ozarks this film reminded me a lot of my mission, when I spent a good amount of time among the rural poor of the Appalachian south. This is a film about the quest for survival, Jennifer Lawrence's Ree Dolly, who is only 17, must search for her missing father, a sometimes meth maker, when his not making a court appearance could cost the family their home, where she lives with her two younger siblings and her disabled mother. The search is not easy, and there is a scene in this film, and you know it if you've seen it, that is horrifying in a way that I have never been horrified by a film before. Lawrence was Oscar nominated for this at 20, and John Hawkes, who players her uncle in the film, was also nominated, both deservingly so. Calling a film unforgettable is probably an overused phrase, but this movie would be hard to forget. ****

Silverado (1985)

A local theater here has been showing older movies for less then two dollars a ticket so I've gone to see an number of them, mostly movies I'd seen before like the 1938 Robin Hood, An American in Paris, The African Queen and Field of Dreams. I don't know if I had ever even heard of Silverado before, so I came into the film knowing very little about it, beyond that it was a western, who was in it and who made it. So my expectations were practically non existent, and this film really won me over. It's got about everything you could want in a western except for Indians, there is a wagon train, settlers in trouble, a corrupt cattle baron, gamblers, saloon girls, gun slingers of both the crazy and crazy good variety. The cast is also excellent, Kevin Kline gives a great character performance, and a unique one too, I've never seen quite this guy on film before. Also there is Scott Glenn, Kevin Costner, Danny Glover, Brian Dennehy, Rosanna Arquette, John Cleese, Jeff Goldblum and Linda Hunt. Lawrence Kasdan directed and co-scripted, he is responsible for some of the best  Star Wars and a master of constructing a mythic narrative. This film should be much better remembered then it is. ****

Jane and Emma (2018)

A very different kind of Mormon movie, oh darn, am I suppose to write the Church's full long name out each time now? Jane and Emma tells the story of Jane Manning, a free back convert to the LDS faith, and Emma Smith, wife of the prophet Joseph, as they spend a long night guarding the recently martyred body of the latters husband at the Mansion House in Nauvoo in 1844 (there are also a lot of flashbacks). The details of this night are fictional, there is no evidence it ever took place, but rather this long night of the soul serves as a dramatic device to have these two real, historical characters express a lot of feelings. We tend not to see Church history movies like this, told from the point of view of women, told in a manner respectful of faith, but not glossing over historical unpleasantness. A decade or so ago a movie came out called Emma Smith: My Story, which told the story of the prophets wife in a manner fit for a Relief Society classroom, there was only one mention of polygamy in it, and all Emma said was 'I don't like to talk about it'. In Jane and Emma polygamy gets more then one mention, and you see not just Emma's disappointment with the practice, but her downright resentment of it, this feels both understandable and true to me, to our knowledge it is also quite historically accurate. None the less Emma still really loved her husband.

Jane is the kind of the figure who is getting a second look in Church circles. The history of race in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a complicated one, Jane embodies this, she was very much a believer and loyal church member, but she had every reason not to be and that should make her story all the more inspiring to the faithful. There has been a shift, in large part necessitated by easer access to historical materials and previously non mainstream information, wherein the church and its members have had to confront, and gotten more comfortable in confronting, ambiguities and uncertainties in its history. Jane and Emma is in many ways a perfect encapsulation of this, this movie could not have been made by the faithful of 20 years ago, it represents a maturing that should be applauded. It is also a compelling movie, with fascinating central characters and strong performances by leads Danielle Deadwyler and Emily Goss. A worthy and successful experiment. ***1/2

Scream 3 (2000)

This one has a 'once to many times to the well' quality to it, thought at the same time has been very much constructed as a capstone to trilogy, and I appreciate that the creative powers decided not to milk this franchise indefinitely, that would have defeated its purpose. I liked some things about this film, but for the most part it felt very repetitive, and touches on an 'uncanny valley of self awareness'. I really didn't like the ending. My favorite cameo of this film (which actually has quite a few them) is B movie impresario Roger Corman as a studio executive. Also I think this was Emily Mortimer's first or second role in an American movie. **

Scream 2 (1997)

I would say that Scream 2 is the best of at least the original trilogy (Scream 3 review forthcoming, Scream 4 on my 'to watch' list). While with the first film the series was still figuring out what it was, by the sequel it knows, and given that this horror franchise is a knowing tribute to horror franchises its appropriate and meta that Scream would do well  with a sequel (it came out only a year later as well, so this was rushed). The film is marginally better then the original, it finds a way to effectively twist on the villains, given they had already been unmasked in the original, or had they? I liked that this film was set on a college campus, there is a lot of fan service here, arguably too much in the way of homages to the first one, but it kind of had to be like that, its in the nature of this beast, it would be wrong if it wasn't so self referential. My stand out cameo in the first film was 'The Fonz' Henry Winkler as kind of a tight ass high school principal, in 2 the stand was David Warner, who had played Jack the Ripper in Time After Time, as a college drama teacher. ***