A Little Long in the Tooth

It's October, which means it's release time for the scary stuff.  Over the next four weeks, cartoon scares will jostle for theater room with suspense and slashers.  Some will be aimed at kids, others at near adults.  The first of these hit this week and, in the spirit of the Halloween sacrifice, I gave up a perfectly good afternoon to see it for you.

Hotel Transylvania isn't a bad movie; it's just that it isn't much of anything.  It wants to be - oh, how it wants to be! - and it has a heartfelt message about fathers wanting to protect their children and how that urge can cause great conflict with a teenage daughter who yearns to stretch her wings.  Literally in this case - the father and daughter are vampires who do that whole "turn into a bat" thing.  The basic premise is intriguing - Dracula is raising his daughter by himself, since his beloved Martha was killed in a fire set by humans.  He wants to shelter his little darling and he's built a fantastic hotel for monsters to be that bunker against humanity.  There's some interesting vocal talent here - heck, I think Steve Buscemi is one of the most under-rated actors out there - and there are a few sly winks at other films in the paranormal pantheon (I especially liked the Twilight nod) but overall, the movie feels flabby.  Not awful, just not ambitious.  Rather blah and I hate it when I find my attention wandering during a movie.  Then again, it's one of the only Adam Sandler movies where I haven't wanted to stab out my own eyes, so there's something.

Still - this one's a rental.

As a monster movie, Hotel Transylvania references so many classics - Wolfman, Frankenstein (and his Bride), the Mummy, the Invisible Man, skeletons, zombies, oh, my! - that it's a perfect spot to mention something else.

If you consider yourself a movie fan (and really - who doesn't?), do yourself a favor and go buy Jennifer Garlen's new book Beyond Casablanca.  In this book, accomplished movie critic Garlen first lists ten classic "must sees" that top nearly everyone's list - Casablanca, Wizard of Oz,  It's a Wonderful Life, and so on.  But the book itself is, as the title indicates, about going beyond those films to discover other classics that you might have missed.  Nothing in the book was produced after 1959 - she's discussing true classics that have stood the test of cinematic time here - and I guarantee you'll find something to trip your trigger.  It doesn't matter if you prefer romcom, action, Westerns, film noir, musicals, or whatever - Garlen's got you covered.

For about the cost of a ticket to Hotel Transylvania and a popcorn/drink combo, you can have something more lasting and, I'll argue, more useful.

The Silver Screen

The term "silver screen" is used now to give a glamorous air to movies.  You've heard it in gossip magazine write-ups:  "Starlet X, a fixture of the silver screen . . ."  The term actually has a practical origin stemming from film's beginnings.  For decades, films were in black and white and greatly benefited from being shown against a highly reflective surface to sharpen contrast in the grays.  Theaters coated screens with silver compounds to increase this reflective quality, hence the term "silver screen."

I mention this because (a) it's interesting and (b) black and white movies deserve some love.  A few days ago, I went to see a big screen presentation of Casablanca, a film I've adored since I first saw it as a teenager.  I'd never seen it on the big screen and let me tell you - it really is a different experience.  Casablanca is 70 years old this year and the screening was part of TCM's "birthday party" for the film. Look - there's nothing to not like about this film.  It's got romance, it's got the buddy angle, heck - it's got Nazis, and you just can't go wrong having Nazis as the bad guys in a movie!  (Keeping in mind that the film was released during World War 2, you've also got the "film as propaganda" angle to discuss.)  The writing is sharp, the stars are gorgeous (really - Ingrid Bergman on the big screen is nearly celestial in her beauty and Bogart is a man's man in a sharply-cut dinner jacket) and the costuming makes me wonder just how many trunks these war refugees are traveling with.  It's a wonderful yarn and seeing it with 170 other fans (one of whom dressed in a white dinner jacket, probably with letters of transit in the inner pocket) was an experience I'm glad I had.  TCM has a great series of articles, video clips, and links - check that out here.  And remember, when you're next thinking about what movie to watch - just because it's been around for a while without a remake doesn't mean it's not worth your time.  (Ack!  A remake of Casablanca?  How?  Why?  A parody - that I could support.)

Oh, and those "letters of transit" on which so much of the plot hangs?  An excellent example of a MacGuffin.

The film class is wrapping things up.  I have their comparisons of Cowboy Bebop and Serenity to finish evaluating (space opera or space Western?  Hmmmm.) and District 9 was the final class film this past week.  The students' creativity in their individual projects left me feeling pleased with the class overall - they mastered the technical aspect of submitting an original project online (or at least wrestled the tech to the ground and pinned it) and demonstrated an understanding of their assigned concepts.  Not bad.  Not bad at all!