"This time on Masterpiece Classics..."

I have to admit that I have, for a while now, been a fan of Masterpiece Classics on PBS. The latest Masterpiece Classic, Jane Austin’s Persuasion, is possibly the most unique and perfect adaptation I have seen on the Masterpiece series.

If you know the story, Persuasion can be a bit of a drag, telling the tragic story of a spinster named Anne who regrets breaking off her engagement to Captain Wentworth eight years earlier. When Captain Wentworth returns a rich war hero, she is sorry she every allowed her family to persuade her to refuse him. Will he ever forgive her? Will she ever tell him she has never stopped loving him? Of course! Jane Austin always graced her readers with a romantic and happy ending.

There is not a lot of action in this story, and it is much shorter than Jane Austin’s other novels. But from the beginning, this film pulls us in with little tricks I had not seen before on Masterpiece Classics. One of the most notable was having the actress, or Anne, peer subtly into the camera, especially after writing in her journal. When the camera and her eyes slowly adjust to meet, we are in synch with her emotions. In other scenes, the position of the camera conveys a closer point of view. The camera moves in so closely that the actors nearly walk into us. And at times, Anne’s face is cut off by the shot. These “tricks” bring us into the mise en scene, giving us the feeling of being there rather than just being an observer. Another affecting piece of the film’s composition is the use of shadows. The shadows here are exaggerated and very black. A few times the two main characters exit the scene by walking into the shadows. The black in their costume meets the black in the shadow until we can no longer differentiate the two. The characters were literally swallowed up by the dark.

The director was very successful in creating a dark yet passionate mood. And the lead actress, Sally Hawkins, grew more beautiful as time went on, as one might in real life. I’m not sure if my opinion is biased here… as I said earlier, I do enjoy Masterpiece Classics, and this was one of my favorite so far. How it fares with a general audience, I’m not sure. But if there were any of these films you’d want to see, I’d choose this one. Not only is it good, but it's shorter than the other films in the Masterpiece series (the award winning Little Dorrit was six hours long!).

The Grave Outdoors

(image from Dead Wood)

Movie watchers be warned, if a group of young people venture out to the woods and make road kill of its local inhabitants, you better believe nature will come back and bite them in the ass, or the neck, or the chest cavity.

New on DVD, Dark Wood (Menan Films, 2007) begins like many horror-in-the-woods films with young adults venturing deep into the woods for a camping trip full with skinny dipping in dark lakes, alcohol and easy sex. I believe I recall something of deer brains being smashed against the front bumper on the way to their camping site. Anyway, one by one, they are plucked off by something in the woods. This haunting and unusual story reminds me a little of the new genre Japanese horror, where emotion left behind by the dead and is returned to take vengeance on the unsuspecting living. Unfortunately, I believe the film falls short of its vision. The idea was good, but the story probably could have been told better in an episode of the X Files, and maybe with a little bigger budget.

In Nature's Grave (Arclight Films, 2008), Peter, played by Jim Caviezel, hits a kangaroo on the way to an Australian beach camping trip with his dejected wife. With a bigger budget than Dead Wood, this film almost hits the mark of a made-for-TV true crime. Blatant shots of the couple's attack on nature, and natures slow, very slow imprecation on the careless couple make this movie hard to sit through. The end held a couple surprises and some nice gory scenes, but I think my time was wasted on this one.

Fortunately, there are plenty more new movies taking place in the wild. Wild Country (Gabriel Films, 2005) took some time to capture my attention and looks like it was edited in a public access television studio. The creature seems to roll across the screen as if taped to a popsicle stick and literally slid across the film strip by hand. Its pretty funny. What I liked was the design of the creature itself. I don't want to give it away, but it was pretty scary looking, and not much like anything I've seen before. Its movements are stiff and mechanical, but the sound wasn't terrible and the director was great about not really giving away the creature until near the end. It's cry was distant until it was ready to tear its prey apart, and we never really knew where it was going to be. Though I suspected the ending a little, I was pretty satisfied with the last scene. If you don't mind the faulty special effects, this is a fun movie for the kind of horror fans who aren't satisfied with the two or three blockbuster horror movies a year.

Not Another One!! Will the Remake Bring You to the Box Office?

If you're a child of the 80s, then this is the movie decade for you. I've heard rumors of a Goonies remake, Stephen King's It, Footloose and Mannequin of all films. I'm not sure what they could do with the last two, but I suppose with the recent hype of the dance film genre, Footloose could be a hit with teens.

Lately there have been a slew of horror movie remakes. Halloween, Friday the 13^th, Stepfather, The Crazies and Nightmare on Elm St... I'd like to see a remake of Hellraiser. I think they could write new story, but modernize the film and create all new cenobites. Those things cant get much more evil as far as their ability to inflict pain, but with new make up and technology, they could make the film a little more gruesome.

I've been hearing about a Tron sequel for years and it is now in post production as Tron Legacy, scheduled to be released at the end of this year. The film is directed by Joseph Kosinski, who's only film credit, according to IMDb, is this film and three others in development. There were also rumors of a remake of Frank Herbert's Dune a while back. (Can you imagine sandworms in 3D? I get goosebumps just thinking about it!) Unfortunately, I haven't heard anything recently. There was a TV mini-series in 2000 which would have been more impressive with better special effects. I think as a movie-goer, I'm always searching for an original film that gives me the same feelings I had when I first watched these older ones.

So, I guess the remakes are not without reason. There are plenty of movie patrons out there getting excited about these movies. And production companies probably feel a bit more comfortable about a sure thing. There must be a lack of original material out there in Hollywood, which saddens me. I guess if you're an aspiring screenplay writer, now would be the time to push your work out there!

The Blind Side

Based on the true story of the family who takes in the despaired black teen, Michael Oher, this movie came as a little bit of a surprise to me. I half expected to be annoyed by a message like "African American unexpectedly turns out to be an angelic superhuman." I'm also not a big fan of Sandra Bullock, who played nearly the same character in "While You Were Sleeping," "The Proposal," and "Two Weeks Notice" with a few adjustments to her architype. However, she was superbly cast for this role and preformed it flawlessly. The message I mentioned earlier was absent, and in its place a simply heart-warming true story of a football player's rise to success with the love and encouragement of the Tuohy family. I'm sure Sandra Bullock agrees with me when I say she would definitely benefit from taking more roles like this one.