The Haunted Mansion (2003) - Haunted house ride adaptation an FX-driven slumber

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A cobweb-dressed mansion entrance lures prospective audiences on this poster for Rob Minkoff's The Haunted Mansion

Jim Evers is a realtor with a busy career, who has difficulty finding time to see his family, who therefore are forced to spend their family weekend visiting a large estate in Louisiana that 'the big man' intends to sell ...

 

The Haunted Mansion is written by David Berenbaum (Elf (2003)) and directed by Rob Minkoff (The Lion King (1994, co-director)). It is based on Disney's theme park ride of the same name.

Eddie Murphy (Beverly Hills Cop III (1994)) is so lovable and funny that one is happy at the outset of The Haunted Mansion, which bodes well for this ride-inspired studio creation. The family vs. work conflict, however, vanishes as various more or less stupid and unimpressive 'horror' special effects are unleashed within the house. Here also Terence Stamp (Crow (2016)) delivers a laconic butler performance with an excessive British accent. 

The Haunted Mansion; (not really that) close - and definitely no cigar!

 

Related posts:

Rob Minkoff: 2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Mr. Peabody & Sherman (2014) - Vexing, over-stimulated time-travel adaptation

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 90 mil. $

Box office: 182.2 mil. $

= Flop (returned 2.02 times its cost)

[The Haunted Mansion was released 26 November (North America) and runs 87 minutes. Shooting took place from December 2002 - April 2003 in New Orleans, Louisiana and in California, including in Los Angeles. The film opened #1 to a 34 mil. $ 5 day-long Thanksgiving opening weekend in North America, where it spent one more weekend in the top 5 (#3), grossing 75.8 mil. $ (41.6 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Japan with 29.7 mil. $ (16.3 %) and the UK with 14.8 mil. $ (8.1 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 2.5/4 star review, translating to a notch over this one. The film was remade by Disney as Haunted Mansion (2023) to a much steeper flop result. Minkoff returned with The Forbidden Kingdom (2008). Murphy returned with voice performances in Shrek 2 (2004) and 2 Shrek 2-related productions prior to his physical theatrical return in Dreamgirls (2006). The Haunted Mansion is rotten at 13 % with a 4.30/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Haunted Mansion?

Hard Times/The Streetfighter (1975) - Hill debuts with Bronson gold, a boxing favorite

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An imagination-fueling poster for Walter Hill's Hard Times that effectively sets us in a specific place and time

A fortune-hunting boxing promoter finds his new bare-knuckle sensation in an unimpressed man, who can punch so that even the heaviest adversaries see stars. But the promoter will have to borrow a big amount to get his new fighter going.

 

Hard Times is written by Bryan Gindoff (The Candy Snatchers (1973)), Bruce Henstell (The Candy Snatchers, assistant director) and debuting co-writer/director, Californian master filmmaker Walter Hill (48 Hrs. (1982)).

An enormously simple story gets presented in the most beautiful way in Hill's period boxing drama; handsome sets, beautiful image compositions (cinematography by Philip H. Lathrop (Class Reunion (1982))) and an iconic performance by Charles Bronson (Murphy's Law (1986)). Some of the nuances here lie in the fact that one senses the inherent degradation in having to fight until blood spurts in order to survive; SPOILER along with the ending's implicit point about protecting and helping those you have fought along with, even if you don't care much for them.

James Coburn (Intrepid (2000)) is strong as the promoter, a man caught between a rock and a hard place. The scene in which Bronson sets things right in Louisiana is fantastic. The film's final fight, (despite the fact that the camera doesn't linger much on the impact of the punches), is the fight of the decade. 

Hard Times is a phenomenal, inconspicuous song of a hero, a gift for men - and probably Bronson's best starring picture.

 

Related posts:

 

Walter Hill: Alien 3 (1992) or, The Monsters Go to Jail! (co-writer)

Another 48 Hrs. (1990) - More of the same from your buddies Hill, Murphy & Nolte 

48 Hrs. (1982) or, Reluctant Partners

The Getaway (1972) - McQueen/Peckinpah hit the bank with unrefined thriller (writer)

 

 

Watch 3 minutes of the film's beginning here

 

Cost: 2.7 - 3.1 mil. $ (different reports)

Box office: Reportedly 26.5 mil. $

= Mega-hit (returned 8.54-9.81 times its cost)

[Hard Times was released 13 August (France) and runs 93 minutes. AIP producer Lawrence Gordon gave Hill the chance to direct after he had been successful with a number of action screenplays. Bronson was paid "almost 1 mil. $" for his performance. Shooting took place around September 1974 in Texas, Arizona, Los Angeles, California, and in New Orleans, Louisiana. The film's box office numbers are not easy to dig up; the-numbers.com allege that it made 5 mil. $ in North America, relatively little compared to the 26.5 mil. $ total gross listed elsewhere, and the fact that Hill in 2009 said that he still received profits from the film. Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, translating to 2 notches under this one. Hill returned with The Driver (1978). Bronson returned in Breakheart Pass (1975); Coburn in Skyriders (1976). Hard Times is fresh at 92 % with a 7.00/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Hard Times? 

The Skeleton Key (2003) - Hudson and co-stars fuel suspenseful Louisiana mystery

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+ Best Louisiana Movie of the Year

Kate Hudson has seen better real estate than on this poster for Iain Softley's The Skeleton Key

A nurse working in a hospice in the Louisiana swampland discovers that something isn't as it should be at her workplace...

The Skeleton Key is written by Ehren Kruger (Scream 3 (2000)) and directed by Iain Softley (Backbeat (1994)).
The Skeleton Key is about Hoodoo magic, - a mix of African religious practices and beliefs brought to America by slaves, - and ghosts. It doesn't reinvent the spoon, but it does have good building of suspense, and Kate Hudson (You, Me and Dupree (2006)) is good as the protagonist. John Hurt (The Hunting of the Snark (1987)) and Gena Rowlands (Tempest (1982)) add substantial interest and weight with their performances.
The Skeleton Key is a good little mystery chiller with fine local musical choices but too much flickering CGI use.

 

Related posts:

 

2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 

2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Softley gives an interview here on the red carpet for his latest film, Curve (2015)

Cost: 43 mil. $
Box office: 91.9 mil. $
= Flop (returned 2.13 times its cost)
[The Skeleton Key premiered 29 July (Spain, UK and Ireland) and runs 104 minutes. Shooting took place in Louisiana, including New Orleans, and in Los Angeles, California from April - October 2004. The film opened #2, behind fellow new release Four Brothers, to a 16 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another week in the top 5 (#5) and grossed 47.9 mil. $ (52.1 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Germany with 5.9 mil. $ (6.4 %) and Mexico with 4.7 mil. $ (5.1 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 2.5/4 star review, translating to a notch harder than this one. Softley returned with Inkheart (2008). Hudson returned in You, Me and Dupree (2006). The Skeleton Key is rotten at 37 % with a 5.26/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Skeleton Key?

I Love You Phillip Morris (2009) - Carrey/McGregor are pure magic in incredible true story romcom

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+ Best LGBT Movie of the Year + Best Romance of the Year

Love can be found in the strangest places, as one song puts it. An infectiously happy poster for Glenn Ficarra and John Requa's I Love You Phillip Morris

Con artist Steve Russell leaves his wife and child after a near-death experience, deciding against spending more years as an unhappy closeted homosexual. His cons brings him to incarceration, where he finds true love in fellow inmate Phillip Morris.

Ewan McGregor (Angels & Demons (2009)) gives a tender performance as Morris, and Jim Carrey (Me, Myself & Irene (2000)) is simply grand as Russell in this incredible romcom biopic. Carrey's authenticity does veer a bit in some of the very emotionally charged moments in the film, but this is not necessarily a fault in the performance; it may rather be a sign of the character's trickster personality. - When someone makes it a cardinal point in their lives to con and delude, they may find it difficult to be sincere - and appear sincere - even when they try to be so.
I Love You Phillip Morris is a highly unusual film based on a wild true story, which is both life-affirming and very funny.
It is the directing debut of great writer-directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (Focus (2015), both), who previously wrote and produced features and TV-series, based on Steve McVicker's non-ficion book I Love You Phillip Morris: A True Story of Life, Love, and Prison Breaks.

Related posts:

2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Watch a panel board interview with Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor in support of the film here

Cost: 13 mil. $
Box office: 21 mil. $
= Big flop
[I Love You Phillip Morris premiered 18 January (Sundance Film Festival) and runs 93 minutes. Filming took place from April 2008 - ? in Miami, Florida, Los Angeles, California and in Louisiana, including in New Orleans and in Louisiana State Penitentiary aka Angola. While most of the events in the film seem to be true, the timeline has been altered. The film's distribution was fraught with problems, as distributors objected to gay sexual material, there were legal troubles and downsizing of the strategy; the film didn't see general releases until 2010 and didn't begin its limited North American release until December 2010, (when it had already generated 18 mil. $ at foreign box offices.) It opened #27 to a 112k $ first weekend in 6 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #23 and in 100 theaters (different weeks) and grossed a paltry 2 mil. $ (9.5 % of the total gross), making it only the film's 4th biggest market, which is what slayed the film's prospects of turning profitable theatrically. The 3 biggest were the UK with 3.4 mil. $ (16.2 %), France with 2.9 mil. $ (13.8 %) and Italy with 2.7 mil. $ (12.9 %). The film was nominated for 2 Cannes awards. I Love You Phillip Morris is certified fresh at 72 % with a 6.6/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of I Love You Phillip Morris?

In the Electric Mist (2009) - Tavernier's great Louisiana detective adaptation

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+ Best Detective Movie of the Year + Best Louisiana Movie of the Year

A sparse, not too auspicious poster for Bertrand Tavernier's In the Electric Mist, which does, at least, reveal its star and Louisiana setting

We follow sheriff detective Dave Robicheaux as he works for justice in New Iberia and New Orleans, Louisiana. Prostitutes are found dead, and a murder from the olden days of segregation seems to inform the recent misdeeds.

In the Electric Mist is an adaptation of James Lee Burke's (Dixie City Jam (1994)) In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead (1993) from his 20-novel long Dave Robicheaux book series, written by Jerzy Kromolowski and Mary Olson-Kromolowski (The Pledge (2001), both) and directed by great French filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier (Daddy Nostalgia/Daddy Nostalgie (1990)).
I really liked this film, which is brimming with local lore and local linguistics so thick that it is often difficult to understand what exactly is being conveyed from character to character.
Tommy Lee Jones (U.S. Marshals (1998)) is eminent and shares especially good interplay with Justina Machado (Body of Proof (2011), TV-series), who plays a nuanced FBI agent role, who also ends up incurring some guilt in the swampy - both literally and figuratively speaking - reality that is portrayed here.

Related posts:

2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Watch 3 minutes of the film here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 7.9 mil. $
= Unknown (but should likely count as at least a big flop)
[In the Electric Mist premiered 7 February (Berlin International Film Festival) and runs 117 minutes. It is the second Robicheaux novel to be adapted, following mega-flop Heaven's Prisoners (1996) starring Alec Baldwin. Shooting took place entirely on location in Louisiana. Something went wrong on the film, leading to its not getting an American release; it was only shown twice one evening in Burke's hometown of New Iberia, Louisiana and was then released straight-to-DVD in North America. Tavernier released a book accounting making the film; Pas à Pas dans la Brume Électrique [Step by Step into The Electric Mist] (2009). The film made the vast majority of its gross in his native France; 7.2 mil. $ (91.1 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Spain with 355k $ (4.5 %) and Belgium with 249k $ (3.2 %). If the budget was around a modest 5 mil. $, which seems likely, (though it would be far less than the budget for the first Burke adaptation's 25 mil. $ budget), the theatrical performance would rank the film as a big flop. It made in excess of 1.9 mil. $ on home video sales in North America. Be aware that the North American DVD release is a 102 minute studio cut of the film, whereas we in the rest of the world have gotten the 112 minute director's cut, which is what this review is based on. In the Electric Mist is fresh at 64 % with a 6.1/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of In the Electric Mist?

Down by Law (1986) - Jarmusch's jailbreak movie is an independent character gem

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One of the great posters for Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law

QUICK REVIEW:

Written and directed by Ohioan master filmmaker Jim Jarmusch (Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)), Down by Law was his third feature, and it remains one of my favorites among his many great films.

Zack, Jack and the Italian Bob are all three innocently jailed in New Orleans. That is, Bob actually has killed a man, but it was not really his intention. Now, of course, they escape!

What is so attractive about Down by Law is also what sets it apart from so many of Jarmusch's other fine pictures: It is 100 % character-oriented. It never abandons its characters to reach for philosophical heights but keeps its focus on the interactions of the three fundamentally different men, brought together through incarceration: The ego-loner pimp Jack (John Lurie (Oz (2001-03))), the socially grunting Zack (Tom Waits (Short Cuts (1993))) and the simple man Bob (Roberto Benigni (Life Is Beautiful/La Vita è Bella (1997))).
Benigni is hysterically funny, and Lurie and Waits are simply perfect as two seedy New Orleans characters.
Don't miss this magical gem in B/W, gorgeously shot by Robby Müller (Breaking the Waves (1996)).

Related reviews:

Jim Jarmusch: Broken Flowers (2005) - Hip search for son and self with Jarmusch and Murray
Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) - Pleasant, precious vignette sit-down with some wonderful people    
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) - Whitaker serves ancient samurai justice in Jarmusch's cool treat   
Dead Man (1995) - Jarmusch's bold, poetic, rich Americana masterpiece 
Top 10: The best B/W movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 

Roberto Benigni in loving embrace with Nicoletta Braschi, who would later become his wife in real life, in Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law

Watch the trailer for this great film here

Cost: Estimated 1.1 mil. $
Box office: In excess of 4.5 mil. $
= Uncertainty
[But at least a big hit. The film, which also features two of Waits' songs from his album Rain Dogs, played in Cannes and received grandiloquent reviews en masse. It made 1.4 mil. $ in North America and 3.1 mil. $ in Germany. The film was a US-West-German co-production. Its final gross is unknown.]

What do you think of Down by Law?

True Detective (2014-) - Darkness probed somewhat shallowly in strong crime show with Harrelson in one of his career's best performances

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Wrinkled, jumpy poster for Nic Pizzolato and Cary Fukunaga's True Detective, indicating the America we meet in the series

True Detective is HBO's 8-episode TV-series smash hit from earlier this year, an American outskirts crime show of a complicated case of grisly murders. The whole series is written and created by Nic Pizzolatto (The Killing (2011)) and directed by Oakley-born Cary Fukunaga (Sin Nombre (2009)).

In Louisiana in the 1990's, State Police Detective Marty Hart (Woody Harrelsen (Kingpin (1996)) gets a new partner in Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey (Mud (2012)), an intense nihilist, who has previously spend 4 years as an undercover narc agent. They team up on a shocking new case, where a young woman has been brutalized and left out in the open in a mystifying staging with antlers on her head.

The series jumps in time from what is at first its main stage (the 90's investigation) to some interrogations of Hart and Cohle in contemporary time, where they talk mysteriously about the case, - and we never learn exactly for what reason they are being questioned about it. The time-lines are a little confusing, but the series is generally very well-paced, never rushed, and well-written as well.
We also follow the two protagonist detectives in their private lives, in which Hart's infidelity SPOILER leads to a divorce from his wife (Michelle Monaghan (Eagle Eye (2008))), while Cohle lives a reclusive, unusual life of hard recognitions.
While Hart's wife's protestations are tiring at times, and Cohle's solemn, glum speeches about the circulating nature of time and other things he believes are true become boring a few times, we can revel in great, cinematic photography by Adam Arkapaw (Lore (2012)) and a buzzing, vibrant, modern score and great opening song by T Bone Burnett (Walk the Line (2005)).
The series has many high-points and a real talent for creating cliffhangers. When the suspect is finally found in a dangerous, wild compound, he SPOILER gets shot. But our friends later find that he may not have been the bad guy they were looking for.
- Bad guys abound in True Detective, in which America's backbone gets examined and comes out rotten to its core; full of drug-dealers, gang violence, dirty religious enterprises, child molesters, meth-junkies, fanatics, gun craziness, ruthless bikers, whores, occult nuts and sexual freaks.

The details:

Both leads have good roles here; the series becomes another notch in McConaughey's belt of his incredible comeback over the last years; but for me it was especially Harrelson who impressed as the untangling, lead-bellied family father who just can't keep his dick in his pants. His performance is a reason to see True Detective in itself.
As the series continues, we move up to present day, where Cohle is continuing the investigation from outside the force, in a garage, aiming at a suspect, Christian Tuttle-foundation with ties to the State Senator. He convinces Hart to join the investigation, and they soon find out - by various unlawful methods, - that the real perpetrator SPOILER was under their, and our, noses all along, sitting on a lawn mower. In the end, they go in alone to get to the bottom of the horrifying Childers' house and 'church'. Severely wounded, they both manage to get out with their lives, while taking the 'monsters'' ditto, and as the series fade out, they contemplate the darkness in the world beneath the stars outside the hospital, concluding, looking up, that light is gaining power, but that darkness is still immense.
True Detective is very good television, in the vein of The Silence of the Lambs (1991), but without that film's psychological depth, and Se7en (1995), without its Biblical references; it deals with some of the mess in modern society in an entertaining way, but doesn't get to the root of any of the problems it presents; in this way, it is a little showy, overrated and confusingly broad in its scope, pointing to nothing, essentially.
It may or may not get more consequential in its second season, which will have a completely new cast and story, as well as several directors, but will still be written by Pizzolatto. The stars of the coming season include Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughn, Taylor Kitsch, Kelly Reilly and Rachel McAdams.

Best episodes:

Episode 3:
SPOILER The proposed perpetrator, Reggie Ledoux is found donning a gas-mask on his property in one of the series' best cliffhanger-endings of all.

Episode 4:
Hart's unfaithfulness gets consequences, while Cohle goes undercover with his former identity 'Crash', and a robbery in a black slum neighborhood explodes in perplexing violence.

Episode 8:
After the two now private detectives have harassed some truth out of a sheriff (using a sniper rifle among other means), they find and search out the somber Childers' house and 'church'.

Woody Harrelson gives one of his best performances in Nic Pizzolatto's True Detective

Matthew McConaughey makes beer can people and gets a little long in the tooth at times in Nic Pizzolatto's True Detective

What do you think of True Detective?

The Beguiled (1971) - Intense, erotic Civil War kammerspiel thriller

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A strangely broad-headed Clint Eastwood on the poster for Don Siegel's The Beguiled

QUICK REVIEW:

The Yankie-soldier McBurney gets rescued half-dead into safety by a 12 year-old girl to the girls' school that she attends. Here he convalesces slowly and constitutes an attraction and danger for the members of the opposite sex ...
The plot is a 100 % solid and is at the same time spellbound by a wonderful literary quality; it is an adaptation of the Southern Gothic novel A Painted Devil (1966) by Thomas P. Cullinan. The end of the film offers more than one surprise.

Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino (2008)) bites the apple as a world champion charlatan for the first 2/3 of Beguiled. In the last third, the suspense really takes off, and particularly Geraldine Page (Sweet Bird of Youth (1962)), who plays headmistress Martha, does outstandingly.
Great American director Don Siegel (Escape From Alcatraz (1979)) has said that Beguiled has themes of sex, violence and vengeance, and that it is based on "the basic desire of women to castrate men." - This makes for an exciting movie!

Eastwood has talked very interestingly of his character in Beguiled and the characters he plays in general:
 
"Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino play losers very well. But my audience like to be in there vicariously with a winner. That isn't always popular with critics. My characters have sensitivity and vulnerabilities, but they're still winners. I don't pretend to understand losers. When I read a script about a loser I think of people in life who are losers and they seem to want it that way. It's a compulsive philosophy with them. Winners tell themselves, I'm as bright as the next person. I can do it. Nothing can stop me."

Geraldine Page and Clint Eastwood in Don Siegel's The Beguiled

The film was shot mostly on location near Baton Rouge, Florida. Unfortunately, Universal had difficulties marketing it, and, in consequence, it suffered a very undeserving flop, although it was hailed in France.
The Beguiled is an utter joy of a film with ripe performances, vivid imagery and juicy themes and meanings.

Related reviews:

Clint Eastwood: Tightrope (1984) - An undervalued Clint Eastwood sex killer thriller
Any Which Way You Can (1980) or, More Monkey Business! 
A Fistful of Dollars (1964) or, Killer in a Poncho

Watch the trailer here, which seems strangely dated and old hat. - The film is anything but

Budget: Unknown
Box office: Less than 1 mil. $ (US only)
= Flop

Thoughts and comments on The Beguiled and/or the review are welcomed