Horns (2013)

“In the end, I embraced the horns. Like an angel who fell to earth I became a devil, one last time. But revenge is all consuming.”

            More often than not whenever movies try to mix genres they just bomb. To me it is rare when a movie can mix certain genres and be good. The 2013 movie Horns mixes drama, mystery, supernatural, a small amount of comedy. That is quite the mix and one that sounds like it would make your head spin. It is actually really good and wonderfully different.

            Ig Perrish (Daniel Radcliff) is accused of killing his girlfriend Merrin (Juno Temple). The whole town believes he is guilty and do not want him anywhere near them. News station vans follow his every move hoping for some kind of remark or break for a story. The only person who truly believes Ig’s story is his long time friend and lawyer Lee.

            Merrin’s father and a few people from town go to where she was found murdered and hold a small vigil. Her father hates Ig and wants to see him brought to justice. The site is where Ig and Merrin used to go together and spend their time in an old tree house. Ig is in tree house away from prying eyes. He is drunk and when everyone leaves he comes down kicks over some statues and pisses on the religious candles. Another friend, a girl, comes by. She knew Ig was in the tree house and brings him home.

            The next day Ig wakes up with the girl next to him. He also wakes up with something coming out of both sides of his forehead. In the mirror Ig sees the growths are horns. When he comes out of the bathroom the girl acts really strangely around him saying how she wants to eat all the donuts because no one in town would care if she was fat or not. He asks her if she sees the horns on his head and she does but she is not freaked out by them.  Ig goes to the doctor. In the waiting room is a mother with a small daughter screaming her head off. The mother sees Ig and confesses to wanting to kill her daughter or just leave her in the office so she can go run away with her golf instructor. Even the receptionist confesses to wanting to kill the girl and hitting the mother to make the girl shut up. He grabs the mother’s arm and he can see all her sins or secrets she has kept to herself. The doctor and the nurse are really strange around him. The doctor tells Ig that he can see the horns but when he looks away it is almost like he forgot they were there. (I have to throw out a Doctor Who reference I cannot help myself: this reminded me of the Silence. Creepy buggers those things were).

            The doctor puts Ig under to try to cut the horns off. While under Ig dreams of the day he first Merrin and his friendships with his old friends. They have all played an important part in his life and still do. Out of everyone in town the only person who cannot see the horns is his friend Lee.

            Throughout the day Ig realizes with his horns and their power to make people confess he can persuade people to lead him to Merrin’s murderer.

            I am definitely not going to give away the rest of the story so I will end there.

            I really, really liked Horns. I had no idea what to expect with this movie so I was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked the story. Daniel Radcliff was awesome. I did not even see him as Harry Potter he was that good. I guess because it was Radcliff in the role of Ig I felt so bad for his character. The poor guy loved this girl so much and he was being accused of doing something he could never have dreamed doing. I liked the way story worked as a mystery and a drama with a supernatural aspect. I also very much liked the way story played out. At certain times I was never quite sure how the scenes were going to play out and what was going to happen next. I absolutely recommend watching Horns. It is one of the best newer movies I have seen in a while. 

Secret Beyond the Door (1947)

There have been plenty of films that have dealt with secrets kept behind locked doors. In these films there is the sketchy person who keeps the door closed and that one annoying person who has to find the secret behind it because they feel it is the key to helping the secret keeper. Oh and it looks like Fritz Lang made Noir about kept secrets behind doors in Secret Beyond the Door.

            Celia (Joan Bennett) is about to walk down the aisle to be married. We hear her internal monologue describing her feeling of getting married is as if she is drowning and parts of her life up to that moment flash before her eyes. She thinks about the last time she saw her older brother Rick and how that was the last time they had been on good terms with each other. She had been set to marry Bob, an old family friend. Before she was set to marry Bob, Celia and her friend had traveled down to Mexico for a vacation. While in a market shopping a duel of some sort breaks out between men who have been seeing the same woman. Celia describes how she was unable to move away from the scene she had to see the outcome. A knife flies right by her and lands very close to her hand she had leaning on the stall. There were so many eyes on her but there was one pair she felt linger and look at her like no one else ever has.

            Celia and her friend are at a café. She sends her friend away when she sees the man enter the café. The man is Mark Lamphere (Michael Redgrave). Mark is unlike any man she has ever met. For the rest of the trip Celia and Mark are inseparable. She does not want to go back to her boring life in New York with Bob and her brother. She writes a letter to Bob to break things off with him and marries Mark.

            As she walks down the aisle to marry Mark, Celia feel frightened since she is marrying a man she barely knows and the dark voices in her head are not letting her be. Celia goes through with the marriage despite the voices and the feelings. While on their honeymoon, Mark explains his theory about rooms. He is an architect and has a theory that rooms can determine what happens in them. They can create bad moments or happy moments. That night Celia is getting herself ready after she has a bath. She decides to make Mark wait for her and toy with his feelings a little bit by locking the door. When she hears the door handle move and then Mark give up she runs out of the room and looks for him. Celia reaches Mark in the garden and he tells her he suddenly has to leave for New York because he has gotten an offer for his architectural magazine. Celia is upset that Mark is not taking her with him. She feels she has upset him by not letting him into her room. Those feelings change when a letter from Mark comes that things have been settled already and she can come to his family home in a few days.

            Things surrounding Mark and his family are hinky almost as soon as Celia steps off the train. Mark is not there to great her instead his sister has been sent. The sister is a little tough and no nonsense. At the house Celia sees someone in the window. She sees it is a little boy. She now just learns that Mark has a son named David and that his first wife died some time ago.

            The house holds several secrets that Celia was not ready to face such as David having a collection of period rooms that are the actual rooms where historical murders have taken place and a secretary who has loved Mark for years. Celia goes back and forth thinking certain occurrences are her doing or that of the other people or the rooms in the house.

            The rest of the story is a big “what the hell is going on”. As soon as Celia arrives at Mark’s house the whole story takes a dive. The reason Mark is a little odd is not good at all and neither is the reason his first wife dies.

            I was upset with the way Secret Beyond the Door unfolded. Joan Bennett and Michael Redgrave felt wasted. Any other actor and actress could have played their roles. Fritz Lang is such a great director. I loved his direction in his film despite the disappointing story. It felt surrealistic as if Celia was in a dream. If you think about it Celia was put/put herself into a surrealistic situation marrying someone she hardly knew and then finding out all these deep psychological secrets in her new husband’s house. I find characters that pry when they were told to keep out to be annoying. Obviously that has to happen otherwise there would be no story but Celia should have just kept her curiosity to herself! (was that harsh? That was harsh). Miklos Rosza provided a haunting score that created the tension that the story was missing. I am not going to say to not watch Secret Beyond the Door for three reasons: it is a Film Noir, Joan Bennett is always great to see in a film, and Fritz Lang’s direction. It is worth watching at least once. 

You and Me and Everyone We Know (2005)

 “You think you deserve that pain but you don't.”

            Ever feel like you are just wandering through life? You are just going through the motions of being human and doing what you think should be done? Have you ever felt like you needed to connect to someone emotionally not just in a friendship kind of way? I sure have felt like I have been wandering through life like a zombie and at times I have longed for an emotional connection in the form of a boyfriend. I hate those feelings. Fortunately I have gotten over that zombie feeling because I feel a lot better about myself and my (good) choices in life. That took a long time but in the end it worked out. Still looking for that connection though, well not really but eventually I will in some form.

            Yeah so this post just got really deep there but it does have something to do with the movie You and Me and Everyone We Know.

            There are multiple stories of connection, hope, fear, and happiness throughout the movie told through the various characters. The movie begins with Christine who puts all of her emotions into her video based art works. Richard and his wife have separated and his sons have come to live with him. He does not really have any clue how to act around them or how to really take care of them. The oldest son catfishes someone through an online chat room.

            Richard works as a shoe salesman in a department store. Christine works for a company that drives elderly people to places. The two of them meet Christine brings an older client in for new shoes. They hit it off and she comes back to see him again. They walk to their cars and awkwardly flirt since they have no idea how to act around other people they are not used to.

            Here’s the deal with me and this movie: I liked You and Me and Everyone We Know. It was different and quirky and a bit on the artistic side. But I feel like there was something about it that I could not fully get into. I was not totally confused with the story I was able to follow it and gauge the characters and their emotions/feelings. I did like how all the characters, even the kids, wanted to be a part of something and wanted to feel things more than they were feeling. Also all the characters come together in certain ways and I love that kind of thing in movies. I could have been turned off a little by the fact that Christine was trying to get her digital art into a museum. I have degrees in Art History and museum studies. Digital art such as the type Christine makes drives me crazy. I will leave it at that I will not go into detail so I do not get things thrown at me. I am not a snot when it comes to art I promise there is just something about digital art that I cannot fully get behind. Apparently Miranda July who plays Christine and wrote and directed the movie has made several videos such as the ones Christine makes. I did like July's direction. It made you feel like you were actually right there with the characters. Anyway, You and Me and Everyone We Know was a good movie. It is worth seeing at least once.

            I found out about You and Me and Everyone We Know through the Tumblr blog Old Films Flicker run by the awesome Marya Gates. She is a film blogger on multiple social media platforms. Marya is currently watching and writing about films made by women in what she is calling A Year With Women. Absolutely go check out her Tumblr and her blog Cinema-Fanatic to find out more about her project. Marya can give you a better understanding of You and Me and Everyone We Know than I can.

Silent Sundays: Raffles The Amateur Cracksman (1917)

“But if he has no fear, how can you capture him? The intelligent thief has an advantage over the intelligent detective.”

            If you follow this blog in any shape or form or have taken a look at past post you may notice that I like films that deal with thievery and grifting. I am a diehard fan of the show Leverage (look it up if you do not know what it is. If you have Netflix stop reading this right now and go watch the show!) and my favorite character was Parker who is a thief. Parker steals many things but her favorite things to nick are jewelry, money, and art. Well, the art thieving was more of Sophie Deveraux’s thing. Now the character of Sophie Deveraux was a girl after my own heart with the art thieving and grifting. The extremely weird person in me believes I was an art thief or a spy in another life because those are my favorite kinds of stories/plots/films/shows. I like stories/plots dealing with art theft because I love learning about that topic. I have degrees in Art History and Museum Registration so the topic of art theft and prevention was often discussed. I think anyone who is a thief and gets away with it for a while is a damn genius and also a damn fool. I would be terrified to even formulate a plan to steal works of art or even a stick of bubblegum! Stealing terrifies me because of the consequences of getting caught and thrown in jail. I have too much of a guilty conscience and throw that into the mix with anxiety … my brain is not a great place to be.

            Anyway to get back to the topic at hand (seriously after that can you see why my brain is a mess? Two trains of thought going on at the same time). Of course when I saw the title Raffles, Amateur Cracksman as a film I had to see it. That and I have seen the 1939version starring David Niven and Olivia de Havilland so I had an idea of what this version of Raffles was about.

            AJ Raffles (John Barrymore) is on a boat traveling back to London from Australia. A crooked man named Hawtree is also on the same boat. He has swindled thousands of people in India out of money through deliberate bad business deals. The country was very happy to have him leave. Also on the same boat is a woman named Mrs. Vidal who flirted with AJ and liked him.

            Hawtree owned very valuable pearls. Another woman on the boat tells AJ that Hawtree does not leave the pearls just lying around in his room. AJ has the cabin next to Hawtree. He sees Hawtree place the pearls in the heel of his shoe. That night AJ steals the pearls. Hawtree wakes up feeling as though he is being watched and calls for the boat detective. They find some evidence that leads them to AJ’s room. The detective tries to arrest AJ but he manages to fight his way out and jump overboard. Somehow AJ manages to get to shore with the pearls intact in his pocket.

            A year later AJ has returned to London. At the same time there is a thief known as the Amateur Cracksman who has been causing trouble in London. AJ is invited with his friend Bunny (Frank Morgan) to stay at the home of a lord out in the country. AJ is especially looking forward to the trip because the lady of the home has a very well known expensive necklace. Another person invited to the home is Mrs. Vidal. Someone AJ had never planned on seeing again.

            The lord of the house claims that the house is burglar proof and that none of his visitors should fear a visit from the Amateur Cracksman. The lord unfortunately did not know that his maid’s boyfriend, Crawshay, is a thief in the area and is planning on stealing the jewels for himself. Plus, the lord has invited a well known detective to the party so the home seems to be doubly secure. That night everyone leaves their valuables in the safe except for the lady of the home. She tells AJ that she has place the box in the safe to fool a thief but keeps the necklace near her bed at night. AJ does not go to bed. He stays up waiting for the right time for the Amateur Cracksman to strike. Him and the detective hear someone come in from outside. AJ takes down Crawshay. He tries to throw suspicion onto Crawshay and say that he is the Cracksman but the detective knows that Crawshay is a well known thief in the area. As he is being taken away Crawshay threatens to come after AJ when he gets out of jail. During or before all the fracas AJ manage to steal the necklace.

            The next day the detective tells everyone they are all suspects in the robbery and that Crawshay has escaped from police custody. AJ returns to London to his apartment as soon as he can. His departure upsets a young woman named Gwendolyn who likes him. Mrs. Vidal comments on how odd it is that whenever AJ is around the Amateur Cracksman makes off with a haul.

            Back in his apartment the police tell AJ that Crawshay is around looking for revenge. AJ confesses to Bunny that he is the Cracksman only because he knows that Crawshay is near. Somehow Crawshay is leaves without needing to tell the police who he is. The police come to arrest AJ but he manages to get away and the detective is actually happy that he got away.

            As I said I knew the story of Raffles, Amateur Cracksman because of the 1939 version. Two other versions were also made in 1925 and 1930. The 1930 version stars Ronald Coleman and the 1939 version is a shot for shot remake of the 1930 film. I have yet to see the films from 1925 and 1930. This silent version was not bad. John Barrymore was very good as AJ Raffles. He was so young and so handsome. I do not think I have ever seen Frank Morgan in a film as a young man. Now was he a young man in the sense you would think? Most likely not. He was younger than I am used to seeing him and he was also handsome. Raffles, Amateur Cracksman was enjoyable enough. It is not like the David Niven Raffles where we actually see him steal things. The film could have been a bit better but I liked it and I will say it is worth seeing.