Scream of Fear: (1961. dir: Seth Holt) Totally satisfying b&w Hitchcockian Hammer film. Starts slowly, but sometimes slow is good, and this is one of those times. There's a girl in a wheelchair (Susan Strasberg), a missing father, and apparently nefarious intentions afoot. Is the stepmother wicked (the wonderful Ann Todd in a later role)? Is she in league with the very suspicious doctor (Christopher Lee)? The acting is good, the photography is very good, the ending is most satisfying. And there's high strangeness, as in the scene where the chauffeur dives into a plant-filled pool to search for a hypothetical body.
Perfect Getaway: (2009. dir: David Twohy) This is one of those movies that I thoroughly enjoyed but cannot in good conscience wholeheartedly recommend, partly because I'm a big Twohy fan and apt to enjoy his stuff no matter what, and partly because it's kind of a cheat. When the secret comes out, I mean. Not a HUGE cheat, not like Fincher's the Game or something, where there are so many "don't-asks" involved that the ending is utterly preposterous and you sit there, furious, hyperventilating, wanting very badly to throw your television out the window because it was the unclean vessel through which Fincher communicated his ha-ha-you-trusted-me-and-I-fooled-you piece of crap. Not like that. Just a little. And, because it's Twohy and he cares very much about story, once the secret is out he takes great care to go back and show us how it really does KIND of work, so I'm willing to go with it. Plus, and this is a big plus, this troupe of actors (Kiele Sanchez, Timothy Olyphant, Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich) are so damn much fun to hang out with that I'm willing to forgive a lot. It's WAY more fun than most couple-on-vacation-gets-terrorized movies, and both writing and acting are exponentially better than in most. This Kiele Sanchez is a revelation; Olyphant I love (yes, yes, because of Deadwood, of course, but I love him from other things, too), and what kind of a crazy person doesn't love Steve Zahn?
Of Time and the City: (2008. dir: Terence Davies) Davies snarks on the Queen, the Beatles, Catholics, and modern football goal celebrations. What does he prefer? Wrestling and Mahler, apparently. Big gay English snob. That aside, this tribute to Liverpool in all its complexity succeeds in making it look like the last city in the world where you'd want to send a Spanish footballer who's grown up with the scent of orange blossoms wafting in through his windows. So maybe, although it breaks my heart to say it, it's not a bad thing that Liverpool FC might have to sell Fernando Torres this year.
As far as the movie goes, the pace is slow, regal, from another era. Davies narrates in that old-school toffee-nosed posh voice you used to hear from everybody on the BBC in, well, another era. Lots of poetry: pieces of Housman, pieces of Shelley, over good old footage of Liverpool backstreets and housing developments. Ultimately depressing, as, I imagine, is Liverpool itself (outside of the Anfield practice pitch, that is, and ever since Xabi Alonso left, even that fantastical place may be a little weary and bedraggled).
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