The Return of the Living Dead (1985)

The film that is generally considered as the true start of the modern zombie movie, Night of the Living Dead, didn't really become a pop culture phenomenon until after repeated television showings in the 1970's. The two writers of that film George A Romero and John A Russo had different visions of what they wanted to do with the now re-invigorated property and parted ways, with Russo retaining the rights to the 'Living Dead' title and Romero free to make his own, ultimately better known series of zombie flicks. Various circumstances kept Russo from making an additional zombie film until 1985 and by that time his vision for the franchise may well have changed. While Romero's films are noted for their subtext of social commentary, Russo's work is decidedly more tongue in cheek.

From the Wikipedia plot description of this movie:

"At a medical supply warehouse in Louisville, Kentucky, a foreman named Frank tries to impress the company's newest employee, Freddy, by showing him military drums that accidentally wound up in the basement of the building. The drum contains the remains of an army experiment gone wrong that inspired the film Night of the Living Dead. Frank accidentally unleashes the toxic gas inside the barrel. Frank and Freddy discover that the body inside the tank has disappeared, believing it to have probably melted. The gas reanimates a corpse inside a meat locker, forcing Frank and Freddy to call upon their boss and warehouse owner Burt Wilson to help them deal with the situation. When the three fail to kill the walking cadaver by damaging its brain and decapitating it, Burt decides to bring the zombie to the nearby mortuary to have its dismembered parts burned in a gambit to destroy it once and for all."

So there you get something of a sense of the movies tone, its a sort of sequel to Night of the Living Dead, only in this film Night of the Living Dead is treated as a heavily fictionalized version of the 'real events' this movie is a true sequel to. While the zombies in Romero's and most subsequent zombie films are relatively easy to kill, you just destroy the brain, Russo's zombies are much more freighting in that they are almost impossible to 'kill', you destroy the brain, you slice them up, they still keep coming at you. These zombies differ from the now generally accepted Romero from in other significant ways, they eat only living human brains rather then all kind of living flesh, they are re-animated corpses in the truest sense not merrily the recently deceased victims of a 'zombie virus', and they are considerably more intelligent, capable of group planning and speech. These latter attributes also make them seem sillier then Romero's zombies.

Despite how terrible and freighting these zombies are, here they are mostly re-animated corpses in various stages of decay from a Louisville cemetery that are brought back to life by the leaked chemical from the medical supply warehouse (though a couple of characters exposed directly to the chemical later join their number, and possibly some of the brain eaten victims as well), this movie is played kind of for laughs. It's a dark comedy, moments of terror intermixed with moments of ridiculousness. In addition to the employees of the medical supply warehouse you have the kind of acerbic director of the neighboring funeral home and a group of 80's style punk rocker youths, the friends of new warehouse employee Freddy. There is also an army colonial based in California who has been charged with eliminating the zombies at all cost should those long missing barrels from the failed army experiment of the 1960's ever show back up. It is because of this latter characters actions that the movies end becomes even more apocalyptic then it might otherwise have been.

One the whole this is an odd but satisfying film, enjoyable for having a take on zombies so different from that of the current norm.  ***

Hitchcock (2012)

In 1959 Alfred Hitchcock was on top of the world, his bright Technicolor thrillers such as North By Northwest were making fortunes, he had a top rated television series and was recognized and admired all over the world. What Hitchcock wasn't however was cutting edge (any more) and that's what he wanted to be. So along comes Psycho, author Robert Bloch's novel based loosely on the life of Wisconsin murder and grave robber Ed Gein. This gruesome property was quickly snapped up by Hitch and with the weight of industry opinion against him the 'master of suspense' mortgaged his own home to get his movie made. In black and white, inspired by an unpleasant  true story, a quarter of the budget of his previous picture, little advertising, and with undertones of homosexuality and mother obsession, not to mention losing its female lead less then halfway through the story, Psycho quite unexpectedly become a phenomenal, cinematic touchstone, career highlight of a success  (Budget $806,947, Box Office $50,000,000).

Based on Stephen Rebello's 1990 non-fiction book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, director Sacha Gervasi's film tells the behind the scenes story of a landmark films creation, from Hitchcock's initial desire to shatter the expectations of all he had done before, to Psycho's ultimate great success. Now Hitchcock pads things, its not a documentary and I'm not sure how much strain Alfred and wife Alma's marriage was going through during all this, and I don't much care either way because the weakness of the film is inherent in the conceit of its basic plot, its just about making a movie, and we know how this one turns out, so its not a lot to hang a 98 minute dramatic narrative on.

The best thing this movie has going for it is Anthony Hopkins as Hitchcock, he does an amazing imitation, with the voice, and in all that prosthetics, but I honestly think it would have been put to better use hosting a new version of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Helen Mirren plays Alma Reville Hitchcock, she's always good and Mrs. Hitch is interesting, but the marital difficulties here feel pro-forma, I'm sure he wasn't the easiest man to live with, but I'm sure she had her ways of dealing with it, they were married for 54 years after all. Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Biel are eye candy who play eye candy of a different era, Kurtwood Smith plays the Breen Office, James D'Arcy suitably brings out Anthony Perkins fay qualities, and Michael Stuhlbarg is safely cast as Lew Wasserman but sadly given the perfectness of this has very little to do.

In short Hitchcock is just an okay movie about a really impressive movie. **1/2

Boise Classic Movies

Classic Nick Online

Rome, Open City (1945)

After Mussolini's ouster from power in mid 1943 it was not long before the remaining Italian government found its self no longer capable of defending the capital and declared it an 'open city', a Nazi occupying force quickly took over and held Rome until the Allies took it in June of 44'. Six months later Roberto Rossellini begin the filming of Rome, Open City based on a screen play co-written by Frederico Fellini, which came about as a fictionalized amalgam of what started as two different documentary projects, one a film about the patriot priest Don Pieto Morosini who assisted the resistance in the' open city' days and was killed by the Nazi's, and another about Roman children who fought the Nazi's during the occupation. With the Italian film industry literally in ruins Rome, Open City was made on the cheap, used real locations, and mostly non-professional actors.

The movie is a slice of life tale about occupied Rome, it tells the stories of a number of different players in the resistance, including a patriot priest (an impressive performance by Aldo Fabrizi), an atheist resistance fighter (Marcello Pagliero) and his pregnant semi-lapsed Catholic fiancé (Anna Magnani, amazing performance) as well as a group of young boys who have formed themselves into a resistance unit, but whose use of home made bombs on occupying targets ultimately draws unwanted Nazi attention to the tenement complex where most of the characters live. A very important early example of what became known as the Italian neo-realist school of film making, Rome, Open City is a dynamic, heart felt, jagged, character infused, tale of courage, all the more remarkable for the hard circumstances of its production, and its incredible proximity in time to the resistance, I mean all involved were making a movie that could have gotten them executed for treason less then a year before. An important and fantastically good film that would be an important addition to anyone's film literacy. ****

Niagra (1986)

As part of  my recent vacation I went with my tour group to a first generation IMAX theater in Niagara Falls, Ontario to watch this 41 "docu-drama" about the famous falls. Basically Niagara is a bunch of little vinyets about highlight moments in the history of the falls, including an Indian legend about its origin, the journey of a former tour boat down the river, a guy who tight rope walked half way across the falls, a middle age lady who went over the falls in a barrel with her cat, and a young boy who survived going over the falls after a boat accident on a family outing in the 1960's. Now the quality of the acting, the costuming (except for the last sequence when they didn't even try to make it look like the 60's), and the style of the music and cinematography kept making me think of the early 1990's church film Legacy, and when the first title card came up in the credits I knew why, 'Directed by Keith Merrill'.

Now my mom grew up with the Merrill family in the San Jose area of California in the 1960's, so I'm more aware of Keith's work then I might otherwise be, though growing up LDS and visiting the Legacy Theater in SLC several times I couldn't help but encounter his work. Keith Merrill was long the go to director for LDS Church produced features, they probably got the idea because this Mormon filmmaker did short touristy films for places like Niagara Falls and the Alamo. As Legacy and later The Testaments: Of One Fold and One Shepard would be the tourist oriented films shown at Church venues like Temple Square, the choice must have felt right. Anyway Merrill has a style that's readily identifiable, its hooky and idealistic, of a best face forward temperament. I've long been curious to see the film that won Keith Merrill his first Oscar early in his career, the 1973 documentary The Great American Cowboy (he later won a second Oscar, in this case for best documentary short for Amazon in 1997), but this early film is surprisingly hard to find.

Niagara is fine for the kind of movie it is, though since they've been showing it at the falls for almost thirty years it might be time for the local tourist board to think about updating it, Keith Merrill's probably available. **

The Velvet Mouse Show