Misery Review

Click here to go to my previous review of the Shawshank Redemption 

Misery Review

SPOILER ALERT

So, this review marks a break from reviewing Hollywood and modern classics, as I’m reviewing a more, arguably, obscure film.  Misery is a movie adaptation of Stephen King’s novel ‘Misery,’ which I’ve read and I’ve heard that the film is supposed to be great, so I thought I would give it a watch and compare the two.  This means of course that I shall be discussing both the book and the film in the review.

What’s it about? Paul Sheldon (James Caan) is a best-selling novelist.  He’s written a string of novels whom feature Misery Chastain as their protagonist and they’ve made him rich and famous.  However, in his latest Misery novel, he kills off Misery, so that he can leave the series behind him and move onto other works.  Upon driving to his literary agent to give her his manuscript for his new novel, he crashes his car.  However, Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates) pulls Paul Sheldon from the wreckage and cares for him in her farm.  Annie Wilkes is an ex-nurse and takes care of Paul, but she is also Paul’s biggest fan, essentially a fangirl from hell, and when she finds out that he has murdered Misery Chastain, whom she adores, she is not happy about it.  She then keeps Paul prisoner until he writes a new novel, where he brings Misery Chastain back from the dead.

The Good: Kathy Bates and James Caan were great as Annie Wilkes and Paul Sheldon respectively.  I felt that Kathy Bates really captured Annie Wilkes’ sociopathic tendencies as they appeared within the novel.  One minute Annie Wilkes is a sweet, young, over-excitable, perhaps a little overzealous fangirl and the next she is a psychotic serial killer.  Kathy Bates captured this essence perfectly, balancing perfectly the line between naïve and sweet and hateful and rage-filled.  James Cann was just as good as Paul Sheldon.  Considering that the only other thing I’ve seen him in is the Godfather as Santino Corleone, it was really interesting seeing him as an older, more mature and more even-tempered of a character.  He played the part of Paul Sheldon well, being absolutely terrified of Annie but also having the courage to fight against her.

 The Bad: I felt that what the film was really missing was some type of internal monologue from Paul Sheldon.  From what I remember of the book, it is told from Paul’s perspective as a first-person narrator.  It isn’t stream of consciousness as such, but it definitely has snippets of his thoughts and feelings.  I felt that the film could have really benefited from Paul narrating it and also having more POV shots to truly capture his sense of pain and isolation.  I also didn’t like how the film toned down the violence that is present in the book.  Of course, you can argue that a lot of violence doesn’t necessarily make a film good, but I felt that the film could have benefited from being more faithful to the text in this regard.  

Within the novel, there are three notable examples of violence.  Firstly, Annie cuts off Paul’s foot after he escapes from his room and tries to escape from the house, whereas in the film she just breaks it.  In the novel, Annie also cuts off one of Paul’s thumbs after he complains about the missing keys on the typewriter, which is completely omitted from the film.  Lastly, when a statetrooper comes looking for Paul whom then tries to get his attention, Annie kills the trooper by running him over with a lawnmower, whereas in the film she simply just shoots him.  

Whilst, I argue that the lawnmower death scene was gratuitous within the book and I’m glad it was replaced, I felt that the film should have kept the other two violent scenes.  When I read these scenes in the book, they really helped to emphasise just how unstable Annie’s state of mind was, which I didn’t think that the film conveyed as well.  Lastly, I also didn’t like the scenes focusing on the police searching for Paul.  Within both the film and the book, these scenes are present and are kept to a minimum, which means that they don’t distract that much.  However, they did still take away from the highly insulated experience of watching Paul and Annie interact with each other.

The Ugly: Even if Paul’s foot was broken, rather than cut off, it was still quite a horrific and shocking scene to watch.

Rating: Good

All in all this was a good film with some standout performances, but it needed an interior monologue and a little more violence.  That, notwithstanding, I would argue that Annie Wilkes makes a better villain than a coven of vampires or Pennywise the Clown, purely for the fact that I’m sure that somewhere out there, psychotic fangirls do exist.

Click here to go to my review of It

The Shawshank Redemption Review

The Shawshank Redemption film review

SPOILER ALERT

And so we have progressed from one of the biggest prison break-out films of the Golden Age of Hollywood to one of the biggest from the early nineties: the Shawshank Redemption.  This film is generally regarded as one of the best and most emotionally powerful films that have ever been made, so I knew that it had to be on my list.  It is based on Stephen King’s novella ‘Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption,’ but as I haven’t read it, I won’t be discussing it in this review.

What’s it about? The Shawshank Redemption follows the story of Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins,) a young banker who in 1947 is given a life sentence at Shawshank upon being wrongfully committed of the murder of his wife and lover.  Upon his arrival at the prison, he quickly befriends Ellis ‘Red’ Redding, (Morgan Freeman) a man who knows how to get things, and the rest of ‘Red’s’ group.  Dufresne quickly uses his banking knowledge to improve life for him and his friends, whilst also gaining favour with the abusive guards by doing their tax returns and also running the crooked Warden Norton’s money laundering scenes.

The Good: The film was very emotionally powerful.  It had many powerful scenes that depicted the true brutality of prison life.  Two standout examples include, right at the film’s beginning, where a prisoner is beaten to death by the guards on his first night after loudly protesting that he doesn’t belong there.  The second example is Brooks Hatlen, the prisoner’s librarian who after being released from prison after 50 years on the inside, cannot adapt to life on the outside and kills himself.  This segment was particularly poignant, as it depicted a startling truth of prison life.  I admit that before watching this film, I thought that all prisoners would want to do in prison is leave, but this film proved me wrong.  If a prisoner has been in prison for an extended period of time and it’s the only life they’ve known, then it makes perfect sense that they’re terrified of being reintegrated into the outside world.  They’ve never known anything but jail bars and a hard bed.  Seeing Brooks struggling to cope with the fast pace of the outside world and thinking of ways to break his parole and be returned to Shawshank was heartbreaking, because, as Brooks was an old man, I would have thought he would have liked to reassume his old life and live out the rest of his days in peace.  Yet, as he hasn’t known any life outside of prison, he kills himself.  There are too many instances of prison brutality to mention, but a couple include the abusive Captain Byron Hedley and the prison rapist Bogs, both of which add well to the hard-hitting severity of the film.  Morgan Freeman’s character ‘Red’ describes living on the outside, as living in fear which no man should have to do.  I feel that this is a very touching and clever point to make about how men are more afraid of life outside of prison, rather than inside.  Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins as the leads were also great.  Morgan Freeman is always great as any film’s narrator and Tim Robbins played Dufresne well, perfectly capturing the inner conflict and turmoils of the man.

The Bad: Again, I would criticise this film for having too many characters, which the audience didn’t receive enough information about.  Although, the vast majority of these characters were just part of the secondary cast and therefore, it can be argued, that they didn’t require any character development, I would have still liked to find out more about them.  Throughout the film, I found it difficult distinguishing between the different prisoners and remembering all of their names.  I felt that at the film’s conclusion, it should have been revealed what happened to them all.

The Ugly: The beating of the prisoner at the film’s introduction was startlingly brutal, horrific and unpleasant to watch.

Rating: Awesome

This film is highly deserving of all of the critical praise that it has garnered.  It has strong acting and a strong narrative and it certainly does not pull any punches in depicting the brutalities of the American Justice System.  I still love the issue that the film raises of how ex-convicts can live in bigger misery outside of prison rather than inside it.

The Great Escape Review

Obligatory spoiler alert

And right at the end of the Golden Age of Hollywood, we’ve come to perhaps one of the most famous prison break films in history. 

What’s it about: The Great Escape focuses on a large group of British and Commonwealth officers who are attempting a mass breakout from a Nazi POW camp in the Second World War.

The Good:  This is another film with a very iconic theme tune and I think it was used well to create a light-hearted and jovial tone for the film.  When I initially decided to watch this film, I imagined it being something similar to Schindler’s List with hard-hitting drama and plenty of violence and gore.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that this wasn’t the case.  Whilst certainly not trivialising the true horrors of the Second World War, the Great Escape helped to keep its subject matter entertaining and light-hearted without poking fun at it.  This is where the theme tune came in playing at some of the more amusing moments of the film.  That notwithstanding, the film wasn’t entirely comedic and it also helped to balance the emotional drama attached with the film’s content matter.  For example, the forgerer Roger Blyth becoming myopic through his intricate work by candlelight is a powerful instance of what people were prepared to do to escape these camps.  This is most prevalent within the film’s conclusion, which I felt was a painfully realistic depiction of how most escape attempts conclude.  Whilst, I don’t claim to be an expert about such things, I can imagine that the vast majority of escapees were either killed or sent back to POW camps.

The Bad: There were a lot of characters in the film.  I would argue too many.  I acknowledge that this isn’t a criticism of the film or Paul Brickhill’s (who wrote the book that the film was based on) but rather serving as an indicative reminder of the sheer extent of these escape operations.  However, the large cast proved to be quite confusing for me, as I struggled to distinguish between each different character or learn what their particular role in the escape operation was.  For me, this really hurt the emotional poignancy of the film’s conclusion.  As I didn’t really know one character from the other, I wasn’t that sad to see the majority of them killed or sent back to prison, as I didn’t have a strong emotional attachment to any of them.

The Ugly: If it was me having to crawl through and dig out the escape tunnels, then I think I would be as claustrophobic as Danny was.

Rating: Good

Overall, this is a powerful film that balanced humour and drama well, but was hurt by the large and confusing cast.  Although, I think that the sheer extent of the operation and how they planned to bust out 250 prisoners is big enough to even put the escape attempt in the Shawshank Redemption to shame.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly review

The Good the Bad and the Ugly

SPOILER ALERT

Next up on the list of Hollywood Classics, as well as films with epic theme songs is the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.  Why am I reviewing this film? Well, it’s a standout classic in the Spaghetti Western genre and again it’s one of those films that you’re supposed to see.

What’s it about?  Against the backdrop of the American Civil War, three gunslinging cowboys emerge: the rugged, lone wolf, anti-hero Blondie (the Good) the ruthlessly pragmatic antagonist Angelface (the bad) and the clumsy, meandering, yet dangerous and clever Tuco (the ugly.) All three gunslingers are looking to find some hidden gold buried in a graveyard, leading to Blondie and Tuco forming an uneasy alliance against Angelface.

The Good: I really loved the camerawork in this film, especially the usage of close-ups and longshots.  The long-shots showing the vast expanse of the Wild West in contrast to the solitary cowboys were done perfectly.  The close-ups, from shots of bootspurs to hands reaching for guns, all served well to build the film’s tension.  Whilst, I think Sergio Leone did overdo the tension building at times, which I’ll come to later, in other places, the tension-building was brilliant.  This was most notable in scenes, where instead of dialogue, there was the film’s iconic theme tune or silence.  I also felt that Clint Eastwood was very convincing as Blondie, from his rugged, weathered looks to his cold and remote demeanour.

The Bad: The film dragged on longer than it should have done.  Not because it was particularly boring, but because Sergio Leone over-did the tension building.  Two of the most noticeable examples include Tuco running through the graveyard and the world’s longest Mexican Standoff.  By this point, I was beginning to lose interest in the film.  Through the sheer extent of how drawn-out the tension-building was, I felt that this countermanded its effect.

The Ugly: Blondie’s scarred, sun-burnt face is always a reminder to stay protected whilst in the sun.

Rating: Awesome

A wholly thrilling action-filled two and a half hour ride.  While the ending drag in places, the rest of the film moved along seamlessly.  And even though Tuco, at the film’s conclusion, might not have had a great escape, he certainly had a lucky one.  

North by Northwest review

OBLIGATORY SPOILER ALERT

Review for North by Northwest

Next film up is Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 spy thriller film ‘North by Northwest’ starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason.  As I’ve been watching and reviewing a lot of modern classics, I thought I would try reviewing a classic from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

What’s it about: North by Northwest follows the story of Roger Thornhill, (Cary Grant) who when mistaken for George Kaplan, is framed for the murder of Lester Townsend and is subsequently pursued by Phillip Vandaam (James Mason) whilst becoming romantically involved with the morally ambiguous Eve Kendall.  (Eva Marie Saint)

The good: The script and the narrative were very good.  Whilst parts of the film might seem clichéd by today’s standards, at the time, they would have been very original.  I felt that the script was very subtle and nuanced and nothing was overdone.  Even the iconic crop-duster scene wasn’t as nearly ridiculous, as it could have been.  Plus the scenes with Grant and Saint weren’t as nearly as cheesy or forced as they could have been.  James Mason was great, as the villain, which he played with the right amount of ruthlessness and tempered anger.  I also liked Alfred Hitchcock’s cameo, which reminded me of other film directors who cameo in their films.  I’m looking at you Quentin Tarantino.

The bad: The ending.  The ending was anti-climatic and detracted from the whole film.  It was a complete let down.  After the epic climax of Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint climbing down Mount Rushmore to escape the villain who are then apprehended or killed by the police, I expected there to be a 10-15 period of denouement, where the audiences finds out how the police found the protagonists, how Vandaam would be punished and Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint riding off into the sunset.  Instead, the scene cut from Grant pulling Saint away from the edge of Mount Rushmore and into a bed compartment of a train, before the credits appear.  I felt that this ending was very rushed and left too many loose ends.

The ugly: I’m still not forgiving the film for how it ended.

Rating: Good

Overall, I did enjoy North by Northwest.  The subtle, nuanced narrative complemented by strong acting and an amusing cameo, yet the rushed, anti-climatic ending left something to be desired and this is why the film only received a rating of ‘good.’ Some characters could have really benefitted from the advice: “if you’re going to shoot, shoot, don’t talk.”