One Monday We Killed Them All (1961)

This book is narrated by a police detective who is forced to house his clearly evil brother-in-law after that brother-in-law is released from prison for manslaughter. Fenn, the detective, knows the man is no good, but his wife refuses to see her brother for who he is and insists that he have a place to stay. This is a decent premise for a good thriller but somehow it just sits there flat for most of the book. Maybe because the villain, McAran, is just too obviously villainous. The first time he arrives at the house he kicks the family dog so hard that the dog hides from him the rest of the novel. I think right there the book should have ended with Fenn booting McAran out of his house. You shouldn't allow someone to kick your dog.

Once McAran does leave, however, there is a pretty good manhunt, and a great stand-off at the very end of the book. This last quarter of the book really cooks although I kept waiting to find out how the title fit into the story, and it never really did. I guess it was a title that the publishers liked.

Water for Elephants

This is not a perfect film (the framing device, ugh) but it is a real rarity in today's big studio output: a solidly crafted romantic melodrama, and for the most part, it works. The villains are villainous, the lovers are attractive, and it makes you care. Plus it has two great performances, one from Christoph Waltz as a borderline psychotic circus owner, and proud husband of Marlena (played by Reese Witherspoon), and the second is by the beautiful old elephant that plays Rosie the elephant in the film. Reese Witherspoon is also good as the put-upon wife but I wish she had a little more edge, and Robert Pattinson holds his own as the film's lead. He's not amazing but he doesn't embarrass himself, and even though he doesn't have great chemistry with Reese Witherspoon he does have great chemistry with Rosie.

It's not a surprise to me that there is a huge disconnect between critic's ratings for this film (not so high) and audience polling scores (very high).  This is a crowd pleaser and even though it's not a complex film it is made for adults. It transports the viewer into a memorable and fanciful time and place. It's escapism without superheroes.

Poetry Monday

The Trees

by Philip Larkin

The trees are coming into leaf

Like something almost being said;

The recent buds relax and spread,

Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again

And we grow old? No, they die too.

Their yearly trick of looking new

Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh

In fullgrown thickness every May.

Last year is dead, they seem to say,

Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Film Frames Friday

Hint: Why tell one story ...

Somewhere

I saw this Sofia Coppola film a few days ago and am still digesting it, in a way. It's a minimalist study of a film actor (played with subtleness by Stephen Dorff) and the daughter (Elle Fanning) that comes to live with him for a few weeks at the Chateau Marmont. It's sort of a slice of a slice of life film in which nothing much happens, except that emotionally the actor, named Johnny Marko, seems to come alive in the presence of his daughter. It's the type of movie that lulls you along, and I wished it had more of an impact at the end of the film (there seemed to be quite a lot of symbolism/significance attached to Johnny's Italian sports car and it didn't really work for me) but ultimately I found it touching and, most importantly, artful. The dialogue does not particularly matter in this movie but the images, most of which are beautiful, do. Here are some of them:

Poetry Monday

The Errand

by Troy Jollimore

At my father’s request I went into the city

to ask for the Senator’s daughter’s hand.

But she said she would not have me, or any man.

It was, I thought, a great pity:

she was not only wealthy, but very pretty.

So I told her that I would stand

on the spot of earth where I’d been rejected

and each night she would hear my demand

until she recanted, and accepted.

For three nights I shivered as the constellations

wheeled about my head, and I repeated my offer.

Finally, on the third night, her father

put his arm around me and brought me to the kitchen.

We drank scotch. He told me she would not change her decision.

He gave me his second daughter as consolation.

Mr. Moto's Last Warning (1939)

The only Moto film in the public domain so I watched it on Netflix. I've only seen a couple of these films but I definitely like them. Despite the silliness/offensiveness of having Peter Lorre play the Japanese detective (international detective, he actually has a card), I really love watching Lorre play a hero. He manages to exude both intelligence and kindness. The story itself in this one was pure pulp. Moto takes on an international spy ring, filled with B actors doing crazy accents, like George Sanders who was, I think, supposed to be French, and Ricardo Cortez, the head baddie, and a ventriloquist!

I love this production still from the film below.