FRED Entertainment

By Christopher Stipp

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WWII in HD – Blu-ray Review

Roger Ebert recently made people aware of a video on YouTube called The Open Road London.

The film was taken decades ago. The hustle and bustle of life in the city is enough to make you think that even after all technology has done for us we’re still as busy as ever. The Beefeater who just saunters in the frame, the double-decker busses, the police directing traffic by hand, it’s all very quaint. The amusing thing about this full color document was that it was shot in 1927. When you recognize that it’s only 13 more years shy of being a century old it’s an amazing ten minutes of a time that feels like it was only a few years ago. I know my brain was just mesmerized by the clarity and it helped to frame my own sense of time, like Public Enemies’ use of digital video, in a new way. That’s what this new collection of moments from World War II, in HD and on Blu-ray no less, does to your mind as you watch it.

The program, which initially aired on the History Channel, charts some of the most pivotal battles in a war that we can’t seem to let go in our popular consciousness. To that point, we have History to thank for giving what is one of the most detailed portrayals of the war through the eyes of the people who were there and the narration of those who weren’t. The latter detail points to one of the more humanizing aspects of this series as some heavy hitters from Steve Zahn, Ron Livingston, Rob Lowe, Amy Smart, even Rob Corddry help to narrate the stories of people who had bullets and bombs to tend with as we morphed from a country that had a laissez-faire approach to what was happening in Europe to having one of the fiercest fighting forces ever formed.

What’s really special about these programs and why I cannot say “Buy this thing!” harder than I will about anything else this year is its crystal clear fidelity. One of the issues with the black and white footage of the planes dropping bombs, of guys running out of foxholes with their rifles, of the Nazi horrors with regards to the holocaust is that a lot of it looked it was rubbed vigorously with a steel wool pad. Unfortunately, and many filmmakers can attest to this, the shelf life of film is not finite and a lot of what we’ve seen in the past attests to what the passage of time can do. However, what we get here is a completely new rendering of that film, while not perfect by any standard, making it feel that the time between when this happened and 2010 has compressed. As well, some of the video here is taken from individuals who weren’t there to make sweeping vista shots come alive. A lot of footage feels personal and intimate, and there is a reverence that comes across when you watch certain moments of this series.

Seeing Hitler up close and with as good as clarity as I’ve ever seen has an almost eerie feeling to it, the footage of concentration camps chills even more knowing it wasn’t a set created by Steven Spielberg, and the personal stories of those who were there just helps to ground this series in a realistic manner. It’s easy to just disassociate yourself with what you’re seeing but when you hear the tales of troops and others as they had to deal with the very real threat to their lives.

I hope you at least check this series out to see what kind of gaps existed with your knowledge of WWII. I know I learned a little bit more about the war which changed the course of history and for that I am thankful such a phenomenal digital resource is now in existence.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, indeed, but after watching hours upon hours of WWII In HD you won’t soon be able to forget what you’ve seen.

Small Wonder: Season 1 – DVD Review

You’ve just got to put yourself back into the frame of mind in order for this to work.

Before watching the first season of Small Wonder on DVD I was reminded of all the other shows that have come to this medium only for people to use some variation of the “nostalgia” effect. That effect goes along the lines of judging whether the show/program/film you used to like when you were younger has “held up.” For some things I can understand the logic but I don’t necessarily agree with someone who then reassesses the enjoyment they once had in something that filled a certain void. Such is the case with Season 1 for Small Wonder.

As I watched the episodes, one after the other, I was struck by its non-urbaneness. It was toothless, simple, straight forward, non offending humor and I loved it. I think it was important to grant the material the chance to express that, for it’s time, what it set out to accomplish and, I believe, it does it well. You had young Vicki (played by the solidly inert Tiffany Brissette) who was created by a robotic engineer, and the uber pater familias of the 80’s, Ted Lawson (Dick Christie) who crafts this kid in the hope of advancing artificial intelligence. I mean, how cool was that when you were a lad or lass younger than 12 you had this guy in 1985 who was creating a robot? Not only that but the series is predicated on the idea of secrecy, another attraction to any kid who realizes that half the fun of childhood is lying about almost everything.

Ted’s wife Joan (Marla Pennington) and the real boy Jamie (Jerry Supiran) go along with the ruse only to find that their pesky next door neighbors, which seemed to be a tried and true trope of a lot of sitcoms, the Brindles. A special mention for actresses Edie McClurg and her on-screen daughter Harriett (Emily Schulman) who just shine in what they were tasked to do and that was to be as annoying and hackneyed as possible. This sets up what would be a four season run for the series and, I have to be honest, it’s just good fun.

For example, in an episode where Jamie gets Vicki to complete mounds and mounds of homework for the grade school lad, the boy gets himself special accolades and inclusion of the school’s honor roll. This racks Jamie with guilt, as is sitcom’s moral code to eventually always reward the good and always punish the bad, and it eventually results in the boy coming clean. That’s it. That’s an entire episode. What you’re not going to find in an episode like this, and it can be extrapolated to the rest of the series, is anything searing or biting. During the Regan era, prosperity and morality were on the ascension in pop culture and nowhere does the 80’s get more perfectly distilled than with this microcosm of what passed as decent comedy.

Yes, it’s a bit saccharine sweet and, yes, this is a series that ought to appeal to young boys and girls more than it should a man well into his 30’s but the nostalgia is there to be certain and there isn’t anything wrong with that. The acting is good, the premises are sound, the idea of a young girl who is trying to assimilate into humanity is a novel one, and nowhere else will you find something so unobjectionable and so sweet.

I will admit that the experience of watching these episodes had the lasting effect of a sugar rush, soon to be forgotten, but as a document of network comedy that stayed on the air as long as it did really is something worth checking out.

My feeling is that wistful nostalgia is wasted on the old; they’re the ones who get crotchety about experiences past, so try and remember what made this such a delight to you as a kid. I did.

The House of the Devil – Blu-ray Review

I am a man of simple pleasures.

One of those pleasures are horror movies and the ones that came out in the 80’s which were at that tipping point when grainy footage was the norm and the violence was visceral. For every weak Scream entry at the turn of the 20th century or for every H2 type of film that wanted to be something more than just a blatant indulgence of showing how creative you could be with your effects there was an April Fool’s Day or Chopping Mall that exuded so much more coolness and swagger.

House of the Devil is one of those films where they got it right and at least attempted to embrace all the subtleties of 1980’s horror films without ever being blatant or ironic about it. Director Ti West exquisitely takes a tried and true horror trope, the innocent babysitter who gets in way over her head, and makes an enjoyable time at the movies that just makes you ache for more like this.

A film that feels like a visual reply to the cries of horror films that we’ve long abandoned in modern adaptations of old classics like Friday the 13th or Halloween, House of the Devil gets it right because it doesn’t push itself on you like an unwanted advance. You are fully complicit with the way West weaves his yarn around the very idea of a retro horror movie without ever winking back. That’s where the thrills come from. That’s where the scares come from. This is the kind of movie, you understand, that you want to own because it just feels like it should be a part of your collection. Hyperbole aside, the movie is near perfect in meting out information slowly, deliberately, and that’s part of its charm.

West has written a screenplay where the action, actually, is quite minimal. Whereas Sam Raimi knocked it out with Drag Me To Hell, a movie that proved you could have fun at a horror film again, West’s Devil exceeds by getting back to those movies where there just wasn’t enough money to make something visually stunning. He relies on building the suspense of a girl, played pitch perfectly by Jocelin Donahue, who not only gives a fresh life to the Final Girl theory with a believability that even I enjoyed but he also considers the needs of an audience who want a little somethin’ somethin’ and gives it to us in the final act.

I do wish I could spoil so many of the minute details of this movie but part of the attraction of a film that flew under the radar of so many people, it didn’t even show in a theater near me, is that you do not want to spoil it for everyone else. It’s a movie that deserves to be a treasure to be discovered by someone who doesn’t know better. It’s so deceptive in the way the scares feel so simplistic but, as I postulate, it’s just Ti West’s way of getting back to the films that triggered that engendered a feeling of amazement.

Get back in touch with the kind of movie that made you love horror films in the first place so many decades ago. House of the Devil is one of your only tickets back in time worth buying.

Pontypool – DVD Review

What made a movie like this so unique when compared to seeing Ti West’s House of the Devil in the same week is that here are two movies that get it right. While one is a distillation of everything that made old school horror such a hoot Pontypool proves that you can fast forward your time machine, Doc Brown, and enjoy the stylings of an artist that knows how to make 21st century horror cool again.

How these movies are related, you see, and why both of them are getting buying recommendations from me, is that they both understand the value in a good build-up. I’m not talking about waiting to see someone get their leg chewed off or a butcher knife in the back, either, but Bruce McDonald directs a movie that slowly burns in anticipation of the payoff. Tony Burgess, the writer of the film, understands this idea as he crafted a screenplay that eschewed visual gore in lieu of having a character, played by Steven McHattie as Grant Mazzy, that isn’t one-note. No one is one-note here and it absolutely, positively makes this movie better because of it.

Too many times we get characters that are just that, characters, in horror films and sometimes that’s OK but when you get characters like Laurel Ann (Georgina Reilly) or Sydney Briar (Lisa Houle) played with as much depth as anyone in a modern drama you have something special. It shouldn’t be so novel that what we have here is a story of a man who comes to work at a radio station, underground no less, and only has his ears as eyes to the “horror” happening around him but it’s in the execution that makes this stand out. It’s the psychology of having sound be a guide, of the claustrophobia knowing you can’t leave where you are, and of the paranoia that sets in when you don’t know exactly what’s happening around you.

As well, revealing the moments that work so well would only prove to be a disappointment for those who don’t know what to expect and this is, honestly, a movie that rewards a blind faith pledge to deliver something good. It’s rare to hear a story that wants to thrill you from the inside out, and forgo the torture porn or splatter factor to win you over, but by the end of this movie when you’re questioning what it is you just saw the only correct answer is this: greatness. Greatness of story, of meticulous direction and blocking, and certainly it should be noted that leaving things open ended for interpretation or sequel possibilities is fine by me.

Too many times we, as moviegoers, have our tales told to us without opportunity to ruminate or chew on after the credits roll; however, Pontypool deserves a shot to place itself up there in your top 10 films of 2010 if you errantly let this movie slide by in 2009 because of the way it constructs its story and allows your mind to question what it is you just saw.

WOLF MEN : The Men Who Created 1941’s THE WOLF MAN – Essay by Scott Essman

The long-awaited release of Universal Studios’ 2010 version of The Wolfman conjures the history of the men who made the original horror films at the studio in the 1920s through the 1940s.  Not only was the original 1941 film The Wolf Man key among them, but the rich history of the other films is directly tied into both why and how that film was created.

In 1928, after his father had appointed 21-year-old Carl Laemmle, Jr. as head of production at Universal Studios, the machinery was in place for a new wave of films based on classic horror stories. By 1931, the studio had both Dracula and Frankenstein as two of its greatest successes, and they followed those up with a few more early 1930s originals, including The Mummy and The Invisible Man.

By 1935, they had produced Werewolf of London, their first film based on the Loup-Garou stories from France of men who turned into wolves at the turning of a full moon. When the Laemmles left the studio in 1937, Universal seemed doomed to a slate of poorly produced sequels to the great films of the Laemmle era as quickly churned out sequels to Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Mummy arrived in droves. However, there was one exception to the rule which arrived in 1941 which would set a new standard and ultimately be ranked with the greatest of the Universal horror classics.

As the 1940s began, horror movies were beginning to take a back seat to sweeping romantic dramas and comedies. But one intended B picture was the landmark The Wolf Man, reestablishing the horror genre at Universal. The film was originally meant for Boris Karloff some ten years earlier, but by 1941, when Karloff had moved onto mad scientists and other older characters, a new actor was positioned as the new Karloff at the studio. His name was Lon Chaney, Jr. Until the late 1930s, the younger Chaney had been less heralded than his silent movie superstar father, but his appearance in 1939’s adaptation of Of Mice and Men put him on the cinematic map. Chaney, Jr. was a star in the making and Universal snapped him up for a run of horror films that lasted throughout the 1940s. With Jack Pierce’s innovative makeup – a more thorough lycanthrope overhaul of Chaney Jr.’s face than had been utilized on Henry Hull in Werewolf of London – The Wolf Man was a remarkable horror movie character and equally as memorable as Karloff’s Frankenstein Monster and Mummy and Bela Lugosi’s Dracula.

In addition to the team of Jack Pierce, director George Waggner, and visual effects wizard John P. Fulton, the craftsmanship of The Wolf Man was also entrusted to editor Ted J. Kent, A.C.E . Of all the monster movie editors, none was more prolific than Kent, an in-house editor at Universal for over a quarter century. Kent’s monster tenure spanned no fewer than five ownership changes at the studio. Though research dictates no clear reason for the change, Universal assigned Kent to James Whale’s follow-up to The Old Dark House, which had been competently edited by Clarence Kolster and was released only a year after Frankenstein.  This film, released in 1933, The Invisible Man, would prove among Whale’s most challenging films, with equal contributions by Kent and Fulton. No doubt, both Universal and Whale were enamored with Kent’s work, and he cut three of Whale’s last several films with Universal, including Show Boat in 1936 and The Road Back in 1937. But the one film that elevated Whale’s reputation beyond that which his earlier films offered him was a picture he didn’t even want to make.

By 1935, the idea of The Bride of Frankenstein didn’t appeal to the man who was wary of being labeled a horror director. Nonetheless, many consider Whale’s long-overdue sequel to be superior to the original Frankenstein with its mixture of unforgettable sequences, demonic characters, and wistful comedy. In a likely homage to Clarence Kolster’s work on that first film, Kent cut Bride in similar fashion, most notably in the reveal of Elsa Lanchester’s hideous title character in the final scenes; we see her in the same three matching closeups that Kolster implemented so effectively to show us Karloff’s monster in the original film. Even after Whale and the Laemmles departed Universal, Kent was recruited by studio brass to cut 1939’s final sequel with Karloff as the monster, Son of Frankenstein, featuring a towering performance by Bela Lugosi as Ygor that Kent surely played up in the editing room. He even cut Vincent Price’s 1938 debut film, Service de Luxe! But though he likely didn’t realize it then, Kent’s Universal career was just starting to peak.

For the Waggner Wolf Man film, slated as a B-picture by the Universal brass, Pierce and Fulton knew that they had an opportunity to create a unique project that would harken back to the old Laemmle years at the studio.  In Chaney, they had the hulking physical actor who could be used to realize their ideas.  With The Wolf Man, Kent, along with major contributions by studio mainstays Pierce and Fulton, created the film’s showpiece “transformation” sequences which became standard fare in the many spin-offs that followed. Witness the lap dissolves that Kent and Fulton implemented for transformations from man to wolf, and especially, in the film’s tragic climax, from wolf back to man. Kent also cleverly orchestrated the noted end of the film where Claude Rains unknowingly beats his own son with a silver-tipped cane, later realizing that it was his own flesh that he killed. In their tussle, an especially marked cut to a close shot of Chaney, Jr. as the Wolf Man struggling with Rains makes for one of the film’s most fascinating moments.

During pre-production of The Wolf Man, Jack Pierce worked diligently to create the makeup for the title character, having been disappointed with his reduced makeup for Henry Hull in Werewolf of London. Pierce pulled out all the stops for The Wolf Man with Lon Chaney, Jr. in the title role. Though the two did not reportedly get along–Chaney did not like wearing the makeup or undergoing the lengthy application and removal period–Pierce excelled again with his werewolf concept, utilizing a design he had created for Boris Karloff a decade earlier when the Laemmles were planning a werewolf film. Thus, even though it was originally intended as a B movie, The Wolf Man was a true horror classic, and Pierce’s version of the character has been the model for the numerous werewolves that have since come to the screen.

The idea of Jack Pierce re-creating a wolf character from scratch every day of principal photography may seem daunting, but – as with the Frankenstein Monster and the Mummy before – Pierce prided himself on doing things from the bottom up with each new makeup application.  “I don’t use masks or any appliances whatsoever,” proclaimed Jack Pierce about the development of his famous monster characters.   The one exception to Pierce’s rule occurred with his striking initial realization of The Wolf Man in 1941.   “The only appliances I used was the nose that looks like a wolf[“˜s nose].  There you either put on a rubber nose or model the nose every day, which would have taken too long.  It took 2 1/2 hours to apply this makeup,” Pierce said, indicating the head, chest piece and hands.  “I put all of the hair on a little row at a time.  After the hair is on, you curl it, then singe it, burn it, to look like an animal that’s been out in the woods.  It had to be done every morning.” Pierce’s other key characters in The Wolf Man included 1940s “scream queen” Evelyn Ankers as Gwen Conliffe, Claude Rains as Sir John Talbot, Béla Lugosi as Béla the gypsy, and Maria Ouspenskaya as Maleva, the gypsy woman.  As a result of Pierce’s methods, audiences were treated to the perfectionism in The Wolf Man.

Alas, what might have been was never realized with the stunning originality and critical and commercial success of The Wolf Man. As the U.S. entered WWII, a slew of sequels and remakes of the original horror films were cranked out at Universal with few standouts as momentous as their antecedents.  Pierce went on to create the Wolf Man character in succeeding sequels, including Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), and both House of Frankenstein (1944) and House of Dracula (1945).  The latter, originally titled “The Wolf Man’s Cure” featured an end to the cycle of appearances by the Wolf Man in Universal films, but the character would inexplicably re-appear in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein three years later.  By that point, Bud Westmore was supervising makeup artists Jack Kevan (the Frankenstein Monster) and Emile LaVigne (the Wolf Man) in their execution of Jack Pierce’s original designs. The classic monster movie era, in effect, was over.

Upon the occasion of Jack Pierce’s death in 1968 and Ted Kent’s death in 1986, the last of the monster makers were gone, but their work continues to live on again and again, as new audiences begin to discover their treasured films. Perhaps with the fresh perspective now available to audiences with Universal’s recent re-release of many of the classic horror films on DVD, including a new Legacy Collection of The Wolf Man (1941) due on DVD from Universal Studios Home Entertainment in winter, 2010, the talented craftspeople who realized these films will ultimately be recognized for their singular efforts. Alongside the collection of actors, directors and executives responsible for Universal’s great horror collection, editors including Kent deserve due credit for bringing the original monsters and their movies to life.