Tag Archives: thriller

#106- The Conversation

Quick recap: Surveillance expert Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) records a conversation for a mysterious client and comes to the conclusion that the couple he heard are going to be murdered. I’d say this is a good lesson about the dangers of eavesdropping, but that’s this guy’s job so this is more of a story about doing a job really well.

Homer: Marge, my ears are burning! Marge: Homer, we weren't talking about you. Homer: No, my ears are really burning. I wanted to see what was inside so I lit a Q-Tip Homer: Marge, my ears are burning!
Marge: Homer, we weren’t talking about you.
Homer: No, my ears are really burning. I wanted to see what was inside so I lit a Q-Tip

Fun (?) fact: Continuing with my coincidence fact series, The actress who plays Ann in The Conversation played Laurie in American Graffiti. It’s like the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon except nothing like it all, and much more boring. You’re welcome!

My thoughts: With a title as simple as The Conversation, I knew that the movie was either going to be awesome or worse than The Dead, which at least gave me hope that someone would expire by the end of the movie (Spoiler alert: no one did).  But with The Conversation,  I already knew I was getting something that every movie has, except for all those silent films, of course. Luckily, director Francis Ford Coppola cut to the chase and showed the aforementioned conversation first. What was said between the couple sounded a little off but gave no indication or hint as to how the rest of the movie would turn out.

Don't be fooled! This is The Conversation, but there is no actual conversation going on right now Don’t be fooled! This is The Conversation, but there is no actual conversation going on right now

As you can imagine, The Conversation is an introspective film that gives more information about Harry Caul than the actual mystery of the couple. Caul is an anti-social man who would rather listen in on other people than give any information about himself. He is also extremely paranoid, which makes sense when your job is to basically spy on other people. On the other hand, he spends so much time lost in his world that he misses all these big clues around him. For example, during a convention about spy equipment (which is just as interesting as you can imagine), a competitor slips a ballpoint pen into Caul’s pocket that will record his conversations the rest of the night. IRONY! I knew the second I saw the pen what it actually was, but Caul didn’t think twice. As he becomes more concerned about the fate of the couple, Caul decides to destroy the tapes instead of handing them over and potentially having blood on his hands. After a drunken party at the spy convention, he sleeps with a woman who-you guessed it- stole the tapes! It was completely obvious what was going to happen which I thought was silly except after thinking about it, the whole scene just made me feel even more sorry for Caul and understanding his loneliness.

I have to stop here. At this point, when the tapes were stolen I was prepared to give this movie a 2/5 because although some of it was interesting, it was also rather boring. But then, as Caul followed the couple to the hotel room to find out their fate, my opinion changed. I LOVED this movie. The ending was much more complex than I ever expected it would be and I have many questions. Although this movie is 40 years old, I’m going to hold off revealing anymore spoilers. Francis Ford Coppola, the guy who directed the Godfather movies, has said that The Conversation is one of his personal favorites and I completely understand why.

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Final review:  5/5. I’m tempted to watch the movie again to see what other clues I might be able to pick up that will help me with the ending.

Up next: E.T

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#67- Kiss Me Deadly

Quick recap: Mike Hammer is a private eye, known for working divorce cases. One night while driving, he helps a young woman, Christina, escape from her nameless attackers. They eventually catch up to the two, making Hammer crash the car. When he finally wakes up, he is in the hospital and Christina is dead. Instead of letting things go, he decides to pursue who Christina was and who was out to get her.

The title sequence was run backward for some reason and confused me more than it should have

The title sequence was run backward for some reason and confused me more than it should have

Fun (?) fact: A federal unit whose job it was to investigate what corrupted youth in the 50’s, named this movie the number one menace to teens.

A terrifying picture of corrupted teens

A terrifying picture of corrupted teens

My thoughts: Psycho not living up to my expectations made me even less excited to enjoy this movie. I joke a lot about how easily audiences were influenced back then and maybe that’s why movies seem so tame, but then something like this comes along and changes my perception.I would argue  Kiss Me Deadly has parts that are just as violent as what I’m used to seeing nowadays. It was refreshing to know that stuff like this existed, but it also made me wonder why people glorify directors like Hitchcock being the master of horror and thrillers. I’m beginning to think he might be a little overrated.

One of the aspects I loved about this movie was that no one was particularly a good person. Mike Hammer is the protagonist, which typically pegs him as the square, but he is far from it. For one thing, his job in divorce proceedings is to get as much dirt as he can on both partners and then screw them out of money. he is also heavily involved with his secretary, but doesn’t make it official and throughout the movie he has no issues making out with any woman who will have him. And he’s definitely not what the bad guys were expecting him to be. In an early scene, Hammer finds out that he is being followed by someone. Instead of running away, he fights the guy and then bashes his head against the wall repeatedly. Later on, while interrogating an old man, Hammer gleefully breaks a rare vinyl record that the man loves. It made me more intrigued with the mystery since I wasn’t invested in the characters as much.

There was A LOT of kissing. So much kissing.

There was A LOT of kissing. So much kissing.

The mystery itself was sub par. It was exciting to see the next clue and what would happen next, but I got confused several times trying to figure out what Hammer was looking for. Even now, I’m still not sure what Christina, the girl from the beginning of the movie, had to do with all of this. On the other hand, I don’t really care. There were so many twists that I gave up trying to keep up and just enjoyed what I was watching. With all of the action going on, I was reminded of my favorite television show, Lost. I won’t spoil anything, but as each season went by, I became more and more intrigued by the mystery. By the last few episodes, I realized that the reveal, whatever it was, wouldn’t satisfy me. And that’s precisely what happened here. When Hammer finally finds the box Christina has been hiding and opens it up, it really doesn’t matter what’s inside because it has been a hell of a journey so far. And I guess the director felt the same because the contents of the box are never revealed. An homage to this can be seen in Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. The final scene of the box being opened and starting a nuclear explosion was a nice surprise and matched with all the Cold War drama going on in real life. kiss-me-deadly-1

Final review: 4/5. I wouldn’t call this required viewing, but it was a lot of fun to watch and gave me hope for similar classic films

Up next: Onibaba

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#63- Woman in the Dunes

Quick recap: A schoolteacher explores the dunes, looking for a rare insect. Realizing he has missed his bus for the night, some villagers offer to help find him a place to sleep. They send him down into a dune with a widow, whose job is to shovel sand for a company. The next morning, the schoolteacher realizes he is trapped. With no way out, he begins to bond with the woman and eventually they fall in love.

obligatory 'tie her up because she lured me in here' dance before falling in love

obligatory ‘tie her up because she lured me in here’ dance before falling in love

Fun(?) Fact: Quicksand isn’t really all that deadly. Most of the time, it runs just a few feet deep and if you make slow movements, you’ll end up floating to the top and be just fine. I don’t know why, but I always assumed quicksand would be an obstacle in my life at some point and now I’m a little disappointed that it wasn’t the enemy I feared. 😦

bonus fun fact! Apparently there is a fetish for people getting stuck in quicksand. Thanks, Google images!

bonus fun fact! Apparently there is a fetish for people getting stuck in quicksand. Thanks, Google images!

My thoughts:  When people gush to me about their love of foreign films, what they usually mean is Amélie. Which is fine, and I totally get it because it is a sweet movie, after all. But then I have the experience of watching an unexpected foreign film and I wonder why it isn’t getting the same recognition as all the others we ‘love’. Woman in the Dunes is a weird movie, but not so weird that it couldn’t be embraced by all the foreign film aficionados. In fact, if I had to come up with a tagline for this movie, it would be, ‘It’s not El Topo‘. Clear and concise, just the way it should be.

One of the thoughts that struck me throughout the movie was that I could never get a handle on what genre I was actually watching. This was the first time I chose to forgo research before sitting down to watch something and I must say that it increased my affection for the movie just a little bit more because everything is unexpected. The beginning of Woman in the Dunes would make for great horror film fodder: A young man, unaware of his situation, is lured into the dunes where there is no escape. The sand almost becomes a monster, a living thing. It is its own life force. And there is no escaping it. In fact, the widow must shovel daily, not just because it is her job, but also because if she didn’t the sand would bury her house within a couple of days, with her along with it. But it was also horror as the man realized he was just as trapped as his insects were, after catching them. This is his life now.

At some point, the mood changed and the plot centered more on the romance than the Sisyphus lifestyle. Earlier the sand had frightened me, but now it was being used for sexual tension. One of the aspects of living in a dune is that water is not readily available and when it is, it must be rationed. Therefore, when bath day rolls around, it is a big deal. The scenes with the schoolteacher and widow bathing each other were pretty hot and made me wonder if I had a future in writing sand dune related erotic novels. But then I also thought of a certain scene in the desert from El Topo, and the thought was gone. I guess it makes sense that love would blossom, seeing as literally the only other activity is shoveling sand.

woman-in-the-dunes

And then finally, after an escape attempt where the schoolteacher falls into quicksand, he is resigned to his fate. One day, he stumbles across an idea to pump water from underground so that it will be available at all times. When his lover is taken away due to an ectopic pregnancy, he even has a chance to escape. Instead of doing so, the schoolteacher climbs out of the dune to look at the ocean, and then puts himself right back where he was so that he can continue his project. It was a very depressing ending, although I suppose there are several ways to take it. My opinion is that there are aspects of life that seem like you may be trapped, and you very well might be, but there is always something interesting that you can throw yourself into and focus on.

Final review: 3/5. Very interesting concept, but there were some slow moving parts and it seemed like there was one disaster after another, which lost my interest a few times.

Up next: I actually haven’t a clue. I’m open to suggestions!

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#61- Psycho

Quick recap: This is the one with the shower scene.

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Fun (?) fact: Alfred Hitchcock tested how scary Mother’s corpse was by placing it in actress Janet Leigh’s dressing room and then hearing how loud she screamed.

psycho_mother_s_day_card_by_michaeljlarson-d651715

 

My thoughts: If I had to choose one movie that I am most ashamed to have never seen, it would be Psycho. It is one of those movies I know the entire plot and even some quotes, but until last night had never sat down to watch it. I think the two things that surprised me most were 1) Marion dying in the middle of the film (for some reason, I always thought it was at the beginning) and 2) how attracted I was to Norman Bates. I’m sure the latter will be dissected in future therapy sessions, but for now, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one with these thoughts.

and such a polite boy. A little stabby at times, but then again, aren't we all? and such a polite boy. A little stabby at times, but then again, aren’t we all?

In thinking further about my thoughts before and after the movie, the character of Marion confounded me more than anything else. I’m not sure what I had pictured her character would be-maybe just an unlucky woman who shows up at the motel, instead of what she turned out to be: A Woman of Ill Repute. Which is my favorite kind of woman, although the statistics aren’t that favorable for such a person surviving in a horror film. I think I actually said out loud, ‘she’s dead!’ when she stuffed the $40,000 into her purse. And as for that Infamous Shower Scene, I was ultimately underwhelmed. I suppose I have been desensitized to such violent scenes thanks to modern films and the news, but still, I was at least expecting a bloodier scene. Instead, the murder scene looked more like that time back in college when I was stupid enough to walk barefoot outside and then step on a shard of glass. I’m sure audiences of the 60s would’ve practically fainted if they had seen my dorm room that night. Marion also doesn’t do any good fighting back. She just screams and lets this guy stab her repeatedly. She is kind enough to turn around several times, though, and give Bates even more stabbing opportunities. What a gal.

The most legitimately scary part of the film was that Bates had kept his mother as a corpse. The corpse itself was also creepy, although it also reminded me of a dried apple. If the film had ended with Bates being caught, I would’ve been satisfied. After all, I mostly believe that evil needs no further explanation. I think the audience already assumed that Bates was dressing up as his mother and murdering people, so why spell it out further? Then again, this was the same audience who, even though this was a black and white movie, fervently believed they had seen red blood during the shower scene. And also, there were faintings during the showing of the film. As a side note, was fainting just a fashionable thing to do back then?Was it a way to woo a suitor? In either case, I’m glad we as a society have mostly grown up in that respect.

Maybe this should be a new category for my blog: Things that shouldn’t bother Mary, but they do. It really annoyed me that Hitchcock tried to pass off Norman Bates talking as his mother when it obviously wasn’t. I know he didn’t want to spoil the surprise, damn him, so he recorded women doing the voice instead of Anthony Perkins. But it also sort of ruined the explanation for me, that he was a schizophrenic who had become his mother, because obviously he didn’t inherit her vocal cords.

Final review: 3/5. I won’t say I was disappointed in the film, because it is very well made and Hitchcock is the master of suspense. But it also didn’t quite live up to the hype.

Up next: Woman in the Dunes

 

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