I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK (2006, Park Chan-wook)

I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK gets some points for not wrapping things up with a neat little bow, but they do little to offset the film’s more significant issues. Cyborg’s got a lead performance problem and a stakes problem, something the film tries to avoid acknowledging, which ends up creating an infinite loop.

Im Soo-jung is the titular Cyborg. She’s not really a cyborg; she’s just got schizophrenia, inherited from her grandmother. The film opens with Im at work—a radio factory—where she cuts herself open to put in wires, which mom Lee Yong-nyeo sees as a suicide attempt, not a wireless communications upgrade, and has Im committed. The opening titles cut between the factory scene (which, in hindsight, is probably just Im’s imagination) and Lee explaining the family history to doctor Choi Hee-jin.

For the first act, Cyborg pretends doctor Choi might be important. She is not. She spends a large portion of the film “dead,” which makes no difference to the plot whatsoever. The first act also pretends the other patients in the mental hospital are important. They’ve all got quirks, which the film first uses to introduce them to Im, but soon become leading man Rain’s introduction too. He’s the only unattached male for Im’s new girl in the ward—there’s a love triangle elsewhere, but it’s unimportant—so, of course, they’ve got to pair off. Let’s not get into whether or not Im’s capable of consenting to the physical relationship Rain wants. If he’s not a nice boy, Cyborg gets a whole other (and entirely valid per onscreen events) bent.

Anyway.

Rain’s guy thinks his mom ran off because of him, and no one can convince him otherwise. While Cyborg’s at its most accessible in the first act with the other patients, it’s at its best when Rain is learning how to care for Im. Im only did the radio installation in her arm to get hospitalized so she can track down the white suits who took her grandmother away. Because she’s a cyborg, and she’s going to kill them.

The film’s got a few imaginary sequences with Im going full T-800 on the hospital staff, which is where director Park really flexes. But, unfortunately, they have no bearing on the film because Im doesn’t have any character development, so they’re just ephemeral tangents. They don’t even set the mood for the third act, which is a full romantic drama, as Rain realizes he’s the only boy for Im and feels the weight of responsibility.

If Rain had an actual backstory, it might be a good character arc. Instead, it’s the best Cyborg can offer.

And then there’s Im.

She gives an accomplished quirky performance in the lead. Except there’s nothing else to it. She thinks she’s a cyborg and is trying to figure out how it’s okay. The film’s got a very epical arc involving Im needing to eat; only cyborgs don’t eat. The script’s also got some obvious timeline problems. But then it’s also got Im either fantasizing about her adventures with Rain or Rain fantasizing about his adventures with Im. I think the ultra-violence and body horror is supposed to distract from those details, but… again, they’re just red herrings.

Good special effects and good music (Jo Yeong-wook). Park’s direction is solid, if occasionally tedious. He and co-writer Chung Seo-kyung drag Cyborg out in all the wrong ways. Five minutes of backstory for Rain would’ve made a big difference.

Still, Rain’s a solid lead, Im’s sympathetic, and the film’s usually charming. Monotonous but charming. Cyborg’s got its ups and downs, but it’s OK.

Bell, Book and Candle (1958, Richard Quine)

Bell, Book and Candle has three problems. The first involves Kim Novak and James Stewart’s May-September romance, which I’ll take couple jabs at in a bit. The second two problems are with the plotting, either in John Van Druten’s original stage play or Daniel Taradish’s screenplay. In the third act, Candle forgets its supporting cast had real arcs. Then there’s the matter of the pat romantic comedy ending, which isn’t a surprise but could definitely be better.

Other than those three problems, however, the film’s a charming Christmas movie. Literal Christmas movie—the present action starts on Christmas Eve, and the film came out on Christmas Day in 1958. It quickly jumps ahead a few months and then a few more months, so it ends somewhere in April, but Christmas kicks it off.

See, witches can’t go to church and listen to carols on Christmas Eve, so cultural art dealer Novak is in a mope. She’s sick of being a witch, something aunt Elsa Lanchester doesn’t understand—Novak could be a super-witch if only she’d try, but she’s been refusing to use her powers. Maybe because the other example is her brother, Jack Lemmon, who apparently uses them all the time for his love life. And to turn off street lights.

We never see anything about Lemmon’s love life. For a movie about witches and their powers, Candle’s very limited in the hijinks. No nose twitching here.

Novak watches new-to-the-building Stewart come home from work and muses—to her adorable cat, Pyewacket (who seems to have been tranquilized to achieve such filmic mellowness)—how she wishes she could meet a man like Stewart: just a normal, professional non-magic dude, twice her age.

Even for 1958, Stewart’s clearly too old for Novak or his fiancée, Janice Rule. My friend pointed out if they’d just dyed his hair from grey to brown, it would’ve been less constantly noticeable. Because Novak really gets interested in Stewart after discovering college rival Rule is going to marry him. Stewart’s got a line about watching Rule grow up and then—when she went off to Wesleyan and came back—really grow up.

Yuck.

But also, Novak can stop talking about Stewart being so hot, which is even more of a disconnect when it turns out he’s doing a silly physical comedy performance for the film’s second half. He mugs at the camera a bunch; does a great job of it, but it’s a strange romantic comedy lead.

It could be worse; they could specify he’s friends with Rule’s dad.

Anyway.

Novak casts a spell to make Stewart fall in love with her instead of Rule. So Novak’s got this very complicated arc—she likes Stewart, but as a witch, can only play with him naughty-like and wants something different; she hates Rule, which helps her get over the hesitation in playing with Stewart’s brain chemistry; she doesn’t want to be a witch anymore—magic folks like brother Lemmon and Greenwich Village witch society matron Hermione Gingold have made it cheap. So Novak’s got a lot going on, with no support from Lemmon or Lanchester.

Worse, Lemmon teams up with author Ernie Kovacs to write a book about the actual Greenwich Village witch scene. Without Lemmon, Kovacs would be writing a hack job, but Lemmon wants it real. In addition to not wanting the world to find out about witches, Novak doesn’t want Stewart to find out she magicked him in love with her (and out of love with Rule).

Stewart’s a book publisher, and Kovacs is writing the book for him, so it’s all neatly tied together.

Despite the age difference—or because of it—Stewart’s spellbound interest in Novak works, as does her growing (problematic) resentment of it. Lemmon and Kovacs are a great duo; Lemmon’s pretty good on his own, just a little thin since his apparently important Casanovaing is absent on screen, not to mention entirely losing his narrative arc at the finish.

But Kovacs is a revelation. He’s a fidgety, perpetually confused drunkard. Despite being brought to New York by magic, it’s just as believable he would’ve come on his own in the middle of a drunken musing. He’s great from his first scene, something the film seems to acknowledge and showcase, but then chucks him for the finish. He was just an excisable subplot, after all.

Lanchester’s delightful. No heavy lifting, but delightful.

Rule’s fine. It’s a tricky part from any angle. We never find out if we’re supposed to be at all sympathetic to her, but all signs point to no.

Stewart’s good. He’s better at the transfixed romance or the dad jokes. He’s supposed to be aloof the other times. Only he’s Maugham’s New York publisher; he can’t be too aloof. Plus, he’s hipper than Rule.

And then Novak. She’s terrific. It’s her movie (other than when Kovacs is onscreen), and it’s a solitary one. She’s got no real confidants, not even the cat. Everyone wants something from her. Great fodder for an arc. Not a great resolution for the character; it’s not necessarily a reductive one, but it’s also very potentially a reductive one. The film’s missing the right punchline.

Bell, Book and Candle’s cute, funny, well-acted, and well-produced. Quine’s direction is fine—he’s rather good with the actors—and James Wong Howe’s photography is fantastic. It’s an all right showcase for Novak (though it’s all about Kovacs, obviously), but it needed a bit more oomph in the third act.

This post is part of the Kim Novak Blogathon: A 90th Birthday Celebration hosted by Ari of The Classic Movie Muse.

Désirée (1954, Henry Koster)

With some notable omissions (paramours, they’re French, after all), Désirée is shockingly historically accurate. Napoleon really did have an ex-girlfriend named Désirée, who ended up the queen of Sweden, her husband his former general and then adversary. The film gets big and little details right. On its face, Désirée is just a resplendent CinemaScope melodrama. The costumes are gorgeous, the sets are grandiose, the performances are… well, more on the performances in a bit.

Jean Simmons plays Désirée. She does well aging up over the years, though the film’s makeup and hair designers roll back some of the aging in the third act. Not just for Simmons but everyone (except Marlon Brando). Simmons starts the film as a young woman—no longer a child or something to that effect—who happens to meet a man and invite him over to meet her sister, played by Elizabeth Sellers. The man is Joseph Bonaparte (played by Cameron Mitchell, who works his ass off in the background part). He brings along his brother, Napoleon (Brando). The brothers pair off with the sisters, Mitchell and Sellers, Brando and Simmons.

At this point, Napoleon’s a success, but not enough of one anyone’s listening to his ideas. The film tracks Napoleon’s story through Simmons’s informed, nearby perspective, which seems like a narrative device but, again, is actual history. Obviously, the better story is more focused on Simmons and Désirée, but it’s a CinemaScope melodrama. Brando eventually throws Simmons over for Josephine (Merle Oberon, who’s great in a glorified cameo), and Simmons ends up with general Michael Rennie. Rennie’s pretty sure Simmons spends her life in love with Brando, which provides a real subtext to their relationship as things get complicated first by Brando’s rise to power, then Rennie’s move to Sweden in opposition to him.

Most of the history comes through in Simmons’s diary entries (the film’s based on Annemarie Selinko’s historical fiction novel done as the real Désirée diary), and the second half of the film is just a series of quick, sometimes fun, sometimes not scenes. Simmons and Rennie have chemistry, Oberon and Simmons have chemistry (Simmons can have kids with her French general, Oberon can’t with hers), and then Sellers and Mitchell, every once in a while, show up and provide all this character. There’s also a whole movie in Simmons and Seller’s older brother and guardian (an uncredited Richard Deacon) bickering with the Bonaparte sisters; not sure of the historical accuracy of that bit.

While Brando and Simmons get the top billing, followed by Oberon and Rennie, it’s really Simmons’s picture. Brando should get an above-the-title “and” credit after Rennie. Every time Brando shows up in his fake nose and pound of make-up, he’s done like one portrait of the actual Napoleon or another. Director Koster shoots him in medium and long shots, sometimes to show off the sets, which is both good and bad. The bad is when they’re the wanting exterior sets, and the shots are framed to fit the set decoration exactly. Again, CinemaScope melodrama.

In his first scene with Simmons, Brando brings some intensity. It’s also the only scene where he’s shot in anything near close-up. The only other intensity he’ll bring later is rapey; he’s always trying to get Simmons alone, regardless of their spouses. It’s not a good performance from Brando. He’s got no insight into the character, either as written (Daniel Taradash’s script does give him some material, too, Brando just ignores it) or historically. Instead, Brando lets the make-up do the acting. And whatever Koster and cinematographer Milton R. Krasner do to make Brando seem shorter. Is it forced perspective, is it heels, or did they hire lots of taller people? Rennie was 6’4”, Brando was 5’9”, Simmons was 5’6”.

Anyway.

Simmons is solid in the lead. However, she doesn’t really get a character arc because her destiny (get it) is tied to Brando. Rennie’s okay too. Brando’s not incompetent, just not good or interesting. He’s got nothing to say with the performance.

The production’s decent, though Alex North’s music is a little flat. Koster’s a bland visual director, but he’s got his moments with the actors and some of the staging.

Besides wasting Brando as Napoleon, Désirée is a perfectly reasonable and surprisingly historical CinemaScope melodrama.

Love’s Labour’s Lost (2000, Kenneth Branagh)

It’s a funny idea, and it would explain a lot about Love’s Labour’s Lost, but I don’t think screenwriter, director, and co-producer Branagh cast Alicia Silverstone on a bet regarding whether or not he could get her to deliver an okay monologue.

He succeeds and she succeeds, but just okay, and it takes most of the movie. No, outside Adrian Lester, Natascha McElhone, and maybe Carmen Ejogo, Branagh doesn’t seem to have any actors in the leads he’s happy with. He’s one of the eight leads, of course, and he’s delighted with himself. He shows off somewhere in the late second act; he and McElhone get to do a scene from a great Shakespeare production in a middling adaptation on a disappointing set.

Branagh’s Labour’s is set just before World War II. Unlike some adaptations, the World War II setting will be necessary to the film’s narrative. Unfortunately, not so much to the character development because Silverstone’s the Princess of France, and asking her to do character development and deliver one okay monologue is a bridge too far.

Okay, real quick, here’s the setup. Top-billed and “lead” Alessandro Nivola decides, with war looming, he’s going to lock himself up in a library and learn for three years. Obviously, in the original play, there wasn’t World War II looming, but the effect in this Labour’s is to make Nivola seem like a foppish Eurotrash jackass who doesn’t care about the Nazis. Or would if Nivola had any character development. The film’s a musical—supposedly a thirties musical homage but not at all because there are usually only six performers and the movie’s Panavision—and Nivola manages to sing, dance, and monologue just well enough for his performance not to be a failure. He doesn’t succeed at anything, though, not even on a curve, especially not as far as romancing Silverstone.

See, Nivola and sidekicks Lester, Matthew Lillard, and Branagh have sworn off women for their academic pursuits. Silverstone and her sidekicks, McElhone, Emily Mortimer, and Ejogo, are on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan (or whatever Nivola’s country’s called, sadly not Freedonia) and they read the boys won’t be able to talk to them. Because of Branagh’s staging, directing, and Silverstone’s acting, the intentional trickery falls flat. There are multiple disguise sequences, which Branagh also messes up. He does a great job directing some of the film—not the musical numbers, except when it’s Nathan Lane, who’s the GOAT, and somewhat Timothy Spall, who feels like a Branagh idea gone wrong, not a studio casting mandate.

Oh, right, another thing: the songs performed by these not singers and dancers (except Lester and Lane) aren’t original to the film. They’re doing covers of thirties show tunes, which weren’t written with World War II or, you know, the King of Navarre’s romance troubles in mind. There are some good numbers (very much not dinner theatre Fosse) but never particularly good. Never good enough to cover the problems. So why do them?

Though when they’re not doing a musical number, Branagh relies on composer Patrick Doyle’s score to do all the film’s emoting. Even during Branagh and McElhone’s scenes.

The film barely runs ninety minutes and manages to plod through much of that runtime. Unfortunately, it takes way too long to get anywhere with the romance pairings—the musical numbers are asides, irrelevant to the plot—and then it’s time for the movie to end. Except, Branagh’s still doing a World War II movie, and he somehow brings it to a satisfactory conclusion. Miraculously, given the film’s annoying newsreel footage summary device… not to mention the very uneasy previous eighty or so minutes. It’s a hell of a save.

Performances: Branagh, McElhone, Lane; they’re great. Lester’s good. Spall and Ejogo get an incomplete. Nivola and Silverstone pass, him likable, her sympathetically. Lillard and Mortimer aren’t entirely unlikable, but they’re too thin to be sympathetic.

Technicals are all good. Alex Thomson’s photography’s great. Utterly wasted but great. And editor Neil Farrell is up to Branagh’s considerable requests for cutting the film into something sensical.

Whoever did the lackluster sets… it’s not their fault. Either Branagh didn’t have the money he needed, or he was bullshitting his way through the project. Seems more like the latter.

But one hell of a save for that finale.

Hansan: Rising Dragon (2022, Kim Han-min)

About half of Hansan is a naval battle. The second half. The first half is a combination history lesson, period espionage and turgid war thriller, and naval warfare theory symposium. The film’s about Admiral Yi Sun-shin, who kicked the invading Japanese navy’s ass in the sixteenth century. Despite being in command, lots of folks questioned Yi, and then he also was trying new tactics and types of warships. Park Hae-il plays Yi. He’s almost indistinguishable from a wax sculpture; Yi was a pensive, reserved fellow, but Park plays him without any personality whatsoever. Not because Park’s bad, but because director and co-writer Kim Han-min doesn’t do character. Hansan’s utterly absent memorable characters, which is something else for a war movie.

It’s also fine because Hansan is a history lesson. There’s a compelling but narratively problematic prologue with Japanese admiral and general dick Byun Yo-Han inspecting a destroyed warship. The Korean navy has some kind of “turtle ship” with a Dragon head on it, which terrified the ship’s crew as it destroyed the vessel. Now, there have been numerous movies about mystery vessels; at least three James Bonds and maybe a Godzilla. Except there’s no mystery. It’s just Park’s latest idea, though he doesn’t like the dragon head.

Kim and co-writer Yun Hong-gi pull back on the narrative distance so incredibly far their characters lose all perspective. Despite Hansan’s first hour being about Byun wondering what Park’s going to do, while Byun’s allies give him shit and Park’s allies give him shit, and they both try to spy on one another, no one ever learns anything in the film. It’s a history movie with the cause and effect removed.

It also doesn’t matter because the second half is a thrilling naval war movie about the application of firepower on sea-going vessels. Hansan shows its hand in the first half; Park drills the Korean navy with the tactics he’s going to use in the second half. The movie shows off the shark first thing (relatively) but still gets plenty of mileage out of it in the battle. There are some surprises, of course, which unfold the same way as the rest of the film’s reveals. A character is alone, remembering a plot twist a few scenes before, completely changing the nature of their subplot. The film does it at least three times, possibly four, saving a major—but not—reveal for the finale.

But it all still works because Kim pulls off the sea battle. There are some land battles too, which he does okay with, but clearly, the thought went into the warships, and it shows.

The best performance is easily Byun, who gets to relish in unrestrained villainy while almost everyone else has to show some decorum. Kim Sung-kyu is good as an enemy prisoner who coincidentally encountered Park in the flashback. Park Ji-Jean has a fun part as the shipbuilder. Park’s okay; the movie doesn’t ask him to do anything, just stand there. Admittedly, there aren’t many options when you’re just supposed to be watching some quiet thinking guy quietly think.

The technicals are all solid. Han Hyun-gun and Lee Gang-here’s editing is a little impatient in parts—there’s a three or four-minute history lesson montage after the prologue, and it’s too hurried. After threatening dozens of characters, Hansan boils down to like six people before the sea battle. Kim and Yun get way too complicated. Once it settles into the espionage subplot, with actual players, it works much better.

But, again, doesn’t matter so long as the sea battle pays off. The movie starts promising a great sea battle, then delivers it. Along the way, there’s some good filmmaking, decent acting, and compelling history, if not character drama.

Hansan’s a qualified, impressive success.

Hereditary (2018, Ari Aster)

For better or worse, once the film proper starts, Hereditary doesn’t have a single wasted moment. Every little thing is important in the end, whether it’s how dead grandma wanted favorite grandchild Milly Shapiro to be a boy or Toni Collette’s justified fears of hereditary schizophrenia. I mean, the title’s Hereditary and she’s got a first act monologue about her brother suffering when he was in high school. And, wait, isn’t Collette’s son, played by Alex Wolff, about the right age for a similar ailment?

Maybe it’s Hereditary.

There are three big plot “twists” in the film, but writer and director Aster wants everyone on the lookout for more. Colin Stetson’s music sets them up, scene after scene. When the film’s building through the first and second acts, it seems like it’s heading somewhere unexpected. By the third act, it’s clear the film’s heading exactly where it said it was heading and why would anyone get distracted by the red herrings, especially since they usually involve dad Gabriel Byrne being suspicious and Byrne’s a red herring himself.

But the red herrings aren’t wasted moments. They’re in the film to confuse both the characters and the audience. It seems to work on the characters, though they have help from Aster intentionally casting doubt on them, but once Hereditary is on the horror movie rails it gets on, it never deviates. The third act’s rote, duplicating story beats from other films in the same sub-genre. It also upends the regular cast, meaning Hereditary doesn’t give Collette a great role. She gives a great performance, but it’s not a great role.

The film opens with its only superfluous moment—an obituary for dead grandma, introducing the characters by name and some general ground situation stuff. Collette’s eulogy covers the same material, so it’s just for mood, only then not. It’s just there to be ominous, not figure into a late-second-act character thread, like everything else in the film. It also stands out because it’s not visual, and director Aster is all about the visuals. Collette’s an acclaimed miniaturist who makes scenes from her tragic, terrifying life as dioramas for wealthy New Yorkers. The film shot in Utah, but there’s no specific location mentioned (if there’s a Mormon subtext besides them being secret Satanists, it’s too subtle).

Anyway.

Aster does a great job transitioning between the doll house rooms and the actual rooms of the house, maintaining the same narrative distance and style throughout. Hereditary’s a great-looking film, with cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski and Aster always gently implying the uncanny. While Stetson’s music hammers in the uncanny. Besides the music (and maybe Jennifer Lame and Lucian Johnstown’s cuts), the film’s pieces are all subtle. Brought together, they’re anvils.

So while Collette’s trying to reconnect with daughter Shapiro, she’s also got this weird relationship with Wolff, which gets explained somewhere in the second act, but by then, it’s a little too late. The film obscures the ground situation for later impact; it ought to be able to cover for it, thanks to the quality of the filmmaking and then Collette and Wolff being terrific, but then they’re stuck with Byrne.

Byrne’s fine. It’s the part. He’s got no chemistry with any of the family members. Aster writes him as detached and obtuse, but he’s actually doting. It’s a weird fail. Fixing Byrne’s part might fix the movie. It also might not.

Shapiro’s good. It’s a slightly less thankless part than Byrne’s, but only slightly. Ditto Ann Dowd as Collette’s new friend from grief anonymous.

Hereditary looks and sounds great, with seventy percent of a phenomenal Collette showcase, but it is very much what it is and not an iota more.

See How They Run (2022, Tom George)

Sam Rockwell can do an English accent. See How They Run occasionally has him use it but mostly has him stone-face while sidekick Saoirse Ronan amiably chatters away. The movie only asks Rockwell to act once or twice; he can do it with the accent. He’s not really a stunt cast because the movie doesn’t have him do anything, so it doesn’t get anything from him. He and Ronan are fine together. She’s the one who acts, he reacts, so their scenes all work off her momentum. For a while, it seems like the film’s building towards them as a duo, which works.

Sadly, it doesn’t end up going there, instead taking an ill-advised diversion involving a big-time Shining nod (though Amanda McArthur’s production design sets it up, lots of red carpets), where detective Rockwell talks to the murder victim at an art deco bar. It’s part of the second red herring suspect—as narrator Adrien Brody (an American film director in London adapting a stage play) would say, comes with the territory in a whodunit. See How They Run constantly reminds it’s a genre piece and shouldn’t be judged too harshly. Usually to modest but satisfactory effect. The problem with the second red herring suspect isn’t the red herring; it’s the lack of a third. They just go right into the finish, which involves bringing in the supporting cast and putting Rockwell and Ronan in a charming but pointless driving montage.

Because once the film inexplicably gives up on Ronan and Rockwell as a duo, it becomes a relatively engaging Agatha Christie spoof. Ronan and Rockwell were just diversions. Though then, the movie ditches the suspect pool to a fantastic cameo and an elaborate in-joke involving Brody’s film director before finally settling on being an unofficial advertisement for the Mousetrap, the longest-running play in the world.

See How They Run is set in 1953, during the first cast’s run, meaning someone is playing Richard Attenborough—Harris Dickinson. Dickinson is 6’1” and change. Attenborough was infamously shorter; pretty sure it was a plot point in at least one picture, if not more (he was 5’7”). The problem with Dickinson is he’s never a suspect. Neither he nor wife Pearl Chanda. It wouldn’t matter except the movie’s short murder suspects.

The first prime suspect is screenwriter David Oyelowo, who doesn’t get along with the victim. He doesn’t get along with the victim, Brody, his boyfriend Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, or anyone else. Oyelowo gets the film’s “and” credit; he’s the closest thing to a stunt cast.

And he’s not up for the task. He’s okay, but never anything more, once too often less. It’s an adequate performance, nothing more. Ruth Wilson and Brody are the other supporting cast members with the most to do. Brody’s amusing as the unlikable American, while Wilson’s only around to fill in backstory for other suspects.

Director George often uses a split screen device to show different characters’ perspectives. It’s almost good once, but it’s a padding gimmick. Run’s artificially enthusiastic.

Luckily, the cast and production are enough to get it through. It’s not a good star vehicle for Ronan, but she’s definitely the star in it. Until the third act, anyway. The third act’s a mess.

See How They Run’s fine. Affable, likable, engaging, disposable, which puts it ahead of the Mousetrap play if the samples are any indication.

Dracula (1979, John Badham)

This Dracula adaptation takes place in 1913, which is only important so leading lady Kate Nelligan (battling and sometimes winning her English accent) can be a suffragette, and her beau, Trevor Eve, can drive a motorcar. So there can be a car chase. Or three.

The film begins already in England. A ship is having trouble at sea; the crew is trying to get a wooden crate overboard, but they’re too late, and a wolf attacks them. On land, Nelligan lives with her father, Donald Pleasence, who runs a mental institution. Her sickly friend Jan Francis is staying with them. Nelligan helps out in the institution, where the patients aren’t so much violent as profoundly tragic.

After the boat crashes, Francis goes down to the shore and discovers a lone survivor and apparently the ship’s only passenger, a Transylvanian count. We don’t get to see him for a while; Dracula, down to the John Williams score, is a late seventies studio blockbuster. The height of pre-ILM special effects, many smartly executed composite shots, exquisite matte paintings, and Superman: The Movie moments. Down to Laurence Olivier’s stunt cast as Van Helsing, who isn’t a vampire hunter, just a grieving father. Francis is his daughter, and she’s not long for the world. Or movie.

The film’s first hour is moving the pieces around so Langella and Nelligan can have a romance. They need to overcome hurdles, like her presumed engagement to Eve (apparently, they both were just fooling around) and Langella’s desire to create a vampire army to destroy the humans. Starting with Francis.

But since Nelligan disappears in the second half of the film—she’s the vampire’s victim, the fair maiden the men must protect—the film loses its romance angle. Langella hangs out to menace the good guys, but he also vanishes for a stretch. The third act misses them, particularly Nelligan, who never gets to sit with her burgeoning vampiric attributes.

Instead, it’s all about Olivier, Pleasence, and Eve teaming up, though in stages. Olivier and Pleasence get one set piece, then Olivier gets another, then Eve finally gets to team up for the car chases. Despite the good guy plot being Olivier’s movie, he makes room for his costars. He and Pleasence have a delightful rapport; before Olivier arrives to check on Francis, Pleasence is an absent-minded dad-type. He relies on Nelligan for a lot of the institution work, and he’s settled into fine country living when he’s off the clock. He doesn’t even remember how to help someone choking; it’s been so long since he’s practiced real medicine.

When Olivier arrives, Pleasence becomes his Watson. At least until the third act, when there’s not enough room for Pleasence anymore.

Director Badham is often ostentatious; despite the English shooting locations, Dracula’s very American—just listen to Langella’s accent (or lack thereof). Or, really, Nelligan’s English one. Olivier does a heavy accent, which is fine; his performance just doesn’t have any nuance. He doesn’t need it, I suppose. Francis’s accent’s terrible, though. It always sounds like she’s mumbling.

The film wraps up with a conflicted statement about Nelligan’s agency under the patriarchy—Langella’s offering her real power; she just has to eat people—but it’s a reasonably successful adaptation. Langella’s mesmerizing as a dashing Dracula, and he and Nelligan’s chemistry is good. Pleasence and Olivier are fun. Eve’s fine. Tony Haygarth’s a relatively harmless but still terrifying Renfield.

Lovely photography from Gilbert Taylor and good editing from John Bloom. The Williams score is just okay; he doesn’t have a good “Dracula theme,” which he needs.

Great costumes from Julie Harris and production design from Peter Murton. Dracula’s often sumptuous. It’s a little slow, but it’s all right.

This post is part of the Devilishly Delightful Donald Pleasence Blogathon hosted by Gill of Realweegiemidget Reviews and Barry of Cinematic Catharsis.

Little Woods (2018, Nia DaCosta)

It’s impossible to say how Little Woods would play if Lily James weren’t terrible. As is, the film’s a waiting game to see if James will ever have a good scene. Spoiler alert: she doesn’t. She’s so bad I was expecting the production company to be “Lily James Productions.” She lets down writer and director DaCosta and lead Tessa Thompson’s ambitious, searching work every moment, but she also never seems to be trying. It’s a bewilderingly bad performance in a non-vanity project.

Woods is one third character study of Thompson, one-third examination of her and James’s relationship, one-third rural America drug thriller. That second third, the one involving James, ought to be a character study too, but James is so flat it can’t happen. Sometimes it seems like she’s just terrible opposite Thompson, who tries to hold scenes up and sometimes succeeds. Sometimes not, of course.

But James is also bad opposite baby daddy James Badge Dale (who’s fantastic as a mediocre white guy) and baby Charlie Ray Reid. James and Dale have weird scenes together where it’s like James doesn’t know she’s supposed to know Dale even though they’ve got one kid, Reid, and another on the way. Then her scenes with Reid come off as bored babysitter, not a struggling, loving mama bear.

There are a bunch of unresolved plot threads, and they could either be just unresolved plot threads or more James scenes removed because they bring the movie down even more. She can’t handle anything. Not even pouring coffee (she’s a diner waitress).

Meanwhile, Thompson can handle all of it. Even when Woods’s plot details get a little absurd, which James’s acting make worse, Thompson can handle it. She’s fantastic.

The movie opens with Thompson finishing her probation for drug smuggling from Canada. She was bringing over cheap meds for those in need and oxy to sell to the local working addicts. Since probation started, her adopted mom (presumably James’s birth mom, but dead mom doesn’t mean anything in the movie) died, and the bank is foreclosing on the house. All the timeline stuff is unclear; all the ground situation stuff is unclear. DaCosta sometimes goes for moody, but not in the first act, so it’s uneven.

Lance Reddick plays Thompson’s probation officer. He’s very supportive and encouraging; if there’s a story to him and Thompson being the only Black people in the movie, it too got cut. He’s there primarily for tension and exposition dumps. It’s a fine stunt cast.

Just as Thompson’s about to get out of the life for good, rival dealer Luke Kirby asks her to team up—she’s just so much better at dealing than anyone else. But she’s out. Unless James does something silly like get pregnant again because James can’t handle anything by herself.

Things go from bad to worse for Thompson, and everyone has to make some drastic, life-changing decisions. Except Dale, because he disappears sometime during the second act like they cut him dying, but—again—it was probably just another atrocious scene with James.

Really strong direction from DaCosta, who can’t do anything with James’s performance but works great with everyone else. If James’s performance were good, who knows? If it were great—on par with Thompson—it’d be exceptional just to get those two performances together. Except not with James.

Solid, but sometimes too DV photography from Matt Mitchell. Nice editing from Catrin Hedström and music from Brian McOmber and Malcolm Parson.

Little Woods has a fantastic Thompson lead performance and some fine directing, but James lets all the air out of the tires.

American Made (2017, Doug Liman)

While Tom Cruise is most of the show in American Made, it’s not a star vehicle. Star vehicle suggests it’s got somewhere to take him. Made exists because of Cruise’s likable performance, not the other way around. Thanks to that likability, he even gets away with an eighties TV “Louisiana” accent. The film also avoids putting an age on Cruise’s character—real-life person Barry Seal was thirty-nine when the movie starts, while Cruise (here in his mid-fifties) can play thirty-nine, mentioning it might get audience members doing math and distract from the fun.

Made’s just fun. Based on the true story of an airline pilot who went to run drugs and guns for the CIA and Pablo Escobar, the film’s a hand-held period piece action crime comedy. Most of the action’s in the first and second acts before Cruise becomes an Arkansas land baron. His CIA handler (an okay but bland Domhnall Gleeson) wants a spot to train the Contras in the U.S.; near Cruise’s private airstrip makes perfect sense since he’s bringing them into the country anyway.

The film avoids all the logistics of Cruise’s operation. If Made’s accurate, anyone with a plane can fly in and out of the U.S., avoiding detection by flying low—the plane photography in Made’s excellent and only occasionally obviously CGI—no filed flight plans, no FAA, no nothing. So who’s lying to us, “Wings” or Made?

Also, getting into the minutiae would cut down on the fun. Director Liman and star Cruise are sure Made is going to be a lot of fun, as Cruise gets favors from a certain Arkansas governor, hangs out with Ollie North and Manuel Noriega, all while avoiding Cruise and Wright’s kids to the point their names and number aren’t necessary. They start with one or two and end up with at least three, but it could be four. Wright’s okay when the movie’s got something for her to do, which isn’t often. Not even after her deadbeat little brother (an okay but bland Caleb Landry Jones) shows up and starts bringing about Cruise’s downfall because he’s a dumb redneck.

There are a lot of Confederate flags in Made and Cruise’s definitely a Johnny Reb, along with all his team of pilots, and the soundtrack’s almost entirely “Country Rock before they started wearing the hoods on stage” classics. We wouldn’t know if anyone was actively racist or bigoty because there aren’t anything but white people in the movie. Cruise has a cute scene with a Black kid at one point, and it’s like someone realized they needed to clarify.

Speaking of the other pilots… while William Mark McCullough is the only one to get any real scenes outside montage or long-shot, I swear one of them is John Glover, but he’s not credited anywhere. IMDb’s missing the character (they’re called “Snowbirds,” which sounds like a Bond villain’s all-female killer ski bunny squad, and there’s no “Snowbird #3,” who’d be Glover).

Anyway.

American Made’s well-produced, with always okay direction from Liman. César Charlone’s photography is occasionally too “DV,” particularly in the cockpit shots, but never bad. Editor Andrew Mondshein does a fine job with the innumerable entertaining montage sequences. Made’s fine and fun, with a delightful Cruise lead performance, but it’s entirely fluff.