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Reviews
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Something Mechanical That Appears to be Organic.
Without question this is Malcolm McDowell's great performance of a lifetime and should have won a Best Actor at the Academy Awards. His incredible facial smirks run the gamut from viciousness to sarcasm to sexual enticement to pathos - ALL with superb humor. I've viddied this movie often and me glassies never get tired of watching the comedy which gave me a warm feeling all through me guttywuts. "The Durango 95 purred away real horrorshow." Kharosho is Russian for good. And this movie is real horrorshow. There is a mixture of Russian, English slang and just made up words but easy to understand because of the contents in each sentence as the author Anthony Burgess was a linguist and must have had a ton of fun writing this masterpiece. McDowell's Character Alex is a murderous thug of a malchick (young man) and a rapist who likes a bit of Ludwig van - especially the glorious 9th Symphony - with which to "get off" on. In the book he masturbated to Beethoven's 5th Symphony but in this movie he was turned on by the 9th. Alex liked to have sex and with two young devochke he seduced he seemed organic yet it was to a very fast William Tell Overture that was very mechanical. He was also a rapist who indeed only went through the motions of sex mechanically. Alex was mechanical in his idea of sex yet appeared to be organic as any normal man would enjoy sex hence he was a clockwork orange. This movie has so much more violence than I realized upon the second time I viddied it (the weepy devochke that I viddied it with slid down her chair and closed her glassies during all of the ultra violence as my rasoodoc understood how much violence there really was) however the comedy just made me giggle through most of it after a while. The prison chief's (Michael Bates who played Field Marshal Montgomery in Patton) expressions and histrionics had me rolling in the aisles from laughter. Every scene if you can get by the violence is so funny that you will get a hernia from laughter. It's very weird that way like when Alex is kicking Patrick Magee he is singing Singing in the Rain just before he gets set to perform the old in/out in/out on a weepy devochke or his "It's a sin!" speech while his eyelids are clamped open or while he and his droogs (friends) are rumbling with Billy Boy and his droogs the rumble is choreographed to Rossini's The Thieving Magpie - ultra-violent but will tickle your guttywuts. After Alex pretends to smash some eggiwegs yet wasn't affected by the Ludoviko technique in that outburst you start to realize that just after he was unsuccessful at "snuffing it" he was on the road to recovery. I could write a book on A Clockwork Orange about all the myelenky (small) things that went into this movie that took Stanley Kubric at least two years to make. Suffice it to say that in its way it is every bit as good as 2001: A Space Odyssey and in some ways a little better though it's hard to compare. This movie received the most votes from an award that is arguably more prestigious than the Academy Awards - The New York Film Critics Award - ten out of fifteen votes makes it real savage!! Make up your rasoodoc now to viddie A Clockwork Orange. Viddie well oh my brothers. Viddie well.
The Forgotten (2004)
Tinkle Music
Although I enjoyed watching The Forgotten especially with its introverted paranormal aspect I was annoyed by the for-the-children tinkle music. It really got on my nerves to the point of distraction.
I did however enjoy the performances and even the story was developed enough. The only other item that bothered me was when Ash and the Friendly Man fell out the window and it was very unclear which one went up and which one went down as this was very important to the plot. I looked at it fifteen ways till Sunday as I have the DVD and I could only make a guess because they were dressed very similarly and yet the angle of the way they started to fall and the way they were falling was of some help. I can also make a logical guess but by then the scene moves on.
Over all I did like the movie. Julianne Moore was never lovelier so it was worth seeing.
Man alive do I hate tinkle music. In this movie it is non stop. I'm taking a look at Paycheck right now with Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman. There is a light violin that introduces the moment Ben's character gazes upon Uma's lovely eyes that slides in delicately to introduce Uma's character like Mozart's 40th - with subtlety and thought. I didn't hear any tinkle music to ruin anything.
The Body Snatcher (1945)
A Study in Spookiness.
Boris Karloff and Henry Daniell. Henry Daniell usually plays a stuffy villain as this time his stuffiness is shifted toward being a gifted physician named Dr. Wolfe 'Toddy' MacFarlane who desperately needs cadavers for the training of his students. That's where John Gray - Boris Karloff - comes in. Stevenson's story is a comment on the times. Daniell and Karloff are constantly at each other in very believable situations both verbally and physically. Karloff's character seems to be devoid of feelings while Daniell's is increasingly being painted into a corner. John Gray constantly annoys Dr. MacFarlane by calling him Toddy ALL the time in that incredibly sinister Karloff lisp that has a slightly insincere smile to him. Karloff is a master of evil and Daniell plays off of him to perfection. Karloff also calls Dr. Donald Fettes by his last name which gets on the doctor's nerves as well.
Pay particular attention to the final X-Files style psychological ending that makes modern slash and gore films look like drivel.
This film noir horror flick is every bit as good as the best movie versions of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde by Stevenson.
The X Files (1993)
Who Played Karen Swenson?
I've seen this Pilot episode a number of times. It's a fun ride. The show got panned by the critics. One critic said that this show will never get picked up. I imagine that critics never see a pilot with a laugh track they don't like. Pilot didn't even have Mark Snow's great opening and closing music nor did it have "The Truth is Out There" tag line nor the opening credits showing Mulder's and Scully's FBI photo ID. I believe that this was the only episode that used the "Based on a True Story" trick. It's an old trick but it works as Maxwell Smart would say. What I particularly liked was that Mulder is every bit as smart as any homo fictus protagonist that was ever on television and not only instantly knew that Scully was there to spy on him but not only did it make him warm up to the challenge but he just loved displaying mental legerdemain that had Scully going one way and her jock strap the other. After a handful of double takes on double fakes she realizes early on that agent Mulder is the real deal.
Even though Mulder is a fine detective he has the tendency to find a "paranormal bouquet" in an abnormal situation as Scully - the skeptic - does her level headed best to debunk each and every item as having a scientific explanation which in turn makes Mulder a better detective.
And speaking of comedies only The Simpsons and the X-Files are comedies without laugh tracks. The Simpsons because the jokes come at Mach one so that it is better to see The Simpsons on a video tape so you can rewind and really see everything and there is no time to queue the audience to laugh before another joke is blitzed out. The X-Files' jokes are the coolest because the range is vast and have no rhythm. The only indication sometimes that a joke was made can be the music or an irritated look or sometimes you have to figure it out yourself. How terrible to make the audience do some thinking without a laugh track. I think a similar reason that Star Trek was dropped after three seasons of its five year trek was that the audience enjoyed it.
X-Files obviously wasn't designed as a comedy but it still ranks as one of the funniest shows in television history. Duchovny sometimes is like a stand up with sunflower seeds. Also time and again he proves that he is a very fine actor since I have the feeling that in real life he doesn't believe any of it. His pure pain in Oubliette is worthy of an Emmy. I never saw a pained expression like his before. What a thespian.
Speaking of fine acting catch Gillian Anderson in The Mighty.
Intertwined in this is William B. Davis the former smoker in real life who is the greatest villain in all of television history as the puppet master - The Smoking Man - who constantly smoked Marlboro, sorry I mean Marley cigarettes with the Marlboro logo. If I remember right the closest he comes to having a name is in one of the last episodes he reveals that his son is the super skeptic agent Spender. Now I remember. It was CGB Spender.
BTW, who played the cute but luckless Karen Swenson, the first person ever seen on X-Files as she tripped over herself a handful of times in her pajamas while being chased in the woods by lights? I've searched the web and asked around to no avail. If I find out I'll update this comment.
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I only believe in my science. --Agent Dana Scully.
Ah, the skeptic. --Melvin Frohike (Tom Braidwood).
She believes. She just won't admit it. --Gibson Andrew Praise (Jeff Gulka).
I want to believe. --Mulder.