The Mummy and The Bride of Frankenstein Double Feature

I really enjoyed the Universal Monsters double features last year (go here and here) so I was excited to learn that a new series of movies is being presented this year, starting with The Mummy and The Bride of Frankenstein.  I had a lot of fun seeing both of these for the first time on the big screen yesterday afternoon!  First up was The Mummy and I really liked it because it was more atmospheric than scary.  During an archaeological expedition in Egypt conducted by Sir Joseph Whemple (Arthur Byron), the mummy of Imhotep (Boris Karloff) is discovered and accidentally brought back to life by the Scroll of Thoth buried next to him.  Ten years later, Imhotep (now known as Ardeth Bey) is desperate to be with his forbidden love, the Princess Ankh-esen-amun, and assists Joseph's son Frank (David Manners) in locating her tomb during a new expedition.  Imhotep comes to believe that a half-Egyptian woman named Helen Grosvener (Zita Johann) is the reincarnation of Ankh-esen-amun and uses all of his powers to try to kill her so she can be mummified and brought back to life again with the Scroll of Thoth.  However, David has fallen in love with Helen and will do anything to stop Imhotep.  The backstory of how Imhotep was buried alive as punishment for stealing the Scroll of Thoth in order to bring Anks-esen-amun back to life is presented as a dream to Helen and his suffering is used as justification for wanting to kill her.  In my opinion, this entitlement is what makes the character of Imhotep so menacing.  Karloff gives an incredibly unsettling performance because he is so still and I was very impressed with the makeup for the mummy (even if this version of the character is not on screen for very long).  Next was The Bride of Frankenstein which is a direct sequel to Frankenstein.  Percy Shelley (Douglas Walton) and Lord Byron (Gavin Gordon) praise the story that Mary Shelley (Elsa Lanchester) once wrote during a stormy night on Lake Geneva but she informs them that there is much more and, as it is another stormy night, she continues (I really liked this framing device).  Both Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) and the Monster (Boris Karloff) survive the fire at the windmill.  Frankenstein returns to Elizabeth (Valerie Hobson) but he still feels compelled to find the secret of immortality until his mentor, Dr. Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger), visits him wanting to collaborate on a new creature and he refuses.  To persuade Frankenstein, Pretorius has the Monster, who now wants a bride, kidnap Elizabeth.  Once again, I was impressed with the vulnerability that Karloff imbues the Monster with, especially in the scenes with the blind hermit (O. P. Heggie).  I also loved all of the elaborate gadgets used to harness the electricity needed to bring life to the bride (Elsa Lanchester) as well as the timpani used in the score for this scene.  Finally, Minnie (Una O'Connor), Elizabeth's maid, brings a lot of unexpected comic relief that made me laugh out loud at one point!  I really enjoyed these movies (seeing them was the perfect way to spend the first day of October) and I definitely recommend seeking them out.

Note:  Fathom Events will also be presenting Creature from the Black Lagoon and Phantom of the Opera as a double feature later this month (go here for more information and tickets).

The Good House

I am a big fan of Sigourney Weaver and, based on the trailer, I (mistakenly) thought The Good House would be a charming story about two people finding love later in life.  As such I decided to see it last night at the Broadway but, honestly, I wish I had gone next door to see Bros with all of the cool kids.  Hildy Good (Weaver) has been the top realtor in a coastal town in Massachusetts for decades and has always been the life of the party.  She provides financial support for her adult daughters, Tess (Rebecca Henderson) and Emily (Molly Brown), alimony to the ex-husband (David Rasche) who left her for a man, and emotional support to a newcomer (Morena Baccarin) to the community.  After a stint in rehab, however, her business is in trouble after a betrayal from someone she once mentored (Kathryn Erbe) and she is confused by a new relationship with an old flame (Kevin Kline).  She begins drinking again, with escalating consequences, until a near tragedy forces her to reach out for help.  Hildy breaks the fourth wall over and over to tell the audience that she is not an alcoholic even though her actions prove otherwise.  Despite a strong performance from Weaver, I found this to be an absolute mess.  There are way too many characters and subplots, including an incomprehensible one alluding fact that Hildy may or may not be a witch like one of her ancestors, and the tonal shifts are all over the place.  The best part is Hildy's relationship with her high school boyfriend Frank (Weaver and Kline have an appealing and lived-in chemistry) but, alas, it does not figure in the plot as much as I thought (or hoped) it would.  This is a boring Lifetime movie about an alcoholic being marketed as a romantic comedy and it certainly was not for me.

Smile

This year has been a great one for the horror genre!  I have seen more horror movies this year than in the past five years combined (some of my favorites include Pearl, Barbarian, Bodies Bodies Bodies, Nope, The Black Phone, Crimes of the Future, X, and Scream) and I added another one to the list last night by seeing Smile.  It is probably not destined to be among my favorites but I enjoyed it for the commentary on trauma.  Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) works at an emergency psychiatric unit and is clearly stressed, overworked, and plagued by a recurring nightmare when she is called in to conduct an intake interview with a psychotic patient named Laura Weaver (Caitlin Stasey).  She hysterically claims to be haunted by a smiling malevolent entity before she smiles at Rose and then cuts her own throat.  It turns out that Laura witnessed the gruesome suicide of one of her professors, who experienced similar hallucinations, before taking her own life and now Rose believes that she might be next.  There are quite a few jump scares but I didn't find them to be particularly scary (several of them elicited laughter from my audience) because most of them are telegraphed well in advance.  However, the narrative is quite unsettling because you are never really sure if Rose is experiencing something real or if her hallucinations are in response to witnessing her mother's suicide when she was a child.  The central theme of unresolved trauma and the PTSD that accompanies it is very intriguing, especially in regards to how it impacts the people around those who suffer from it.  I also liked the use of a smile as a metaphor for repressed trauma because people often smile through their pain and there is a powerful scene where Rose, who is obviously suffering, attempts a smile at a birthday party because it is expected of her.  Bacon gives a compelling and convincing central performance as a woman who is becoming increasingly desperate but I didn't like her character's resolution because I think it sends the wrong message about mental health (in my opinion the movie should have ended ten minutes before it did).  Despite a few flaws, this movie is a great start to the spooky season and I recommend it to horror fans.

Pearl

I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I liked X so I have been anticipating the release of the prequel Pearl ever since I learned about it!  I finally had the chance to see it last night and I think it is a brilliant character study that sets up the events in X very well.  It is 1918 and Pearl (Mia Goth) longs for a more exciting life but her husband Howard (Alistair Sewell) has abandoned her to fight overseas and she is now trapped on her family's farm caring for her infirm father (Mathew Sunderland) and her judgmental mother (Tandi Wright).  She is further alienated from everyone around her when her plans to become the biggest star in the world do not come to fruition.  She eventually decides to take matters into her own hands, thereby becoming the villain we meet in X.  This has a very different style than X, which is an homage to the slasher films of the 1970s such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and takes its visual cues from the Technicolor films from the Golden Age of Hollywood, especially The Wizard of Oz.  It also has a very different tone and feels more like a melodrama than a horror film (even though it has plenty of gore) with a sweeping score to match.  However, it is a perfect complement to the earlier movie because it adds another layer to Pearl's motivation.  She is obviously mourning her lost youth but now we see that she is also envious of all the opportunities that she did not have and I actually found her to be a bit sympathetic.  Goth gives an amazing performance with a monologue in the third act that blew me away where she tearfully confesses to everything she has done and laments the fact that she really had no choice.  It is a very powerful moment.  I was also mesmerized by the long close-up on her face during the end credits!  As with X, I enjoyed this so much more than I was expecting and I recommend it to fans of its predecessor.

Note:  A sequel to X called MaXXXine is coming soon and I'm beyond excited for it!

Bright Star at CPT

I love the musical Bright Star so I am always happy for any opportunity to see it. Last night I saw a production at CPT and it is absolutely stellar! The story takes place in North Carolina during the 1920s and just after World War II and features incredible bluegrass music by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell. Alice Murphy (Anya Wilson) is a young and rebellious teenager in the small town of Zebulon where she regularly exasperates her mother (Jan Williams Smith) and father (Brent Sloan). She begins a romance with Jimmy Ray Dobbs (Jared Haddock) but his father, the Mayor (John Philpott), conspires to separate them. Twenty-two years later, just after the war, Billy Cane (Alex Young) returns to his hometown of Hayes Creek to visit his father (Chad Wilkinson) and his childhood friend Margo (Abigail Ford). However, he soon decides to try writing for a magazine in Ashville where he meets Alice, now an uptight editor who mentors him. The narrative alternates between both timelines as Alice learns to deal with love, loss, forgiveness, and redemption. Even though I have seen it multiple times (PTC, HCT, and HCTO) and know the big twist, I still find the story to be incredibly powerful and heartwarming. I love all of the songs, especially "If You Knew My Story," "Asheville," "I Can't Wait," "Sun's Gonna Shine,"and "I Had a Vision." Wilson (I saw her in the same role at HCTO) has a beautiful voice that is very well suited to the bluegrass genre and I had tears in my eyes during her emotional rendition of "Please Don't Take Him." I was also very impressed by her physical transformation, which happens right before our eyes, from the uptight editor to the rebellious teenager during "Way Back in the Day." Her wardrobe and hair change but it is her expression and physicality that really distinguishes the younger from the older character. The rest of the cast is really strong, one of the strongest I've seen at CPT, but the standouts for me are Haddock, especially the emotionally charged confrontation with his father in "Heartbreaker," and Ford, because she shows a lot of vulnerability in "Asheville." The set features the bare outline of a rustic cabin (I especially loved the rafters with lanterns hanging from them) with many items, such as barrels, crates, wooden doors, fence posts, chairs, and signs, used in multiple configurations to become a book shop, an office, the Mayor's house, a train, and other locations. The members of the ensemble move these items on and off stage seamlessly and it is extremely clever! The choreography really emphasizes the time and place, especially the square dancing during the town social and the swing dancing in "Another Round," as do the costumes. Finally, I really enjoyed the staging of the pivotal train sequence in the reprise of "A Man's Gotta Do" because it is very dramatic (make sure to look up at the top of the proscenium). My only disappointment is that there wasn't a live bluegrass band on stage because it adds so much to the overall feel of the show. Nevertheless, I was very impressed with this production and it is definitely one of my favorites at CPT!  It runs through October 22 (go here for tickets).