Film review: Underwater (2020)

This one often comes up in lists of "surprisingly good" monster movies that died at the box office.  I'm okay with surprisingly good!  And having seen it, I agree!  What's good about it is the world-building and effects.  As the mindnumbingly generic title reveals, it takes place about 6 miles underwater (in the Mariana Trench) where some kind of drilling is taking place.  And you really believe that you're in a base on the bottom of the sea.  It's also often compared with Alien - and you can see why

(it's far from the first film to try "Alien, but in the sea") and it shares with that film a realistically run-down and used look to all the tech, albeit lacking the pervy originality that H.R. Giger brought to the art direction.  The film also doesn't mess around, which is part of why we watched it: our number one criterion for film-watching these days is "how long is it?" and this hit the sweet spot at 90 minutes.  And the reason it's not more sprawling is that it just hits the ground running.  You get about a minute of watching Kristen Stewart brushing her teeth 

before a massive shock breaches the part of the base she's on and we're off and (literally) running.  However, this strength is also a weakness, because one of the things that makes Alien so special is the slow build, so that you get to know the characters and their routines before everything is destroyed.  Without that it's very hard to care about the characters.  They are reduced to archetypes (the comic relief (pre-cancelling T.J. Miller, 

who pretty much had a lock on that character for the window in which this film was produced), panicky civilian ("Emily" (Jessica Henwick), 

playing the role that Veronica Cartwright played in Alien (although, unlike Cartwright, she doesn't attempt an American accent), although thankfully a bit more whimper-y than scream-y), doomed captain (French actor Vincent Cassell), 

nerdy black guy, and generic white guy (wearing a headband, like Yaphet Kotto in Alien, as Jami pointed out)) and given sketchy but intentionally tear-jerky backstories to be dropped in in gaps between the action.  So that's one of the flaws in this film.  The other is that, while the monsters are actually kind of interesting and well-rendered, they're lacking any real sense that they're malevolent predators, and the whole thing actually feels much more like a disaster movie (every part of the base seems to be falling apart prompting them to have to move, often through horribly claustrophobic spaces to get to the next part of the base, until they have to walk across the bottom of the ocean in their armored suits (which would really have to be armored given the depth they're at, 

and actually do seem to resist the attacks of the monsters, given that our heroine literally gets swallowed by one at one point, allowing her to blow her way out with a flare gun).  There is a big bad which (spoiler) is, according to the director, meant to be Lovecraft's Chthulu, but it doesn't get much time to shine before the film canters to a close.  The acting is good (given what they have to work with), and the order in which the characters die did surprise me, so they know the tropes enough to buck them.  I'd say it would be most appreciated by a teen new to horror films: no attempt at sexiness (you occasionally see skinny young women running about in underwear, 

but it's very matter of fact and at moments where they could die at any moment, so it's not played as sexy) to scare off the Young Prudes, but also not too gruesome.  PG-13 seems about the right rating.  But they should give a real script to the people responsible for bringing the world to life, because they do a very good job.  Watch it in  a darkened room with somebody who's claustrophobic and scared of diving.

 

That was a good week (with photos)

An unprecedented "blue tsunami" and a thorough repudiation of Donald Trump?  Yes please!  Meanwhile, the week started so warm that we were walking around in shorts and even had the A/C on at night (!) and ended damp and chilly, with the fire in full use.

The demolition of Flint Central High continues, I wouldn't say "apace," because they appear to be going very slowly and sort of inside-out.  Must be something to do with asbestos.

Last gasp of the autumnal colors before the rain brings all the leaves down: 

Film review: Ghost Train (1941)

I remember hearing the name Arthur Askey when I were but a lad, but had not until this point experienced his comedy stylings.  Yeesh.  

I recognize the phrase "Ayethankyew" as one that was part of the lexicon of my formative years, but for the life of me cannot understand how this man found success.  That said, the film itself is actually solid entertainment, largely because it is less a vehicle for him than a film that seems to have been constructed without him and had him foisted upon it.  And, what's more, most of the characters in the film seem to share the irritation that any rational person would experience when confronted with this strident gnome who has no concept of personal space and a massively inflated view of his lovability.  

The film was a very cozy Halloween choice, with solid character actors (including a couple of very familiar faces - notably Linden Travers (she's the one in the middle, between Teddy and R.G.)

(The Lady Vanishes) and Raymond Huntley 

(too many things to count - we know him from Night Train to Munich and one of the Inspector Hornleighs, but he's probably most well known for Upstairs, Downstairs)) and a great World War II Fifth Column plot (which is a bit of a coincidence, as we've also just watched the 1970s Peter O'Toole adaptation of Rogue Male (free on YouTube) featuring ever-so-British Nazi Quive-Smith.)  Not to give too much away, but a train drops off an assortment of characters: beautiful young woman Jackie Winthrop 

(played by actual stunner Carole Lynne, who seems to have leveraged her beauty into marrying a very rich man), her cousin (first thought to be her husband), cricket-and-boxing star R. G. Winthrop (who finds Askey the most annoying), Teddy Deakin, who appears to be almost as annoying as Askey's Tommy Gander (and equally borderline harassing to the all-too-patient Jackie), albeit almost twice his height, but who reveals a secret later; eccentric parrot-fancying God-botherer Miss Bourne; 

the tippling Dr. Sterling, and about-to-be-married young couple from Camberwell, Edna and Herbert; 

on to the platform at a fictitious small station on the way from London to Truro (they're heading for the "Cornish Riviera").  

They're expecting to change trains, but they have missed their connection, probably because Tommy Gander pulled the cord to stop the train because his hat blew out of the window.  So the bulk of the film plays out on this one lonely station in the middle of the night, and manages to be very atmospheric (spooky and cozy in equal measures) in so doing.

They meet a station master (with a very bizarre accent - I think he was trying to do a West Country accent, but I see that the actor was from Lancashire, which explains the difficulty) who is very resistant to letting them stay inside the station, despite it being a filthy storm outside, and even more resistant to staying himself, as he tells the tale of a ghost train that passes on the tracks on the other side of the station that (he says) haven't been used for decades, since a station master dropped dead and failed to close the bridge (that opens to let boats through) causing a train to plummet into the river.  He gives all sorts of details about the time of death and the time the train appears that later seem to be coming true...

Late arrivals, after the motley crew have bickered and rallied round to make tea and share snacks, are the aforementioned Travers and Huntley, the former apparently being chased by the latter, as he claims she is his sister who has been institutionalized because of her unhealthy obsession with the ghost train.  A death occurs 

(or does it?)  A shooting occurs (at a ghost?)  A twist happens.  Many people are not who they seem.  A teetotaler discovers the delights (and side-effects) of brandy.  Matches are mistaken for chocolate.  And Tommy Gander (accidentally?) saves the day.  A slow start, but canters to a very satisfactory finish.  But it does not make me want to seek out more Arthur Askey, I'll tell you that for nothing.

Malice Aforethought by Frances Iles

 

Simon insists that I have read this before, sometime in the early 90s.  It's possible but it all seemed new to me as I was reading this this past week. I think he's confusing this book with Before the Fact, which I know I read and was written by Iles (and was made into the film Superstition by Hitchcock). But until time travel is invented, we'll never know.

It's amazing that Frances Iles is really Anthony Berkely Cox who wrote all the Roger Sheringham mysteries (of which there are a dozen at least).  The Sheringham stories read like Bertie Wooster Turns His Idle Hands to Criminal Detection. But with no Jeeves to keep him focussed and ensure success.  Instead, Sheringham blithely stumbles along, usually getting the answer completely incorrect and pissing a lot of people off in the process.  And then, almost as an after thought, the killer is discovered and everything works out for the best.  Cox must have written the two Iles books when he was feeling particularly jaded with humanity as this book and Before the Fact are nasty.  The main character is doctor Bickleigh who, we discover, practices medicine in a tiny town where he is much beloved--except by his wife.  Indeed, no one loves his wife, not even her family of origin.  She makes it plain every chance she gets that she only married him to escape a miserable family household.  You'd think she'd be more grateful or at least make at effort at being polite.  She's not even pretty.  At every opportunity parts of her body (like her chin and eyebrows) are described as "thick" or "heavy."  

The story is written from Bickleigh's point of view so we know what he knows.  The problem is that he is an inverterate liar: he lies to everyone else and to himself.  So we can't trust him at all.  Moreover, he's convinced he's smarter than everyone else--not in terms of knowing more stuff but in terms of having the ability to outmanipulate everyone.  Every conversation is an opportunity to plant a seed in another's mind so they slowly have only those beliefs that advantage him.

The very first sentence of the book lets us know that Bickleigh has decided to murder his wife.  Giggling with excitement, Bickleigh congratulates himself for being so much smarter than everyone else because, unlike the typical murderers who kill their wives, he knows he will get away with it.  Unsurprisingly, not long after having made the decision to kill his wife, Julia, he realizes that there are other people in the village that "need to be murdered, too."  Idle fantasy?  Not at all.  No sense in doing things half-assed, after all. If you decide to murder your wife so you can be happy, it stands to reason you need to eliminate ALL the people who bring unhappiness into your life.  Pretty soon our little Dr. Bickleigh has all sorts of irons in the fire, planning drug overdoses and botilism poisoning along with a tidy collection of alibis and character witnesses.  And when he isn't incubating poison he's having attacks in the middle of the night when he suddenly wakes in a fevered panic because he's certain that "everyone knows everything and the net is closing in"!  But, in the morning light, he is calm and laughs at his own silliness--imagine being worried that he would be caught!  Ridiculous!

It really is an incredible story--a a very fast read that is impossible to put down. It was published in 1931 and reviewed as "the best English shocker ever written."  That may be hyperbole but it is easily in my top 5 psychological thrillers masked as a cozy murder mysteries.

Young Petrella by Michal Gilbert

 

Another collection of short stories, these all featuring Patrick Petrella as a very young police officer--pre-marriage and still renting a room from an older lady who has her pulse on all the happenings in the neighborhood.  I'm just repeating myself at this point, but it is amazing how varied all these short stories in terms of topic/content but even they are when it comes to writing style.  How does he do it?  The standout story (in my opinion) is the one that begins with Petrella talking about an undercover mission he is getting briefed for so he can find out how a criminal gang is bringing cocaine into London from Europe.  (Those Europeans are ALWAYS bringing terrible stuff into London....) He is going to become a youth advisor (not a minister or priest but he does work in a live in a church--I don't get it myself: my sense is that there is the equivalent of a YMCA run from a church that allows local teen boys to make use of the space in the buidings after school and on weekends so they avoid getting sucked into gangs.  And, if the story is anything to go by, if the youth group leader does his mentoring well, then the kids join when they are 11 or so and grow up with the place and then they, too, mentor younger kids in sports and stuff.  ANYWAY: so the idea is that the local youth leader was so old he finally had to retire and the church is sending around a new/young guy.  Petrella knows him from some OTHER city/area because that is where Petrella started.  So he tells his cheif that he will meet up with that new guy, tell him that he (Petrella) is going to temporarily replace him.  Petrella's last word to his supervisor is, "I hope Jim goes for it.  He is very stubborn."  Next thing we know, "Jim" is at work, meeting the kids, trying to figure out what local guy has an outsized influence on the place, hanging around, asking kids to do "odd jobs," that sort of thing.  The young kids know exactly who he is talkinga about and soon "Jim" and the kids set to work, trying to figure out exactly how, when and where the crime is happening.  

It all plays out, the kids are hilarious yet very realistic (not unlike the kids in the film Hue and Cry--sidebar: if you haven't seen that recently, you should) and everything wraps up swimmingly: the bad guys lose and the good guys win.  And then, with no warning, we discover that "Jim" really is Jim--he was too stubborn to let Petrella take his job from him and Petrella was "Michael", a useless guy who hung around freaked out the kids because he was nosy and weird. 

Garden Update....

Despite the fact that we are getting nighttime temperatures hovering right at freezing (that's 32F for those that want to do some algebra), I still have tomato plants going strong: flowering, fruiting, ripening...it's crazy.

 

I also have a half dahlias (the same plants I grew from tubers that were supposed to flower in June) suddenly come to life and are blooming like crazy.  But I forgot to take pictures of them so that will have to wait until tomorrow. Meanwhile all those "fall vegetable" seeds I was told to plant in early October (spinach, beets...) have done DIDDLY SQUAT because the daytime temps are too HOT.

Pics since the last pics post