Your Custom Text Here
Most of the next few months I will be writing about films about or by Truman Capote (off and on). Why Capote, you may ask? Because I want an excuse to watch Murder by Death. But Murder by Death has nothing to do with Capote as a person or writer, you say. Shut up - I say.
I will probably pause this theme for some other upcoming events/seasons, but you get the idea.
Also, I did watch the new season of Feud, but I planned out these blogs before that - I swear.
For this first list, I'm mainly looking at a couple of ghost films. There's a reason for this. Keep reading and you'll see. Also, I only picked films that as a writer I could also recommend watching for character study reasons.
Hollywood and the history of film in general has a strange relationship with ghost stories. Today we think of ghosts falling into the genre of horror with box office and critical successes like The Conjuring, the Others, and the Sixth Sense. But it was not always like this.
Ghosts in silent and early talking film were usually comedies. The spirits were slapstick foibles meant to be an excuse for the hero to do silly double takes. This continued into the 1930s and 40s where witty ghosts humorously tortured the only human who could see them such as in the Topper films.
The other type of early ghost films would be more serious mysteries or dramas where the ghost turned out to be a living man in a mask. Think Scooby Doo where the owner of the abandoned amusement park actually kills people. There were naturally some exceptions, but most of those were not from the United States, for example Swedish film The Phantom Carriage (1921) which inspired Ingmar Bergman and Stanley Kubrick to be creepy.
So what changed ghosts from being comic fodder and murderers in masks? In 1941 Irish author Dorothy Macardle published Uneasy Freehold, an atmospheric and eerie ghost story that sold extremely well. Three years later it was made into a film under the U.S. title, The Uninvited. It’s the story of a brother and sister, Ray Miland and Ruth Hussey, purchasing a gorgeous house atop an English cliff. In doing so, they get to know Stella (Gail Russell), the daughter of the people who built the house. She is drawn to the house, even in adulthood, and the new owners must solve a mystery to save her life.
But this is a character study and I promised you ghosts. What makes The Uninvited a shift in the genre was the way it handled its ghosts - one who cries and one who brings the cold. I don’t want to give away the mystery, but let’s focus on how these 2 ghosts have distinct personalities while barely showing them on screen.
The ghost who cries is, besides clearly being depressed, is established as gentle and having a clear connection to Stella. The ghost who brings the cold is established as violent and bitter. All of this is shown to the audience/reader through actions and sounds, not facial expressions or jump scares.
As a writer, showing instead of telling can be one of the most difficult tasks. But it creates a better bond with the character for the audience. They get to figure out the character on their own and that stirs up emotions.
The Uninvited is somewhat forgotten now, despite it causing a shift in how to make ghosts scarier and complex without the cornball. Comedy ghost movies were still prominent in the 1940s/50s, but by the 1960s movie goers got goosebumps from films like Carnival of Souls, The Haunting, and The Innocents.
There was one where they combined the two idea: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), based on the book of the same name (but I confess the movie was better). In this film the ghost is a prominent character who establishes his personality the first time he laughs to frighten potential buyers away from the house he haunts. While this gruff sea captain spirit provides chills at first, he also is a part of the comedy of the story and his relationship with Mrs. Muir, the independent single mom who moved into his house, reveals his softer side. This is not a horror movie, but the ghost is not a joke. He's a former human who still has clear emotions and motivations.
Now let’s get to 1 modern film from a director who was inspired by The Uninvited: Guillermo del Toro ’s Crimson Peak. Again I am only focusing on the ghosts as a character study.
Within the film there are multiple spooks but only some are really given clear personalities. Both are seen on screen, but their character traits are based on what isn’t told outright. The first is the ghost of the former mistress if the house, Lady Beatrice, who had been killed by an ax while taking a bath. She is described as a harsh, strict, and abusive woman, yet this could come across in a description of her ghostly face. The way she sits in the bathtub with wrists up suggests her uptight attitudes. Her only words in the film are accusing and in no way helpful to the main character.
The other ghosts who gets to show some personality are three young women named Pamela Upton, Margaret McDermott, and Enola Sciotti. Instead of explaining their traits as presented in the film, watch it for yourself. Pamela Upton and Enola Sciotti have the most revealed about who they were when they were alive. What character traits do you find?
First rule of being an author in the Stephen King universe - never travel anywhere to write something.
It’s been a while since I’ve watched or read Salem’s Lot (personally, I’ve always loved the fictional history of the town more than the actual plot of the book - and, yes, before you’ve asked, I’ve read the short story). My first thought when I heard about this one was, “It’s under 2 hours? They must’ve cut out the whole story!”
Ben (Lewis Pullman) is a writer who comes back to Jerusalem’s Lot looking for inspiration. He rents a room from a woman demanding payment in advanced when she hears his profession. His second encounter after the local sheriff is meeting Susan (Makenzie Leigh) who is reading one of his books and insults it without knowing that he’s the author.
At the same time, Marsten House, the haunting source of all local urban legends, has a European antiques dealer moving in. Straker (Pilou Asbaek) and his mysterious partner Barlow (Alexander Ward) are the catalytics who will destroy the town (in case you haven’t read the book).
Spoilers ahead.
A group of characters will come together as vampires take over the town. Ben and Susan are joined by teacher Mr. Burke (Bill Camp), Dr. Cody (Alfre Woodard), Father Callahan (John Benjamin Hickley), and 11 year old Mark (Jordan Preston Carter). Honestly, I spent most of this muttering, “I don’t remember that in the book.” Look, there were vampires and the cast gets killed off one by one.
Ben is the first person Mr. Burke goes to when he realizes that there are vampires. He thinks that just because the guy is a writer that he’ll believe in vampires. And he does, because this movie has no time for character development. There are other quips about being a writer, but honestly, they are really just repeats of how being an author is not always viewed as a legitimate career. Maybe I’ll just watch the mini-series from the 70s.
There have been 3 different Haunted Mansion movies, but this is the only one that feels like a love letter to the ride. And it’s a Muppet movie so I might have a giant poster of it as a part of my extensive Haunted Mansion collection. By the way, this also has the highest critical Rotten Tomatoes score of the 3 versions (but saying that, I do really like all three and the latest version is much better than critics said).
If you haven’t seen this, Gonzo has been invited to a party at the mysterious mansion where his favorite magician once disappeared and he brings Pepe along for comic relief. The pair end up trapped in the mansion over night where the ghosts are played by the other Muppets save for the usual celebrity guests like Will Arnett as the Ghost Host who invited them, Taraji P. Henson as the Bride Ghost attempting to marry Pepe, Yvette Nicole Brown as the driver warning that they won’t survive the night, and Darren Criss as the graveyard caretaker.
It’s the Caretaker’s scene that I want to focus on for a blog about writing. Before Gonzo and Pepe enter the mansion, the Caretaker warns them to walk quietly as he doesn’t want to outdoor ghosts to wake up. He claims that “once they start, the never cease) in a song (because it’s Darren Criss). He tells the stories of various ghosts played by Danny Trejo, Alfonso Ribeiro, Chrissy Metz, Jeannie Mai Jenkins, and Edward Asner (in one of his final roles). One of the ghosts is Mary, played by SNL’s Sasheer Zamata. She is dressed in clothing that is probably supposed to represent the middle to late 1700s. She had a piece of long paper and a quill. The Caretaker sings that she “wrote mysteries with masterful quill, not knowing the ink of words could kill”. Mary is then seen licking her quill before continuing writing, then dropping down dead.
First, Mary being a writer in this time period is not as strange as people might think. The late 18th century included MANY female writers including poet Phillis Wheatley, playwright Mercy Otis Warren, philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft, and the start of many novelists (many of whom wrote under pseudonyms). However, ink was not made of anything poisonous at that time that I know of or could find out (if anyone can correct me on this with a source, I would be most grateful if you leave a comment). Therefore, does this mean Mary was murdered? That someone poisoned her ink? Is there an entire back story here of a woman’s creativity being stolen by her killer? Or maybe she was just allergic to iron gall ink. Wonder if she was anemic.
Coraline - the delightfully creepy tale of a child being courted and hunted by an ancient terror who creates a dreamworld to catch her in. But that’s not what I’m going to write about. I’m going to focus on Coraline’s parents.
Mr. and Mrs. Jones are working on a gardening catalog when they move to the “Pink Palace”, the Victorian home turned into apartments where Coraline discovers the tiny door leading to the “Other Mother”. Her mother is the editor and her father is the author. These jobs fit their personalities. Dad is more laid back and silly. Mom is more rigid and practical. My favorite line of Charlie Jones’s is “I have a terrible case of writer’s rash on my-”, but his wife cut him off as he points to his butt. He works on a computer that appears to be a little out-of-date (either that or the story takes place a few years before I think it does) on a cluttered desk with the usual research and half-drunk coffee. How do I know that coffee is half-drunk? Because that’s part of the process. Duh.
Coraline’s mom (who is name Mel according to the internet, but I’m not sure if they ever say her name in the movie) keeps Charlie on task. She is also in charge of the finances, promising Coraline that things will change once the book sells.
Coraline feel ignored by her parents even though they work from home. In the world created by the “Other Mother”, a creature known a the Beldam who wants to keep children and eat their lives away, Dad is a pianist who writes songs just for is kid and helps her in the garden. The Other Mother cooks delicious food and buys Coraline whatever she desires. Although it’s sweet that Coraline wants the attention of her parents, the Other Mother’s world clearly did not give them jobs.
P.S. In the part where Coraline touches a switch that shuts off the power, including her dad’s unsaved work on his P.C., he lets out a cry which I feel in my soul every time.
Normally, in September and October I do spooky films about authors and newspaper people. However, James Earl Jones, one of the icons of my childhood, passed away. I know he was in his 90s, but it doesn’t matter. I’m still sad. His deep voice and infectious smile meant a lot to me as a kid. So here’s a short blog about Field of Dreams - it kinda has ghosts in it.
If you weren’t alive in the 90s, you might not know this film. A struggling Iowa farmer, who regrets his last encounters with his baseball-obsessed father, is told by a disembodied voice to build a ball field in his corn. So he does. The ghosts of famous players (as well as a doctor played by Burt Lancaster who did so much good, but never got to the majors) show up in the field. However, only certain people can see them.
James Earl Jones plays Terrence Mann, an award winning author who has hidden himself from a corrupt world which he feels expects too much of him. In case you can’t tell, he’s based on J.D. Salinger. He was the favorite author of the main character Ray and his wife Annie in college. Annie fights to keeps Mann’s books in the local school district, arguing about how pacifism and learning from reality are not reasons to ban a book (she makes a good speech about Stalin and Nazi book-burning). When the voice tells Ray to help Mann, he discovers a bitter man unwilling to speak to a fan. Mann gave up writing a decade early to become a software programmer, feeling like after two terms of Nixon as president, no one was really listening to him anyway. Still, he sees the ghosts like Ray and his family do. He goes to Iowa and returns to a sense of wonder and hope in humanity. And he’s going to write about it, because, “That’s what I do.”
You want to see something creative and original?
Well then, "Let’s summon the writer”, as this show says.
Frankeleda’s Book of Spooks is an award winning Mexican stop-motion series about Frankeleda, a deceased author who needs readers for her stories or she will fade away. Her sharp-toothed talking storybook, Herneval, doesn’t see it that way, thinking that sharing stories will awake something terrible. You see what they’re doing here? Huh? Huh?
Okay, yes, the metaphor for being a writer is pretty obvious. Each episode has our ghost-host tell a story that usually a lesson for children mixed with some nasty critter or supernatural terror. I’m not gonna lie. Some of these tales were impressively scary for a kids’ show. Spoiler warning: Things never turn out well for the children in her stories which Herneval points out doesn’t seem fair. The book is like her conscience, attempting to protect you, the audience, from whatever Frankeleda’s latest story is . . . and from whatever is keeping them trapped in a scary old house.
SPOILER ALERT: As the reader, you hear a final story about a girl named Francesca Imelda who is expected to do all of the domestic duties for her father and older brothers after her mother dies and wicked Aubela moves in with them. Her escape is story writing, something she does at the most inconvenient times just like any other young writer. Her biggest fan is a owl-child (Herneval prince of the spooks - yep, the book used to be a really neat owl-prince) that lives in her house, but she thinks is a dream. By the time she’s grown, Francesca feel confident enough take the most perfected of her horror stories to a publisher, who instantly tells her that it’s unladylike. She leaves the office crying, declaring that she will quit, until she attempts to cross out her own name and ends up creating the name Frankeleda. The prince of the spooks, also now grown, shows up at that moment to plead with her to help him create new nightmares so his people will not fade away. He essentially kills her in hopes that she will replace his current nightmare writer. Something went wrong and the prince was turned into a book. The original nightmare writer trapped him and Frankeleda in his consciences and that’s where they have been ever since.
As an author , Frankeleda is obsessive, tragic, and does not take criticism well. She doesn’t care if she puts her audience in danger for her art and her own freedom. And she will never stop writing.
Insert maniacal laughter here.
Have I been waiting for this film for decades? Yes. Did it meet my expectations? Well, I kept my expectations low. That having been said, here’s my brief review.
In case you don’t know the general plot, Lydia, Delia, and Lydia’s daughter, Astrid, are returning to Winter River for Charles’s funeral after he was eaten by a shark. Lydia and Astrid have a strained relationship due several plot points (Lydia’s work on a cheesy paranormal investigator television program, the death of Astrid father/him not being a ghost Lydia can see, and Lydia’s boyfriend/TV manager. Over the years, Lydia has been worried about the return of Beetlejuice who has been waiting for the right opportunity to finally force her into their marriage contract. In the meantime, Beetlejuice and an army of shrunken head guys have been running a bio-exercism business that apparently no on in the Netherworld is fine with now. Adding to these events are two additional complications: Beetlejuice’s ex-wife and Astrid’s first boyfriend. Oh and they through in some more lip syncing scenes for good measure.
Warning SPOILERS AHEAD.
Like, major spoilers.
Seriously, have you watched the movie yet? No, then stop reading.
I’m assuming you’ve seen the film if you are still reading. Here we go.
Things I was annoyed at:
Delia and Lydia should’ve known there was a “murder house” in Winter River. It’s not like the family wasn’t probably still living there in the 90s. This could have been easily fixed with Lydia just saying, “Wait! I remember that! THAT was the house?” when Little Jane told her about it.
Lydia only mentioned Barbara and Adam Maitland once. They were her second set of parents. She was ready to commit suicide knowing they would be on the other side to take care of her. Lydia should have at least mentioned them few more times under her breath and had their wedding photo or sheets photos somewhere in her possessions.
Things I really liked (honestly, I liked most of the movie but these were the standout moments):
Lydia’s ex-husband covered in piranhas.
The entire Mario Bava flashback sequence.
The stop-motion animation scenes.
Monica Belushi’s look (she wears staples now).
Willem Defoe constantly being handed cups of coffee (can he even really drink it? he’s dead.)
The fact that Beetlejuice does NOT go to Hawaii.
The idea of Jeffrey Jones not having a head.
Winona Ryder’s wardrobe.
Jenna Ortega as less-goth than her mom, but still morbid, teenager.
Beetlejuice letting Lydia use his powers for a moment of revenge.
Michael Keaton and Bryan Adams being a collaboration I never knew I needed.
All lines and jokes spoken by Catherine O’Hara.
Hey, does anyone else have MacArthur Park stuck in their head? Or more importantly, is anyone else’s brain trying to automatically replace the lyrics with the Weird Al parody song? Just wondering.
This will be a short one, because it’s based on a short one.
Remember the Beetlejuice cartoon? What? You never watched it? My nostalgia riddled mind will tell you it was amazing . . . so probably best not to trust me. All you really need to know is that Lydia and Beetlejuice are friends in the cartoon, there’s no Barbara and Adam, and it had a lot of little kid humor (so. many. burping. jokes.).
Beetlejuice is freaked out one night reading a book of poems Lydia left at his roadhouse in the Netherworld. I don’t know why the ghost lives in a roadhouse, but I digress. Poe shows up at his house with a rapping raven, a literal steamer trunk, and handfuls of cash which he throws around when he cries about Lenore. I didn’t know writer’s got residual check’s in the afterlife?
The greedy Ghost with the Most invites Poe to stay at the roadhouse as he continues his search through the Netherworld for Lenore. Seriously, where is Poe getting all of this moolah? He was never rich in life. Anyway, Lydia comes over to fangirl over the wailing author while Beetlejuice is driven mad in a montage of Poe tales.
Due to this episode airing when I about seven or eight, I thought Lenore had been a real person, not an allegory for the loss of Poe’s wife and other women he loved. I also thought the Masque of the Red Death was a little mask with a runny nose.
Vicki Vail, the forgotten Batman love interest! This movie gets me right in the childhood (but not Batman Returns because I wasn’t allowed to watch it - my mom thought the Penguin was too violent and scary). It’s a little upsetting that I haven’t watched this in probably twenty years, but I can still quote parts of it. Why hasn’t my brain reused these memory cells for something useful like math. But seriously, HAVE you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?
In case you don’t know, Batman is about the rise of . . . Batman (Michael Keaton), the vigilante who is attempting to protect Gotham City from a general crime wave and specifically from the newest villain The Joker (Jack Nicholson). Meanwhile, Batman’s true identity, billionaire Bruce Wayne, struggles with childhood trauma and finding a work-life balance.
But this is a blog about writers, not heroes. That brings us to Alexander Knox and Vicki Vale, a journalist and photographer attempting to prove that this “Batman” terrified criminals keep ranting about is real. Knox is played by Robert Wuhl (look him up and you’ll say, “Oh! That guy” because you’ve probably seen him in something) and Kim Basinger plays Vale. Vicki and Knox are being mocked by the rest of their co-workers and the police, so they decide to start some undercover work. They get into a party at Wayne manor where Knox tries to interview the top politicians including Harvey Dent (Billy Dee Williams) who never get to see as Two-Face. Wayne is amused by the pair who make jokes about his wealth without knowing he’s listening. He even tells Alfred (Michael Gough) to give Knox a grant.
One of the key plots of this movie is the power of the press. Joker is annoyed that about Knox and Vicki focusing on Batman in the papers. He decided that Knox “has no style”, so he threatens Vicki multiple times insisting on his face being splashed across the paper. Both journalist characters are very stereotypical. They do research. They wisecrack. They put their feet up on the office furniture. Knox is the wise cracker who seems to annoy everyone he interviews and Vale is a serious photographer who is more upset that Batman steals her film of him than she is about a near death experience.
I’m rounding out my Poe blogs with a writing related piece of media not about Poe or even featuring a living version of him, but where he is a central character.
If you grew up with me, went to school with me, or met me, you probably know that I’m a huge Addams Family fan. I’ve seen the original series multiple times (but confess to only sitting through the 1970s Halloween special once).
Yes, I have seen most Addams Family incarnations and don’t ask me what I thought about those recent animated films unless you want to see my hair burst into flames. I put off watching Wednesday because 1) I loved Adult Wednesday Addams on Youtube written by and starring Melissa Hunter and how could anyone do it better than that (they can’t), 2) Tim Burton keeps breaking my heart, and 3) I was waiting for my boyfriend because he wanted to watch it too. Still, this is not my giving my opinion of the show. This is me talking about depictions of writers and writing in films and TV. (In case you do want my opinion just message me in the comments).
In this Netflix series, Wednesday is an aspiring author of mystery novels featuring a teenage sleuth in a difficult relationship with her mother. Meanwhile, Wednesday is thrust into a mystery at her new school while feeling like she’s living in her mother’s shadow. Yes. Her therapists points out that her real life connections are pretty obvious.
Poe comes into this as the school’s most famous pupil. The yearly house competition teams are named after his stories and the secret society is hidden behind his statue. However, the poem that helps one to figure out the password did not feel like a work of Poe’s. Just saying.
I did enjoy her sitting with perfect posture on her antique typewriter and using her novel as an excuse to be glad when her roommate was angry with her. She keeps her typed pages in a file box with her initials on it which I confess to being jealous of. However, I am really trying to remember what it was like to be in high school, forced into a social life, hunting for murders, AND having time to write! Oh. To be young.
This will be a long one. There are three movies Tim Burton directed that I think of as his look into the mind of creatives. Technically, the inventor played by Vincent Price in Edward Scissorhands is a creative, but I’m looking more at the idea of taking a deep depth into the minds of artists. Although, I do appreciate how Burton and I both grew up with a healthy Vincent Price fanaticism. Totally, totally, healthy.
Now, understand that I used to love a good Tim Burton film. Beetlejuice was one of my “happy movies” as a little kid (you know, the ones kids watch on repeat until their parents want to “accidentally” destroy the tape). No one at school knew what I was talking about when I mentioned Frankenweenie (the original live-action short, not the animated remake). I frequently quote Mars Attacks! I was obsessed with Sleepy Hollow when it came out. I even loved the episode of Faerie Tale Theatre Burton directed! However I have been very Burton cautious of late (meaning I’ve seen of all his movies, but also blocked several of them out afterwards). If there is a movie that should have been on this list, let me know. However, if anyone suggest Dark Shadows or the Marky Mark Planet of the Apes, I will block you.
Image from https://consequence.net/tag/big-eyes/
Big Eyes - This is probably the most difficult of stories Burton attempted to tell as it is about a woman trapped in an abusive relationship. A part of me can’t help feeling like a woman should have been part of the team to tell Margaret Keane’s ordeal. Perhaps that’s close-minded of me, but sometimes men can’t fully fathom how terrifying being a woman is in a situation like that. The isolation, the anxiety, and the worry for one’s child is only at the surface of the film, being portrayed in one nightmarish scene. They did have the real Margaret Keane as a consultant and the amazing Amy Adams in the part, but it might have been a different movie if a woman had more of a hand in the writing.
The movie does do several things very well. Fist of all, in case you don’t know, the movie is based on the true story of Margaret, an artist and single mother who attempts to make money from her art in the 1950s, when women weren’t hired for anything creative. Most animation studios (Disney especially) didn’t even hire women for anything beyond ink and paint. She marries a man named Walter Keene (played by an intense Christoph Waltz) who sells her stylized paintings of children with large eyes as his own and they become mass-produced best sellers. The frustration and pain of not being recognized for one’s own creativity is shown through the amazingly wild visuals of Tim Burton and the excellent expressions on Amy Adams’s face. Margaret Keane says that she draws the eyes so big because eyes are how she shows the inside of person. Burton attempts to show the same by framing many shots directly on Adams’s face.
Walter threatened her and her daughter many times as she started to object to his lies about the artwork. Something they both always wanted was to be able to live off of art without a day job, something all artists and writers dream of. The difference is, Walter Keane wanted to live off someone else’s art. Margaret and Walter also have different views of the commercial aspects of art which is another thing Burton and the screen writers present in a great way throughout the movie. She feels cheapened by his actions and the way he turns her art into postcards and posters. In addition, when critics negatively review the work, Walter takes it personally, when it’s Margaret who feels the most of what is said.
The idea of the sexism in the world is well-portrayed with Margaret worried about having to lie to her own daughter about the artwork. She’s led to believe by the world around her that it’d better for the family if Walter can sell the work for financial stability. When she tries to sell work under her own name in a slightly different style, she is hit on my art collectors who do not take her seriously. When a female friend who can sense the lies, Walter scares her away with male bravado.
Spoiler alert: Eventually, Margaret escapes from Walter and finds support in religion. Her new community gives her the courage to sue Walter and she has to paint in court in order to prove that the art was hers all along. The real Margaret married a third time to a sports journalist who she says helped her find her voice in the public. I just think it’s a shame that she became famous as Keane and had to keep that name on her artwork.
Big Fish - I know that this is not about someone who needs creativity to as a livelihood, but it’s still about how creativity can be a part of survival. I sometimes think that people forget that this was a damn good movie! It’s very much a human study piece, not an adventure film or spooky love story, which might be why it’s often looked over. And everyone in it does such a good job. I once saw Alison Lohman at a convention and told her just how impressed I was with her mimicking the actions of her older counter-part Jessica Lange. I also told her that my friend and I applauded at the end of Drag Me to Hell (apparently, we were the only Sam Raimi fans in the theater).
The movie is about a journalist Will (Billy Crudup) whose constantly trying to find the truth in the tall tales his father Edward Bloom (Albert Finney/Ewan McGregor) always told before his dad passes away. We learn about his dad the same way he did, through fanciful stories where the dad befriends giants, outsmarts school rivals, saves werewolves, and catches the biggest fish you’ve ever seen using just his wedding ring on the day his son was born. Burton uses his signature set dressing and style in when the audience is within one of the father’s stories. When we return to the real world, the colors are muted, not dull, just not as fantastical, and the filming style draws the eye to the human emotion instead of the action.
Spoiler alert: In Will’s search for fact versus fiction, he and his wife (a photojournalist which I thought was a nice touch that she was also an artist) rehear the many stories Edward created about his own life. Will attempts to pick them apart, digging for what pieces were real like any good investigator would. It isn’t until he meets with a woman he thought his father had an affair with. As the woman, Jenny (Helena Bonham Carter) tells yet another tall tale to Will, she gives him two conclusions about his father. Number one: that there was never another woman for Edward Bloom than Will mother (the Lohman/Lange character). Number two: that everything in Edward Bloom’s life is fantasy except for Will. Will is his reality.
As Edward is in the hospital towards the end of his life, the family doctor (Robert Guillaume) tell Will the truth of the day of his birth. Will is hungry for the knowledge which is a very typical birth story other than the fact that Will was born a week early which was why Edward was still on the road at the time and regretted on being there. The doctor adds, “And I suppose if I had to choose between the true version and an elaborate one involving a fish and a wedding ring, I might choose the fancy version.” Still, Will counters with, “I kind of liked your version.” When all is said and done, Will does finally understand why the tall tales are so important to his father. Will makes up his own version of his father’s passing, telling it to him on his deathbed, an elaborate story of a hospital escape and a return to the river where all of the most important characters of Edward’s life have come to see him off. And Edward Bloom becomes his own story - he’s released into the river, turning into a big fish.
Edward Bloom tries to tell his son Will that they are both storytellers in different ways. The point of the film is not that the father is a liar or delusional. The point is that, in his creative mind, the world could be so much bigger and more interesting than it really was. And that was something he wanted his son to have - a world where anything could happen. At the end of the film, you find that Will continues his father’s legacy by telling his son all of the tall tales he grew up with.
Ed Wood - One of the greatest Tim Burton films of all time! This is a masterpiece of the artistic mind from the joys to the failures, the moments of genius and the crippling depression. Burton does an excellent job of making his movie look like a cheesy monster movie and everyone in it overacts on purpose. What makes this film really good is not historical accuracy (I’ve been led to understand that much of this is really toned down when it comes to alcoholism and personal relationships), but how it gives the feel of anxiety, failure, and rooting for the little guy. A delusional little guy.
If you are unaware, Johnny Depp plays Edward Wood Jr., the king of bad cinema who develops a friendship with an aging Bela Lugosi played by Martin Landau. Ed desperately wants to be the next Orson Welles, writing, directing, and starring in pictures. However, his slapped together together style and choice to hire actors made up of his friends and financial backers. Ed is optimistic, refusing to believe that his movies are terrible.
Wood’s big break in the story is Glen or Glenda, a movie close to his heart as it’s about a man who dresses as a woman, something that he’s been hiding from his girlfriend Dolores (Sarah Jessica Parker). The movie is filmed over a short period with Wood in the lead and Lugosi as a scientist. Ed uses all first takes, filming in locations where he has no permit, and fills in the in-between shots with random stock footage. He’s disappointed when he’s told it’s the worst film ever made. This does not seem to drag Ed down as he looks for people to invest in his next picture Bride of the Atom and the Bride of the Monster. He, Bela, and his group of friends who Dolores calls abnormal, try to convince the masses that his movies are worth it. Eventually, Dolores leaves him, fed up when he gives a better role in the Bride of the Monster to a woman who gave money to the production. The production suffers many problems like being thrown out a studio and having to steal an octopus prop. The biggest issue is Bela’s morphine addiction, the only thing that keeps him going as an out-of-work actor who feels forgotten by the world. The best scene is when Lugosi is swearing a blue streak about Boris Karloff.
Despite his own issues, Ed tries to save Bela after a suicide attempt, checking him into rehab and visiting every day. This is how he meets Kathy (Patricia Arquette), a young woman who doesn’t mind that Ed is a transvestite obsessed with angora and becomes his biggest cheerleader. Sadly, Bela passes after a final moment of feeling like an amazing actor where people ask for his autograph. There is a true feel of how Hollywood destroys people, leaving them behind as the next big trend comes along.
Spoiler alert: Ed convinces a church to give money for his most famous movie Grave Robbers from Outer Space (later called Plan 9 from Outer Space). He uses his last footage of Bela and tells a story around it, hiring Kathy’s chiropractor as a Bela double. The rest of the cast is made up of his usual friends, wrestler Tor Johnson, and camp TV personality Vampira. The more he films, the more the church leaders object and criticize. They ask him why he allows the cardboard tombstones to fall over on set and demand one of their church members be cast in the film. Ed has a breakdown, donning his favorite sweater and running to famed Hollywood restaurant Musso and Franks. Sitting in a booth is Orson Welles (played by Vincent D’Onofrio, but voiced by Maurice LaMarche). Ed runs over and the pair have a short but meaningful conversation about how studios and producers can destroy an artist’s vision. Welles says, “Visions are worth fighting for.” Emboldened by his hero’s words, Wood returns to set insisting that everything will be done his way.
The movie is not a happy, uplifting story of overcoming the system. Still, Ed Wood is the essence of a creative mind run wild. He’s too busy coming up with ideas and making them come to life in his own unique way to realize that he is not the brilliant man he thinks he is.
Even those this is about a mini-series, I’m keeping this one short. Under the Bridge is the fictionalized account of the investigation into the murder of teenager Reena Virk in 1997. The series was based on two books, one by Virk’s father and Under the Bridge by Rebecca Godfrey.
Godfrey (played by Riley Keough who I say looks more like Priscilla, but my boyfriend looks more like Elvis) is made a character in the story even though she didn’t started researching the event until after the investigation began. As the series is more about the life that was lost and the societal problems which led a group of youths to violently kill more than the pure horror and morbid curiosity of true crime.
Godfrey is portrayed as a journalist trying to write a book about the young women who feel abandoned by her home city. She returns home just as her former girlfriend Cam, a local police officer played by Oscar winner Lily Gladstone, arrests a large group of teens for the murder of their classmate. As the different events leading to the death come to light, Godfrey develops a connection with one of the teens involved, Warren Glowatski.
The show brings up several ethical and important questions about true crime writing. Godfrey struggles with how much involvement she can have as a journalist. Cam points out that she can’t tell if Godfrey’s actions throughout the movie are genuine or for the sake of her book. The moral justification of her interviewing any of the kids when the trial is going on is questioned, especially as she seems to overlook the victim. At first, her closeness to Glowatski has her focused solely on how the justice system is railroading him (a homeless Native kid) and allowing middle class white girl Kelly Ellard to have a fairer trial. However, in focusing on these two, she forgets to tell the story of Reena and her family. Guilt and thoughts of her own family make Godfrey go back over her book and try to find out more about Reena. She presents the pages to Reena’s parents, apologizing that she didn’t do more in the first place.
Although, it is a little ironic that the show was about how writer must be so careful when writing a true story when they completely rewrote Godfrey’s life and involvement in order to have a better television series.
People often forget that Paul, the main character of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, is a published writer.
In case you don’t know the story because you’ve been living under a rock, Paul (George Peppard) has been set up in a new apartment by the wealthy woman who keeps him as her boytoy. There, he meets the eccentric call girl Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn) - also a very racist stereotype played by Mickey Rooney, but the less said about that, the better. The pair become friends, at first through his fascination of her personality and her insistence that he looks like her beloved brother Fred. Paul stands by her through parties, love affairs, her rather gross past (really - more people don’t talk about the fact that she was freaking child bride!) trips to Sing Sing, and, of course, visiting Tiffany’s. He falls in love with her despite her repeatedly saying that she could never belong to another human being just like her nameless cat (who lives in her apartment and is dependent on her for nourishment). This is Hollywood, so you know it will all works out okay. Let’s focus on Paul’s job as a writer.
One of my favorite scenes in the film is when Holly finds out what he does and calls him out for not having any ribbon in his typewriter. He says, “I’m a writer, I guess” and her fantastic response is, “You guess? don’t you know?” Let us all learn from that moment. Paul has one book of short stories which were dirty, “angry, sensitive, intensely felt, and that dirtiest of all dirty words - promising. Or so said The Times Book Review, October 1, 1956.”. Holly even convinces him to sign the library’s copy, which the librarian gets terribly bent out of shape about it. Most importantly, Holly gives Paul a typewriter ribbon. Even though his married girlfriend want him working on a great American novel, a project he’s been slogging through for years, Paul instead writes a short story about Holly. He earns his first paycheck for his own work for the first time in years. This and his feelings for Holly give him the liberty to break away from his sugar mama. And even when he no longer has Holly, he continues to write.
Truman Capote isn’t in this, but if you read the original book you can hear him behind the main character, a struggling New York writer who is observing his usual friend with both criticism and amusement. The film is much different, but at least in the story you know that Cat is okay in the end.
Film noir time!
Ann is, naturally, an investigative journalist who’s been using her writing skills and a camera hidden in her watch in order to blow the lid off a group of cooks, misleading veterans into breaking up unions with riots. Even the leader of this organization, True Dawson - best mob boss name ever - has no clue that his secretary is a spy. However, Ann ends up in an accident causing (dun dun dun) amnesia!
A mysterious fiance, Steve Fuller, claims her at the hospital and takes her back to the the organization where she gets him a job. In her addled state, Ann believes in everything the organization stands for and that her boss, Dawson, is a benevolent leader. When a young woman shows up looking for her missing husband, Fuller confuses Ann by telling her get away.
SPOILER ALERT: As Ann suspects that Fuller is a bad guy and rats him out to Dawson, her story on the organization is printed. Nick from It’s a Wonderful Life roughs Ann up and, tada, instant cure for amnesia! All she needed was a healthy dose of assault! She, the mournful wife, and her publisher make a plan to save Fuller and stop a riot the organization is planning. Instead, Ann is captured, but she and Fuller (who is an undercover cop) manage to warn the strikers about the upcoming attack. The bad guys end up killing each other. Fuller and Ann become engaged for reals. And Ann is famous as the “Pretty girl reporter” who exposed a “phony group”. Okay, so it’s not a great plot. In fact, I had a little trouble following it in the first fifteen to twenty minutes. I kept thinking Fuller secretly worked for the bad guys and then it turned out he was spying on the bad guys and the bad guys were clueless as their secrets kept getting out . . .
Anyway, I want to point out one scene. Ann is asked to make a speech when she still has (gasp) amnesia. She is such a good writer, that she rattles off an impassioned string of sentences without really knowing what she’s talking about. A good writer should always have the power of the bullshit.
It’s 1938. The Great Depression is hitting high proportions. Mass numbers of Americans are out of work. Fathers are abandoning families in shame. Therefore, let’s watch a film about a pair of rich dopes and their “too clever for their own good” grown children. Personally, if you want a great film with a similar premise, watch My Man Godfrey.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Mrs. Kilbourne (the ditzy matriarch played by Billie Burke) insists on bringing home “tramps” to work in their home. She gives them jobs in service, forgets their names, forces them to read patronizing books about what they need to fix about themselves, then is shocked when they rob the family and run off.
Enter Wade Rawlins (Brian Aherne) a man who stops at the house to use the phone after his car breaks down. Mrs. Kilbourne mistakes his oil drenched appears as poverty and hires him as the new chauffeur before he has an opportunity to correct her. He sees all of this as instantly amusing and decides to just be the family driver. Despite their misgivings about mother bringing in someone else without references, Rawlins begins to grow upon the family after he rescues grumpy Mr. Kilbourne from a drunken night. Two of the Rawlins children, bratty Kane (Tom Brown aka Gilbert from Anne of Green Gables) and animal loving Marion (Bonita Granville aka the original Nancy Drew) appreciate Rawlins handling of their father. However, it’s the eldest daughter, Geraldine known as Jerry (Constance Bennett) who he has the instant connection with. Only Mr. Kilbourne fails to see Rawlins merits and worries he’ll be an embarrassment at their important dinner with a senator.
But au contraire! Rawlins is mistaken as a guest and charms the pants off the senator. Moreover, the senator’s daughter wants Rawlins to charm the pants off her (ba-bum-bum-tsk!). Rawlins decides to mess with the family and act the part of a guest in their house while Mr. Kilbourne tries to get the senator to help his business. By the way, I have no idea what Mr. Kilbourne’s business is. Anyway, Jerry gets jealous and fights with Rawlins. He exits swiftly for a mysterious destination.
Meanwhile, in a nearby town, police have found Rawlins’s smashed up car over a cliff. They report him as deceased to a local general store owner (a man that Rawlins borrowed the car from) who reveals that Rawlins is a noted novelist who fishes in the area. Oh hey! Character actor Willie Best! Oh dang, he’s playing a stereotype.
The newspapers report how famous author E. Wade Rawlins has died suddenly with a photograph to confirm to the Kilbournes exactly who they had working for them. There’s a ton of fainting as people think their seeing a ghost and the long suffering butler declares he will become a tramp. All I can think is, “Whelp, Rawlins has lots of material for his next novel.”
