Recent Viewings, Part 2

[M.10rda]

I considered going to see a screening of AKIRA last night - presumably the "restored" version you mention. I'd be sad to see "the shortcuts in the animation become more visible". I'm surprised that's a Thing but frankly HD has done no favors to many beloved spectacles from my childhood. I made the mistake of watching part of ALIENS in HD at some point. Cameron simply didn't mean for us to see all the detail in all the deep shadows... 

But every time I've ever revisited AKIRA I'm still impressed. The attention to detail and the character animation is impeccable. Maybe I'll stick to my old VHS in perpetuity.

[Dr. Whom]

Well, it is not disastrous and the general quality of animation remains excellent. But I get your remark about Aliens in HD. Some things were never meant to be seen in detail, and now they are. I understand the reasoning behind 'now in super HD 40K resolution', but it doesn't always serve the movie.

[indianasmith]

CAPTURE (2026) - This one was a hidden gem on Tubi.
A young woman receives a phone call that she has inherited a house that once belonged to her mother and father, whom she never knew.  When she arrives, she finds the house has a dark reputation with the locals - she also finds a 30 year old video camera and a box of home movies from the 1990's, which reveal a dark secret surrounding the deaths of her parents and a dozen or so other people that were murdered at the site.
   You would think a haunted VHS video camera sounds like a dumb premise, but this movie makes it terrifying!
4.5/5

[M.10rda]

THE WAITERS' BALL (1916):
This pre-Buster Keaton short from Roscoe Arbuckle finally clinches for me that Buster didn't "make" Roscoe funny, as Letterboxers often like to claim - though he did contribute a lot of value. Roscoe knew what he was doing behind and in-front of the camera on his own, and in fact WAITERS' BALL is tighter, slicker, and funnier than some of the Roscoe/Buster flicks that followed. Roscoe is an inept and mostly unflappable chef in a restaurant that by all rights should have no customers, yet still does. In lieu of Buster, perennial third wheel Al St. John plays Roscoe's foil, an equally inept and manic waiter. Al really shines in the spotlight (and in a bunch of close-ups) for a change, pulling some ridiculous faces and showing off snappy comic timing.

The first three-quarters of WAITERS' BALL is essentially plotless - "just" one rapid-fire restaurant gag after another, but executed flawlessly. There are visual gags (Roscoe loves a good background sign), there are verbal gags in the intertitles, there is prop humor, there is slapstick, there are bodies flying through the air, there is (as usual) irresponsible use of a firearm, and it goes on for fifteen minutes and it could go on for thirty! My Mom watched a Roscoe short w/ me last week and asked "Did they just make it up while the cameras were rolling?" This theory seems plausible for some Roscoe flicks but WAITERS' BALL feels like it had an elaborate screenplay that mapped out everything to the smallest gesture. Roscoe's camerawork and editing is especially crisp here. This also allows him to do a lot more personally/as a performer w/ smaller, subtler and more specific gestures and expressions.

The eponymous social function is briefly set up in the first fifteen minutes and then only commands about three minutes of screentime. It's the least important and least funny part of the movie.  Roscoe does end up in drag, however. He looks better as a dame than you might think! Actually he's got kind of a Commander Stephanie Sterling vibe goin' on.    3.5/5

[Jim H]

Resident Evil - Very solid adaptation of the games.  Funny, great lead performance, terrific pacing, constantly moving.  Loses me a little bit in the last act, where I think the humor of it undercuts something like what is happening TOO much, but still a really good film worth seeing on the big screen.  Guess Cregger don't miss, eh?

One thing I want to mention: the setup and some of the subtext to this is rather similar to Exit 8, which is the second best rated video game movie now.  Kind of interesting that.  It would be a mild spoiler to say what this is, just interesting to think about if you've seen both.

[M.10rda]

DREAMS OF THE RAREBIT FIEND: THE PET (1921):
This might be the original kaiju movie! Director Winsor McKay was the author of the "Little Nemo In Slumberland" comic strip and also the strip that shares its title w/ this short - apparently the title character loves eating "rarebit" (rabbit?) but it always gives him nocturnal indigestion and wacky dreams. In this 11-minute episode, he dreams that his wife adopts what at first looks like a tiny stray kitty cat, then starts to grow into something more doglike, then gradually more like a mini- (then full-size) rhino, and finally into a giant monster, which proceeds to do what all giant monsters tend to do - rampage and destroy the city. Obviously the air force must respond!

McKay made this cartoon 7 years after the primitive GERTIE THE DINOSAUR - and the evolution of both animation technology and McKay's own craft is remarkable. There's clear similarity to Miyazaki and Otomo, w/ stylized yet detailed backgrounds and then smartly strategic, convincing character movement against those backgrounds. THE PET would still look sturdy if it premiered today in an indie animation screening. McKay apparently made at least one other RAREBIT FIEND short, though it seems to have been lost.       Too bad!    4/5