Night of the Hunter-DVD

Night of the Hunter, 1955 (Dir. Charles Laughton)

I don't think I will ever get over how creepy Robert Mitchum is. He was creepy in Cape Fear, but once he is transformed into a preacher spouting gospel about good and evil and love and hate while plotting to kill, he takes creepy to a whole new level. The story is simple--ex-con getting close to the widow so he can get her money, but not knowing where it is. He marries her, of course, and then berates her about sin incessantly, meaning he won't be performing his husbandly duties at any point, since the carnal sins are obviously among the very worst. I was a little surprised at the ease with which he was able to manipulate her, but then again, me and religion never saw eye to eye, and heaven knows that using religion to manipulate people is nothing new, so I'm going to let it slide.

Anyway, aside from the religious creepiness, the widow's kids provide the key to this story. I suppose this would be the point where one could insert some dogmatic mantra about kids being innocent in heart or something like that, and so able to see the truth, but I'm not going to do that. I just see a kid that made a promise to an idolized father, and hates the guy who tries to replace him. Plus kids are often stubborn, doing the exact opposite of what an adult asks for the mere sake of being contrary. I know. I once was one.

So make sure you see it.

29fragile days

I found this through "Blogs of Note". I usually check the list out, and usually it's a bunch of technobabble that means nothing to mean but means a lot to other people. But today I found out that there are other filmmakers out there (or maybe just this one) that I can relate to. I think it's worth checking out.

Recent Views

Movies I've recently seen (the abbreviated reviews):

Celebrity (Dir. Woody Allen)-not into it
The Fallen Idol (Dir. Graham Greene)-a must see
The Lady from Shanghai (Dir. Orson Welles)-weird but worth seeing, especially since Wong Kar-Wai is doing a remake with Nicole Kidman
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (Dir. Russ Meyer)-kitcshy camp worth seeing
Diner (Dir. Barry Levinson)-interesting
The Young Girls of Rochefort (Dir. Jaques Demy)-awesomely cool French version of an MGM musical

Maybe since there are no classes for me this summer, I'll have more time to actually write more thorough opinions of these things, and perhaps my thoughts on other things. I'm also working on my own film, so I'll keep everybody posted on that too. (p.s. if you want to donate to the arts in America (i.e. the making of my film), send me a note and I'll tell you where to send the check and get correct spelling of your name for the credits.....)