Random Movie Report: The Living Skeleton

Japanese horror films were still finding their way in the late Sixties, not having fully formed all of the conventions that we now associate with the geographical subgenre. The Living Skeleton is a unique chiller which benefits from this uncertainty. It has elements of American horror cinema combined with those of Japanese ghost stories, with some pulpy crime and horror trash thrown in for good measure. The results are somewhat inconsistent but benefit from a great atmosphere and a genuine sense of unpredictability.  There's something wonderfully vivid and organic to how the story develops, like a living thing.

At Long Last The Best Movies of 2012

2012 was a movie year so complicated I'm only just now getting around to it. A lot of very good films came out, to the extent that I wondered if I was being overly generous in my grading (something a critic, amateur or not, really needs to not fuss over.) But at the same time there are a couple of worrying trends that make me worry about the modern movie audience just a little. Still, the state of the industry isn't something to panic over just yet. Here's my Top 10.

Random Movie Report: Dredd

In a year full of overlooked films, Dredd is an especially dear casualty. As an attempt to finally do cinematic justice to a British comics legend, it's an unqualified success, but nobody saw it (myself included) and the potential for an entire series of films about everyone's favorite fascist brute force weapon remains unrealized. Perhaps the spectre of the bloated 1995 Sylvester Stallone vehicle looms too large over the franchise, though frankly I'd be surprised if that many people remembered it. Dredd is a leaner beast, its low budget guiding the filmmakers into a straightforward raid story that, as it unfolds, allows for some pointed but subtle commentary and moments that are downright mystical.

RIP Roger Ebert

The death of Roger Ebert is something just about anyone who loves film has cause to mourn. He was a fundamental part of the landscape of film and film criticism, and though his passing follows a long illness and much contemplation about life, death, and how best to approach both. I'm not so good with the heavy stuff, so I'll stick to a short appreciation of the man's work and how important it's been.

Closing Credits Theatre: Dune

Random Movie Report: Highlander 2: Renegade Version

It was always going to be difficult to make a Highlander sequel. Highlander has always been a really great idea for an action movie franchise, but the film's very premise works against it- if it's about immortals battling each other through the ages until only one is left, what do you do when there is, in fact, only one? How do you start up the conflict again without invalidating everything that happened already, and worse, just repeating what's already taken place?

The makers of Highlander 2 were entrusted to find the answers to these questions, and the search drove them mad. Highlander 2: The Quickening is the product of their insanity, a work both stylish and inept, audacious and cliché-ridden, so intensely stupid it wraps around to a kind of brilliance, but the brilliance of a character in a Lovecraft story after witnessing the nuclear chaos at the center of reality.  This review is based on the so-called "Renegade Version", a Director's Cut that tried to restore some semblance of sanity (the original cut was essentially finished by the film's insurance company), mainly by undoing a controversial plot point, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't help much.

Frasierquest 5.11: Ain't Nobody's Business if "I Do"

 

Niles: An engagement ring?  Dad must be about to ask Sherry to marry him.  Do you know what that means?

Frasier: Yes, we're going to hear what Mendelssohn's "Wedding March" sounds like on the banjo!

And it's the end of the road, for one character anyway. When "Ain't Nobody's Business if 'I Do'" aired, I don't think anyone really expected that Sherry would be a permanent fixture on the cast, but her departure is laced with more poignancy than expected. Sometimes sitcom relationships end on funny notes, and sometimes it's a little harder than that. This episode isn't short on comedy, but it treats the end of a long relationship as something worth mourning.

Daphne discovers an engagement ring in Martin's underwear drawer, and comes to the logical conclusion that he's about to pop the question to his longtime girlfriend. She shares her discovery with the Crane boys, and they're naturally less than thrilled at the prospect of Sherry becoming their new mom. Niles takes it a little far and hires a private detective (Tucker Smallwood) to look into Sherry's past to see if there's anything really worth worrying about, and while Frasier is apprehensive, the fact that Sherry has been married five times before is something he feels Dad should know. This of course leads to the inevitable Crane family argument.

The story retreads the familiar ground of Martin's sons having problems with his girlfriend, which may be one of the reasons this is the last Sherry episode. The writers may have figured that after all this time they had done all that could be done with the character, though of course Marsha Mason's availability is just as likely to have been an issue. In any case, it's an end that comes organically; Martin wants to find someone to marry again, and Sherry just doesn't want to go through that. It's the sort of final meeting that nobody wants but which seems inevitable.

Since none of this is funny, the humor has to revolve around Frasier and Niles being their usual selves. They don't really dictate the direction of the plot at all; Martin already knows about Sherry's prior marriages, so all they're doing is pissing him off. But they serve a narrative purpose, bringing up the subject of Sherry's past husbands so that the audience knows about that in advance of it being the reason she and Marty have to call it quits. It's a nice bit of plot legerdemain, steering us towards an unexpected conclusion without seeming obvious or contrived. And of course there's the whole business with Frasier embarrassing himself by still thinking Dad is about to propose to her as they're breaking up, but since the episode's not about him the sting fades quickly, and he ends up commiserating and watching basketball with his dad. (The fact that Jordan was still playing when this aired makes me feel very old indeed.)

What's interesting is just how focused this episode is on this storyline. Rare for this far in the series, there are no real subplots, and Daphne and Roz both only get about a scene apiece. It's not an entirely serious episode, with a lot of screentime spent on the "detective" plot which succeeds in making the Crane brothers look like nosy idiots. But knowing in retrospect what happens puts a pall over things, and so this episode isn't the most fun to revisit. (It's worth noting it also carries the show's weirdest end bumper, a sight gag based on a prop- a fish-shaped hors d'oeuvre display stand for a party Martin is hosting- that you'll barely notice in the episode proper.)

Still, it's a good send-off for Sherry, which she deserved; it's possible her presence would have gotten old as a regular, but Mason does an excellent job in the part, and at the end we get a strong picture of what Martin Crane wants out of his autumn years. It's a bittersweet goodbye which, in a way, foreshadows a much bigger change about to happen.

Written by Jay Kogen
Directed by David Lee
Aired January 13, 1998

Daphne: Sherry's never exactly liked me.  You don't think she'll try to make your father get rid of me, do you?

Frasier: Oh, Daphne, of course not.  He'd be lost without you.

 Niles: Yes, and even if by some chance that were to happen, Daphne, I could always use you. I, I would know of a position you could take ...services that you could perform. I would know of an opening...  [takes up the check] This is on me.