The Snow Creature (1954) - Yeti schlock from the inferior Wilder

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Sensationalist, oblong poster for W. Lee Wilder's The Snow Creature

The Snow Creature is a low-budget-horror flick about a botanical expedition to the Himalayas that gets derailed by a snow creature's abduction of the wife of one of the Sherpas. The mission of the group alters, and they succeed in capturing the Yeti and bring it back to Los Angeles, where, of course, it breaks loose.
Crudely modeled over Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack's classic King Kong (1933), - pretty obvious for instance on the poster above, in which the creature resembles Kong, (and is far larger than in the film, where it is merely a tall man in a furry costume), - Snow Creature is said to be the first film about a Yeti.
This is, however, not enough to lift it out of its secure position as a cinema turkey. None of the characters are established well, and the story is handled without much ability or importance. Instead, Creature features vast amounts of boring, long shots of people simply walking in the mountains. The creature is hidden from view for as long as possible, but when we do get glimpses of it, it is also a dud: The costume is very poorly accomplished and won't scare most audiences.
The film isn't terrible in its acting, merely boring. It features Paul Langton (The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)) as the botanist leader Frank Parrish. As the creature breaks out in the big city, it descends to the sewer system, shot in the LA drain system, and this proves an atmospheric, scary location. The scenes down there are the best thing about Snow Creature.
Its script is by Myles Wilder (The Dukes of Hazzard (1979-85)), the son of the director, and it poses - together with the poor monster - the biggest obstacle for the film: The Western leads are pretty unsympathetic: In the field, they ridicule the locale's belief in the Yeti, until enough evidence shows them that they are wrong, whereby they refuse the man of the abducted woman to shoot the monster. Instead they capture it and bring it back to civilization, where it breaks loose and kills more people, whereupon they finally SPOILER kill it themselves.
The last scene is pretty weird, and awful: The male leads talk in a car after the monster kill, about naming one of their kids after each other. The end. Awful film, really.

Click to enlarge this over-selling poster for W. Lee Wilder's The Snow Creature

The details:

The film is directed by W. Lee Wilder (The Man Without a Body (1957)) from Austria-Hungary (now Poland), whose younger brother was the famous, great American director Billy Wilder (Sunset Boulevard (1950)). The two were estranged for many years, and Billy Wilder once described his older brother as "a dull son of a bitch."
Without obviously knowing any of them personally, but only judging by their films, Billy Wilder may have been correct. Certainly The Snow Creature is not a match for even the poorest of W. Lee's brother Billy Wilder's movies.

In lieu of a trailer, here you can see 3 minutes of the film, in which the Yeti is revealed and captured

Budget: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown

What do you think of W. Lee Wilder's pictures, (if you have seen any)?
Do you know anything of the enmity between the film-making Wilder brothers?

Burma VJ/Burma VJ: Reporter i et Lukket Land/Burma VJ: Reporting From a Closed Country (2008) - Important must-see documentary

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One striking poster for Anders Østergaard's Burma VJ

In the Danish documentary Burma VJ, we follow the Burmese video reporters in their work of documenting the reality in their country, as the monk uprising of 2007 shakes the repressed country to its core, and is SPOILER ultimately struck down by the ruthless military junta, before a powerful hurricane wrecks additional mayhem on the Burmese people's lives.
Burma VJ [video journalist] is a documentary that transcends any stylistic or aesthetic reservations that one might have with all the hand-held amateur footage in the film. It is so incredibly moving and important that it makes its audiences let go of everything else and simply eat up its raw suspense and later feel an ecstatic joy from its depiction of the heroic struggle of good people of Burma, - as well as feel a pain that strikes one's very soul, SPOILER when those struggles fail to invoke immediate change.
Happily, we have seen in the years since Burma VJ's release that Burma has developed in the right direction, with more openness, freedom and democracy.
Burma VJ was Oscar-nominated as Best Documentary, but lost to the also masterful dolphin-documentary, The Cove. Burma VJ is directed by Anders Østergaard, who has made other renowned documentaries like Tintin and I (2003) about Hergé, the man behind Tintin, and Gasolin' (2006) about the beloved Danish rock band.

Related posts:

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]  

2008 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2008 in films - according to Film Excess 

A still from one of the emotionally captivating parts of the outstanding Burma VJ

Budget: Unknown
Box office: 0.1 mil. $ (only US, from just 3 theaters)
= Unknown

What do you think of Burma VJ?
Other masterful documentaries like it that you'd care to recommend?

The Bear/L'Ours (1988) - Amazing bear story for (almost) the entire family

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The intense, exciting poster for Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Bear

QUICK REVIEW:

A young bear in British Columbia loses his mother, when a rock-slide buries her, but luckily, he attaches himself to a huge grizzly bear. Nature, however, poses many dangers, none the least in the form of human hunters.
The Bear is a staggering accomplishment, because its leads are played by real bears doing all kinds of things and taking us emotionally into their world. This deeply impressive performance is told through a narrative, which is treated with crystal clear structure and lots of suspense and heart-rendering scenes. The Bear wisely never lets you sit back and wonder what you're doing getting involved in a movie about bears. But you do wonder how the footage was caught and the ordeals that must have been involved.
The alienation that I and most audiences feel against the 'evil' humans fortunately SPOILER gets mended in the end in a sweet but unsentimental ending. The balancing act of The Bear's storyline is outstanding.
The Bear doesn't say anything as such, (much as it is largely free of dialog and a score), and the dream sequences in it are primitive (and psychedelic), but the experience as a whole is unique, the nature grand and the tale gripping.
A fantastic film, ideal for family watch, bigger kids (age 6) upwards.
The French director of this French film, - which was shot almost entirely in the Italian and Austrian Dolomites, - is Jean-Jacques Annaud, who has made films like The Name of the Rose (1986) and Seven Years in Tibet (1997). He is working on a large adaptation set in China and Mongolia now, Wolf Totem, set to come out next year.

Related post:

Top 10: The best adventure movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 

Some images from the movie:

Watch the trailer for this fine film here

Budget: Unknown
Box office: 31.7 mil. $ (US only)
= Almost certainly a huge success

What do you think of The Bear?
Can you mention other fine films with animals in the leads?

Bottle Shock (2008) - Mediocre California wine picture

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One poster for Randall Miller's Bottle Shock. It announces the film a 'true story', while it is 'based on a true story' at best (an important distinction)

QUICK REVIEW:

We are in 1976, where a Californian wine-farmer struggles with a deficit, the bank and a long-haired, lazy son, when a British wine-expert comes on an exchange. An exchange that opened the doors to the gilded world of wine for the US and the rest of the world.
Alan Rickman (Die Hard (1988)) is appropriately dry and credible as the Brit connoisseur, but which of the two stories served in Bottle Shock we really are to care about, - Rickman's or the one about the local youngsters' fooling around, - is unclear for a long time. Chris Pine (Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)) wears a ridiculous wig in the film and plays his part as a charming but disgraceful poodle.
The photography is delicious, deeply romantic and deeply banal. The whole story is so comfortable and predictable that the film seems totally perfunctory.
Many people thought that Bottle Shock might be another great American film about wine, following Alexander Payne's Sideways (2004), but this unfortunately just isn't the case.
Also, Bottle Shock has been attacked for its depiction of its 'true story', among others by the real Steven Spurrier, (the character that Rickman portrays), who has stated: "There is hardly a word that is true in the script and many, many pure inventions as far as I am concerned."
Director Randall Miller made a very similar kind of film last year, CBGB (2013), again featuring Rickman in the lead, this time about the New York punk club CBGB, and an even bigger flop than Bottle Shock. And he is already busy on his next film, Midnight Rider (2014) a biopic on musician Greg Allman with William Hurt in the lead.
Somebody must like Miller ...

 Alan Rickman in Bottle Shock

The late Dennis Farina and Chris Pine in Bottle Shock, both made up pretty ridiculously. Click to enlarge

Watch the film's trailer here

Budget: 5 mil. $ (estimation)
Box office: 4.6 mil. $
= Flop

What do you think of Bottle Shock?
Can you mention some good films about wine?

The Birth of a Nation/The Clansman (1915) - Griffith's unlovable work of epic cinema-historical proportions

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An original poster for D. W. Griffith's cinematic classic The Birth of a Nation showing the controversial hero of the film, the Ku Klux Clansman

QUICK REVIEW:

From the the Civil War between the Northern and Southern states in the US, which we experience from both sides, culminating in a grand battle where both the Northern and the Southern 'chum' are shot dead, side by side, the story of Birth evolves as a phony history lesson that gets more and more feeble. The story of the slain South's forcibly imposed Negro regime and the growth of the heroic resistance (the Ku Klux Klan) is deeply odd today to say the least. It was also controversial at the time of the film's release, and the racist reading of Birth made its legendary director D. W. Griffith make his next film on its basis, Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916), eager to show that he was no racist .
To a large degree, though, I find that it is Griffith's discourse that is at fault in Birth, and that the film never becomes a directly awful propaganda for racism. However, these particulars may be said to be irrelevant, as the KKK actually used Birth as a tool in their recruitment of new members for decades, from their refoundation in the 1920s and way into the 70s. So it is not a 'clean' picture, far from politically correct and most scholars of cinema will tell you that it is cinematically important without condoning of its content, (for obvious, good reasons.)
Birth features lots of action and fun episodes, but also incredibly overlong war scenes, and it is a hard film to relate to today.
Griffith introduced numerous new devices to the art of cinema storytelling with Birth and many other of his films, and the film is also noteworthy for its phenomenal commercial success, which wasn't surpassed until Victor Fleming's Gone With the Wind (1939).
Birth of a Nation is in the public domain today and can be watched or downloaded free and legal (although in undoubtedly shabby quality) here.

Watch a trailer for the epic film here

Budget: 0.1 mil. $
Box office: 50 mil. $ (from 1915-1950)
= Enormous success

What are your thoughts on Birth of a Nation (only if you have actually sat down and watched it)?
And on other Griffith-films, if you have seen any?

Dallas Buyers Club (2013) or, Taking Life by the Horns

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A terrific still is the basis for this beautiful poster for Jean-Marc Vallée's Dallas Buyers Club



Dallas Buyers Club is the mostly true story of Ron Woodroof, a drug-toking hustler, electrician and rodeo cowboy, whose deteriorating health gets diagnosed as AIDS in 1985, where the doctor tells him he has a month left to live. Woodroof survives for another 7 years, taking experimental drugs to diminish the harsh effects of the virus and setting up a club for sick people to buy the unapproved (later illegal) drugs through him.

 
Matthew McConaughey (Mud (2012)) plays Woodroof in a physically demanding performance, (he lost 22 kg for the part), and may very well win his first Oscar in a few weeks for the job, (ed.: he did.) Jared Leto plays the transsexual Rayon, who becomes Woodroof's business partner and good friend, and Leto's physical transformation is as impressive as McConaughey's, (and Leto is also Oscar-nominated, (ed.: and also won!))

Jared Leto as Rayon in the film, when he still looks good

The third major role in Dallas is Jennifer Garner's (Juno (2007)) turn as a doctor whose sympathy gradually shifts from the hospital system to the alternative that Woodroof represents. Garner is once again wonderful, but she seems to stand in the shade of the physically transformative men in most reviews, which she doesn't deserve.
There is something painful in watching this movie, - and for me it wasn't the 'good' kind of painful. The lead and Leto's parts are deadly sick through the entire film, and we are in hospitals again and again. They are emaciated and look incredibly bad. Furthermore, Woodroof can be a stupid asshole.
He is fiercely disgusting in the way he leads his life, and he only distinguishes himself from his equally no-good hick friends, when he receives his death notice. AIDS is what makes him a redeemable character; the disease educates him into being a better person, which is in a way pretty terrible. What propels the character forward is his strong will to live and to help others to live.
SPOILER The few moving moments of the film were for me the scenes just before Rayon's death, when Woodroof finally stops throwing homophobic abuse at his closest friend.
I know it was part of the character they created for the film, but for me the distance between he and I became too big for me to get thrown over completely, once he (predictably) altered behavior.
The story of struggling with the DEA and AIDS-patients dying in droves every day is as interesting as it is depressing. Dallas Buyers Club does a good job of shedding light on the illness and the way it was treated (and not treated) at this point in time in the US (1985-1992). The desperation is palpable, yet didn't cut my heart in half. You may think this a compliment or not, as you like.
Dallas Buyers Club has obvious merits in its performances and strong handling of its story. It is not one of my favorites of 2013, and in the case of McConaughey, ironically, I think that he has starred in not one but two essentially better films in this Oscar-year that he is sure not to win an Oscar for, Jeff Nichols' Mud and Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street, although his performance in this film is small. For AIDS-themed cinema with more impact try out How to Survive a Plague (2012), The Normal Heart (2014) and BPM (Beats Per Minute) (2017).
Canadian director of Dallas Jean-Marc Vallée has also directed the gay-themed C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005), which isn't a perfect film, but which I personally enjoyed a great deal more than Dallas Buyers Club. He is already busy with his next film, Wild (2014), which stars Reese Witherspoon as a woman on a very long solo hike.

Meet the hero of Dallas Buyers Club, Ron Woodroof, in the trailer here

Budget: 5 mil. $
Box office: 33.2 mil. $
= Big hit

What do you think of Dallas Buyers Club?
Did I miss anything crucial in my review?

Benny's Bathtub/Bennys Badekar (1971) - A boy's fantasy adventure in Danish animation classic

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Book cover for the novelization of Flemming Quist Møller & Jannik Hastrup's Benny's Bathtub

QUICK REVIEW:

Benny lives in one of the 60s project buildings with his mother, who doesn't understand his fantasies or games. Sent down to play by the marshes, he finds a tadpole that he brings back home and sets free in his bathtub ...
Benny's Bathtub is a classic, Danish animated short film of 41 minutes from another time in the world and in Danish animation; a more idealistic, free-spirited, creative time.
With wonderful, funny voices from among others Jytte Abildstrøm (Hannibal & Jerry (1997)) and Peter Belli (Flying Grandmother/Flyvende Farmor (2001)) as the octopus who gives a jazz performance. The catchy music, - the film features musical numbers, - is by Hans-Henrik Ley (Cirkeline (1967-70)) as well as Kenny Drew and Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen.
The style is anarchistic, - free and brimming with Danish humor and candor.
The film offers a splendid insight into the fantasy universe of a boy, and today also stands as a treasured, well-aging monument of another time in Denmark. A colorful and trippy family adventure that one might only wish was longer.
It is directed by Jannik Hastrup (Samson and Sally/Samson og Sally (1984)) and Flemming Quist Møller (Jungle Jack/Jungledyret (1993)). The veteran directing pair are in post-production at the moment with their second film about The Bicycle Mosquito/Cykelmyggen entitled The Bicycle Mosquito and the Mini-Beetle/Cykelmyggen og Minibillen (2014).

Related post:

 
Top 10: Best fantasy movies reviewed by Film Excess to date



Benny follows his tadpole on the back of a sea-horse on a fantastic adventure in his own bathtub

In lieu of a trailer, here is one of my favorite scenes from Benny's Bathtub, wherein Benny meets an ornithologist by the marshes. Even if you don't understand the hilarious Danish voices, the animation is pretty great in itself

Budget: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown

Any fond memories of Benny's Bathtub?
Or other old animation films?

Black Christmas/Stranger in the House/Silent Night, Evil Night (1974) - Dark Canadian slasher frontrunner

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One morbid anti-Christmas-y poster for Bob Clark's Black Christmas

QUICK REVIEW:

A girl in a sorority house goes missing, until the alcoholic lady of the house finds her in the attic and ends her own life there as well. A homicidal sex maniac is at play!
Black Christmas distinguishes itself with its cast of characters, who are all awful in each their own way, making the title of the film extra pertinent. Especially the youths in the film are selfish and deprived of values.
The phone calls in Christmas are really scary.


A scary still from Bob Clark's Black Christmas

Despite quite a few innovations, the SPOILER murder-less ending is deeply unsatisfying, I thought.
Black Christmas is a Canadian independent film. It is sometimes called the first slasher ever, (not counting Psycho (1960)). It was either inspired by a Quebec Christmas serial killer or the urban legend of The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs, or a mix of the two.
It is directed by Bob Clark (Porkys (1982)), who has also directed the inadmissibly horrid Baby Geniuses (1999) and Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2004), the latter as the last film he made before his demise in 2007.

Related reviews:


John Saxon: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) or, Your Kids and the Bastard Son of 100 Maniacs
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) or, Don't Fall Asleep!

Cool, scary poster for the film, - click to enlarge

Watch the original, horrific, great trailer here, - it's long! But worthwhile

Budget: 0.6 mil. $
Box office: 4 mil. $ (North America only)
= Big hit

What do you think of Black Christmas?
What is your favorite slasher movie?