V

Great Dictator, The (1940) (****, comedy, war, satire) (10-29-01)

Woman, A (1915) (10-29-01)

Some Like It Hot (1959) (****, comedy) (10-29-01)

Children of Paradise (1945) (****, drama, romance) (10-29-01)

Unknown, The (1927) (***, drama, horror) (10-29-01)

Three Stooges, The Classic Collections from Digital Disc Entertainment (***, comedy) (10-22-01)

Virginian, The (1929) (**1/2, classic, Western)

Virginian, The (comments)

Virus (1999) (*1/2, sci fi, horror) (3-25-02)

Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography (1992) (****, documentary)

Void, The (2001) (*1/2, sci fi) (6-17-02)

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961) (**1/2, 50s sci fi)

Vampire, The (1957) (*1/2, horror) (6-17-02) (D.-Paul Landres; John Beal, Coleen Gray, Kenneth Tobey, Lydia Reed, Dabbs Greer) Being an avid fan of vampire films, how could I pass this one? I must confess it exceeded even my lowest expectation. Mad scientist gets a bit too cozy with the secret of eternal life and others must pay the price. One of those “others” is the good Doctor Beecher (Beal), who does a pretty good job with what he is given. I’ll answer your pressing question so you don’t have to hang on to the edge of your seat until the end. We never do find out what happened to the bats. Also the director must have gotten a good deal on a werewolf costume after he decided on the title. Either that or he didn’t know the difference between a werewolf and vampire. And if a rampaging were-bat wasn’t enough we have a miraculous degenerative blood disease. Not bad enough to be camp and not good enough to be entertaining, The Vampire should remain an oddity for only the hardest core vampire fans. However, surprisingly a lot of the reviews of Internet Movie Database were positive. Review based on good print on TMC.

Vampires AKA Jim Carpenter’s Vampires (1998) (**1/2, horror) (10-30-00) (D.-John Carpenter; James Woods, Daniel Baldwin, Sheryl Lee, Thomas Ian Griffith , Maximilian Schell, Tim Guinee, Mark Boone Junior, Gregory Sierra, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) Review based on the excellent letterboxed DVD. The time is the present and there is an ongoing centuries old war between vampires and humans. Who better to administer this than the Vatican? Jack Crow (Woods) heads their elite corp of vampire killers. Let’s just say that this is a marriage of convenience as the hunters’ behavior doesn’t exactly fall under the guidelines of any major religion. In short, mercenaries who live on the edge.

The film opens with a successful hunt in New Mexico. However, things go disastrously wrong. Crow and his right hand man Montoya (Baldwin), with the unwilling help of an infected young prostitute (Lee), then search for the master vampire Jan Valek (Griffith). Cardinal Alba (Schell) forces them to accept the help of Father Guiteau (Guinee), the Vatican’s watch dog. Guinee’s presence is an outrage to Crow and he is treated accordingly

The film is stylish and well acted. Woods is always a pleasure to watch, and this is a perfect part for him. Obsessive, ruthless, brutal. But Vampires could have been so much more. There were several underlying threads that, had Carpenter developed them, could have led to some genuine suspense and tension as the story unfolded. Unfortunately, he opted for a more linear, conventional development that fell into the mode of so many other action horror films of this type.

There is an excellent and entertaining voice-over commentary by the director. It has lots of location (spectacular northern New Mexico) information, anecdotes about the shoots and the actors, and technical information about directing, casting, weapons, staging, lighting, music, and shooting. In short, a lot of fun. For example, the motel was a famous motel that burned down, and its sign had been in storage until Carpenter resurrected it. Given the sign’s history, the fate of the motel is appropriate. Many of the women at the hotel were local exotic dancers. The nasty little monologue on vampires by Crow to Father Guiteau was improv by Woods—again demonstrating his great talent.

Carpenter’s voice-over is revealing in a way that perhaps Carpenter had not intended. He is a talented filmmaker but his horror films have rarely risen to a high level. His comments on the need to include dialogue and plot development scenes being such a drag reveals why. His primary interest is the F/X and the physical activity portions of the movie with lip service being paid to the rest. Great horror has both, and his films will rarely be great until he includes these "wasted" scenes as an integral portion of the films. On the other hand, maybe he doesn’t care. He has succeeded in carving out a living doing something that he enjoys; so greatness may not matter.

So if you are in the mood for a stylish vampire film and don’t mind some gore, do give Vampires a look. Beginning

Vampires (Background): (See Vampire Film Listing)This week we review one of the most persistent and successful monster themes-- vampires. Most movies are based in some way on Bram Stoker's Dracula. However, the Dracula myth is much older than Stoker and extends to an extraordinary range of cultures. Historically, just what are the different views of vampires and what are their attributes? As it turns outs, one can find support in some culture or period for most variations. So don't get too upset if a movie deviates from your preconceived notions.

Vampires cannot be out during the day--well, maybe sometimes they can be. A cross will stop a vampire--then again maybe not. These equally valid contradictory messages reflect the evolution of the vampire-monster from ancient monsters and ghosts in many parts of the world. The cures and controls on the vampire are, in most cases, variations on controls used since the beginning of time on other monsters; for example, the use of garlic is a general monster stopper rather than specifically effective against vampires. Whether or not vampires can be out during the day depends on cultural tradition and whether or not a cross is effective depends on whether the cultural tradition precedes the advent of Christianity.

Any monster's capabilities and society's ability to limit its activities creates a game along the lines of crooks and cops; the crooks develop new ways to break the law and the cops develop new ways to catch them. A werewolf, with its human element, was a scarier monster than a pure animal. However, a human that drank blood from another human was a monster step up from the werewolf, which had to lose its human form in order to do its monstrous deeds. It was also a monstrous step up from ghosts, whose goals were to seek revenge or in some way achieve peace; the vampire was driven only by the lust for blood combined with human planning, seductiveness and conscious intention. By necessity, this more sophisticated, complicated monster came equipped with more complicated rules to live by and to die by.

The methods by which vampires were supposed to be created were fairly consistent. The vampire usually had to drink the victim's blood. Beyond that the results varied. Victims could become vampires if they died as a result of the bleedings, or only if they, in turn, drank the vampires blood, or if they suffered only one bleeding episode in their entire lives. Vampires became vampires for eternity or for as little as seven years (after which time they slipped into society and led normal lives; however their children became new vampires).

The Balkans, and particularly Rumania, were apparently hot spots for vampires. So prevalent was their legendary presence that any corpse was considered a possible vampire and every burial was accompanied by the safeguards that most societies applied only to dead who might be expected to be restless (including suicides and unavenged murder victims). In the Balkans this list of dead that needed extremely careful attention was expanded to include the wicked (as Vlad III who was the prototype for Dracula), those cursed by their parents, werewolves, and those who died without benefit of clergy. In any event, precautions were taken with every corpse and one visitor described the mourners arriving at the house on the third day after the death bringing incense and nine sharp spindles to be poked down into the grave to skewer the corpse if it attempted to rise. Other traditional ghost-defeating ideas for holding them down was to bury them at a crossroads where traffic was heavy, under fast running water, or with magic devices such as pieces of silver or iron. One South American tribe always pegged the corpses into the grave.

Individual protection against vampires include age-old remedies such as foul smelling things to wear or put up at entrances to rooms, and that oldest of parental edicts "DON'T GO OUT AT NIGHT". Society's protection is to avoid the vampire if possible or detect and destroy it if avoidance proves impossible. The rules the vampire must abide by determine the success of search and destroy missions as many of the rules can make its presence and identity obvious. Someone who is seen always at night and never in the day and has the gauntness associated with the dead is fairly easy to find when an unusual series of deaths begins to occur. Red eyes, borrowed from the werewolf, is also a sure sign. Having to sleep in narrowly proscribed places is going to make the vampire fairly easy to find. The problem becomes more difficult if the culture allows other things. For example, if the vampire can come out during the day then that begins to look more normal; in such circumstances, however, society usually decides that the vampire's powers are very weak during the day so, once the monster has been detected, coming out during the day puts it at a disadvantage.

The vampire's protection is also varied. Most traditions allow the vampire to hypnotize its victims. Shape changing is also a hallowed monster tradition and a favorite, even for the vampire, was that dangerous, fleet-footed animal of the night, the wolf. The tradition of vampires changing into bats had to wait until the discovery of the vampire bat in the new world; in exchange, the vampire extended its common name to the bat.

Two different cultural approaches center on whether the vampire is a physical or a spiritual being--an undead corpse or a ghost, although most vampires are thought of as corpses. Therefore, sometimes the vampire can cast a shadow or be seen in a mirror, while at other times it cannot. If the vampire is spiritual, then shape changing can include mist and smoke as well as animals. Borrowed combinations of these causes confusion--how can a vampire be substantial enough to cast a shadow but not a reflection in a mirror?

Discovering the vampires lair can involve the spiritual trick of walking an unbred white stallion through a cemetery until he shies at the significant grave or, on a more prosaic note, simply examining all of the graves until finding the one with "air holes" leading from the surface down to the coffin. Exhumed corpses that have not deteriorated or empty coffins are also highly suspicious.

Destroying the vampire had to be done meticulously. He could be killed with a stake in the heart, a silver bullet (if the marksman could escape being hypnotized), or the ruin of his sleeping quarters, usually with holy water. Until fiction and films there was no history of sunlight actually damaging the vampire. Rumania, of course, had an extensive ritual for destroying a vampire that included chopping the body up and burning every bit.

Until the 15th century the vampires were as nameless as any other monster. At that time reports surfaced about Prince Vlad III of Wallachia (aka Vlad the Impaler for his way of dispatching opponents and other undesirables), fittingly located in the Balkan region, who had participated in a series of Crusader battles against the Turks in the mid-1400's. He presumably fought under the leadership of Hunyadi Janos, a Transylvanian military leader. Reportedly Vlad was incredibly evil and was referred to as a true dracul (Rumanian for devil). For some reason vampire reports became epidemic again in the 16th century and the vampire assumed characteristics that would make it recognized today. And now enough of the facts, let's look at some modern cimematic interpretations. Beginning (2-8-93)

References: Man, Myth and Magic, vol. 21, edited by R. Cavendish, 1970. History of the Byzantine State, G. Ostrogorsky, 1969, pg. 564. The Story of Civilization, Vol. VI, W. Durant, 1957, pg. 184.

Listing of Vampire Films

Addiction, The (1995) (**, horror)

Blacula (1972) (**1/2, horror)

Blade (1998) (**1/2, vampire, superhero) (3-29-99)

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) (**1/2, horror)

Dracula (1931) (***, classic horror)

Dracula (1973) (**1/2, horror)

Dracula (1979) (***, horror)

Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995) (**1/2, comedy, horror)

Fright Night (1985) (***, horror)

From Dusk Till Dawn (1995) (**, horror, crime)

Horror of Dracula (1958) (***, horror)

Interview With The Vampire (1994) (***, horror, drama)

Lifeforce (1985) (**, sci fi, horror)

Last Man on Earth (1964) (***, Sci Fi, horror)

Lost Boys, The (1987) (**1/2, horror)

Mark of the Vampire (1935) (**1/2, horror)

Near Dark (1987) (***, horror?)

Nightwing (1979) (**, horror)

Nosferatu (1922) (**1/2, horror)

Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) (***1/2, horror)

Omega Man, The (1971) (**, sci-fi, horror)

Rabid (1977) (**, sci fi, horror, vampire) (5-20-02)

Shadow of the Vampire (2000) (***1/2, drama, black humor) (11-27-00)

Vampire, The (1957) (*1/2, horror) (6-17-02)

Vampyr (1932) (***, horror)

Video Hound's Vampires on Video (1997) (****, book)

Vampyr (1932) (***, horror) (D.- Carl Theodor Dreyer; Julian West, Sybille Schmitz, Maurice Schutz, Henriette Gerard) Everyone has seen Dracula, which has now been so over exposed it is more likely to bring laughs than chills. Not so, however, for that chilling and much overlooked other vampire film Vampyr. While dated, Vampyr still has real power to unsettle and disturb. It is Dreyer's first sound film and actually feels more like a silent film to which sound has been skillfully added to increase one's sense of alienation. The story isn't really the goal here. Dreyer wanted to create an unholy world in which evil ruled, and nothing could be taken for granted. Shadows walk away from their owners and have a life of their own (a very impressive image, by the way). The living are buried. The views, the lighting, the people are just wrong. Like a house where all the right angles are a little off; you cannot quite put your finger on what's wrong, but it is disturbing. The very dream-like quality of much of the photography was the result of an accident. One day's shot had a light leak, which fogged the film and reduced the contrast (any experienced photographer will recognize it). Dreyer so liked the effect that he used it deliberately for a number of shots. Review based on laser disk version from Clemons. (5-27-95) Beginning

Van Helsing (2004) (**1/2, horror, action) (6-7-04) (DW.-Stephen Sommers; Hugh Jackman, Kate Beckinsale, Richard Roxburgh, David Wenham, Will Kemp, Shuler Hensley, Kevin J. O'Connor) I loved Sommers’ The Mummy and am fond of old horror films, so I had hope for Van Helsing. For me it was a real let down; my **1/2 rating is guardedly high. Not without its moments, but it reminded me of the adage, never confuse motion with action. Lots of motion, wiz bang, stellar effects, and no heart. The basic plot involves Van Helsing as a sort of early day James Bond sanctioned and directed by The Church to reduce the number of ungodly creations. In this unholy stew, Van Helsing (Jackman) has to battle Dracula (Roxburgh) and his brides, a werewolf (Kemp), Mr. Hyde, and Frankenstein (Hensley). I was skeptical of how they could actually connect all of these disparate elements into a logical (even for a horror film) whole, but that part of the film actually works.

Aiding Van Helsing is Anna Valerious (Beckinsale), the last surviving member of the family whose duty was to destroy Dracula. She, incidentally, has a not so small hairy problem with very large teeth.

The actors are never given a chance to develop any real personality or empathy with each other. The closest the director comes is with the monk “I’m not a field man” Carl (Wenham). About the time something might actually start to crystallize, they throw in another big special effects scene. Also, unlike The Mummy, the film lacks a consistent sense of humor.

The effects were good. I really did like the opening black and white replay of the creation of Frankenstein. Roxburgh made a delightfully malevolent Dracula. But on the balance, I wouldn’t consider Van Helsing worth seeing at theater rates. Wait until it comes out on video. Beginning

Variations on a theme (adventure): There are two knock-your-socks off adventure movies that must be seen, The Wages of Fear and the remake Sorcerer. Each has weaknesses, but both reach out of the screen, grab you by the throat, and pull you kicking and screaming into a world that you want no part of. The basic plot is very simple, but the getting there isn't. Four men fleeing their pasts end up hiding in a South American hellhole, Las Piedras, where grinding poverty would look palatial. The only way out is money and this is potentially supplied by a lethal, out of control oil fire. The company needs four men to drive two trucks loaded with ultrasensitive explosives through almost trackless, rugged jungle. The company hopes one might make it. Puny man against relentless, unforgiving, impartial nature and their own overpowering desire to survive. The story is about the assembly of the team, their interactions, the white-knuckle trip, and the aftermath. Both take very different perspectives of the drivers. In Wages, their pasts are erased and hidden by the relentless rains and clinging mud, while in Sorcerer, you know their personal demons. I rather preferred the latter because it reduced my distance from the protagonists. However, I did see Sorcerer first, which may have tinted my view. Be forewarned, neither is an upper. (4-25-94) Beginning

Versus (2001) (*1/2 for film, *** for dust cover, action, supernatural, comedy) (12-22-03) (D.-Ryuhei Kitamura) The subtitles are good. The dust cover caught my attention. “There are 666 portals that connect this world to the other side. These are concealed from all human beings. Somewhere in Japan exists the 444th portal.... The forest of resurrection.” An escaped prisoner finds himself in the forest fighting a man who will not die and for goals he does not understand. Is he fighting on the side of good or of evil? Regrettably, the movie is more interested in action, gore, and hamming-it-up actors. The movie has a lot of visuals from The Evil Dead, crossed with a martial arts film, crossed with Tarantino gangster films. The sword work is interesting and the one gangster is the most over the top that I have seen in years. Recommendation: Don’t let the dust cover fool you. Beginning

Vertical Limit (2000) (***, action) (1-8-01) (D.-Martin Campbell; W.- Robert King; Chris O'Donnell, Bill Paxton, Robin Tunney, Scott Glenn, Izabella Scorupco, Temuera Morrison, Stuart Wilson, Augie Davis, Steve Le Marquand, Ben Mendelsohn, Nicholas Lea) The white knuckle thriller of the year. Do you like rollercoasters? If so, check out Limit. Limit is the cinematic equivalent of the most adrenaline-pumping ride you have ever been on or could imagine. It starts with a stunning climbing accident in the awesome unbilled Monument Valley and ends with a rescue attempt on K-2, the most lethal mountain in the world. Forget plot and acting. Plot, in particular, fell to its death in the first scene. Estranged brother and sister, Peter (O'Donnell) and world class climber Annie Garrett (Tunney), meet on K2 shortly before her ascent with billionaire Elliot Vaughn (Paxton), who is a man of questionable scruples. Of course, the climb goes bad; Annie and other are stranded at 26000 feet in the death zone and have exactly 36 hours to live. Peter has to organize and lead a rescue attempt. Montgomery Wick (Glenn), a grizzled old climber who spends all his time searching for the body of his wife on the mountain, ends up leading the attempt. Oh yes. He has a score to settle with Vaughn. Everything that has ever gone wrong in a climb, plus unstable nitroglycerin (idea stolen from The Wages of Fear and Sorcerer), then befalls this motley group. It doesn’t matter. Suspend your logic at the door just as you forget the high tech safety mechanism on a roller coaster, clutch the armrest, and go for it. Extraordinary stunts, scenery, and stunning cinematography will be your reward. Even the little interlude with the snow leopards is beautiful, although one reviewer mistakenly called them bobcats!

A few asides. Liquid nitroglycerin does not go off for the reasons indicated. Indeed, it freezes at 55 F, so it would be rock solid on K2. In fact, it is shipped frozen since it is much less sensitive that way. As powerful as nitro is, the explosions are a bit over the top, but they are cinematically dramatic. The absence of oxygen use at 26000 feet is a glaring, although probably artistic, error, especially for inexperienced or out-of-shape climbers. That really is world famous climber Ed Viesturs playing Ed Viesturs—his acting isn’t in the same league with his climbing. Mount Cook in New Zealand doubles for K2 in most of the filming. In spite of what you see, it was safety first during filming. The mountain shoots were under the total control of experienced mountaineers. When they said "Cut", the director cut even if he wanted 10 more seconds of film.

This is a BIG screen movie. So don’t miss it in the theaters. Beginning

Vertigo (1958) (****, psychological thriller) (D.- Alfred Hitchcock; James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore, Henry Jones, Ellen Corby, Raymond Bailey, Lee Patrick) Vertigo did poorly when it came out. If you go in, as did early audiences, expecting a classic Hitchcock thriller you will be disappointed also. Vertigo is not a thriller in the conventional sense. It is a superb study in obsession, and is now considered one of Hitchcock's masterpieces. Scottie (Stewart) is a retired police detective with justifiably debilitating acrophobia. An old buddy hires him to keep tabs on his rich sophisticated wife Madeleine (Novak). This ultimately leads to total obssession on Scottie's part, which is epitomized by the shopping sequence and, in particular, the frame where she is in the shop and he can be seen looking in through the partially closed door. This single shot could be an icon for the whole film. In turn he loses his obsession and is commited to an asylum. After his "cure", he runs into a shop girl who resembles his lost love and fixates on her. His obssessive behavior leads to him recreating Judy in Madeleine's image and, in the process, degrades Judy. However, enough about plot other than to say that by the time you get here, the hands of that master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock are wrapped around your throat, and he is just getting warmed up.

Vertigo is beautifully atmospheric and truly disturbing at both a visual and a psychological level. One of Hitchcock's great creations here was the vertigo shot. This was created by simultaneously pulling the camera back and zooming in. This simple sounding effect is most disturbing. The tower sequence was done with a miniature model laying on it side so the camera could be moved more easily. One of my favorite scenes is the pivotal image where the two lovers are in an embrace and the camera swirls around them and the background changes. This was created quite simply by mounting them on a rotating stage in front of a back screen projection system. The changing background is projected as the platform is rotated. In reality everything is stationary except the couple. Very dramatic and exceptionally effective for conveying the inherent revelation.

Vertigo is certainly Hitchcock's most personal film. Hitchcock had a real fixation on dressing up and humiliating regal blonds during the filming of his later movies. In Vertigo, he vicariously gives Stewart this pleasureable role, atlhough he continued his own humiliation of her during the filming. For example, Hitchcock repeatedly had Novak immaculately coiffured, dressed, and then dumped into the frigid San Francisco bay --allegedly because the take wasn't right (from Roger Ebert's discussion of Vertigo at UVA in the fall of 1994). So, turn down the lights, pop Vertigo into your VCR and watch a disturbing story of several obsessive personalities. (2-12-96) Beginning

Video Hound's Vampires on Video (1997) (****, book) (A.-J. Gordon Melton) Vampire lovers rejoice. The complete book of vampire films including many foreign vampire films. Actually the title lies. Many of the films are not available on video or may not even exist anymore. However, they are included for completeness. Each film has an entertaining synopsis, biographical data, and a rating. Pictures as well as information on different actors, directors, and studios are included. Web links and exhaustive cross references are provided. (7-14-97) Beginning

Videodrome (1983) (**1/2, horror) (4-08-02) (D.-David Cronenberg; James Woods, Sonja Smits, Debbie Harry, Peter Dvorsky, Les Carlson, Jack Creley, Lynne Gorman) Very popular with some people, but even listening to their rationale I cannot warm up to the film. This is the first time that I saw James Woods and I marked him as an actor with real promise. I was not disappointed in this assessment.

This is a Cronenberg film. That sums up the fascination with bizarre and sickly distorted images. Max Renn (Woods) is a TV sleazemeister. He runs a cable TV that specializes in – how shall I put this daintily – the unsavory and prurient. Max is the lowest common denominator of public taste. Unfortunately, Cronenberg was dead-on in his assessment of the drift in public taste as the air waves became less controlled and more freewheeling. What Max sold on the cable is now common on standard commercial TV. In the film, Max accidentally runs across a secret broadcast, Videodrome, that has what he perceives as well acted sadism and snuff. He sees this as the next big seller, and strives to crack their code and find out who is responsible so he can market it. Only looks are deceiving, and appealing to the Marquis de Sade in many of us is not the primary intent of these broadcasts as Max and his sadomasochistic girlfriend (Harry) are about to find out. The ending has been called ridiculous, but if one accepts the premise of the effect of Videodrome and interprets the ending in that light then it does make sense.

The film is clearly intended as a savaging of the communications industry. Certainly the message is more timely today than it was in 1983. Unfortunately, in my opinion, Cronenberg wallows too deeply and with too much pleasure in the very media he attacks; I think this causes the film to lose some of its impact. In addition, there are no, even slightly, sympathetic characters in the film, which again diminishes the impact.

Having said these nasty things, Woods is a standout as an unscrupulous operator who will stop at nothing to turn another quick buck. And the effects are truly disorienting and disturbing. So if you are in the mood for something intriguing and quite off the wall and don’t mind some gore and violence, Videodrome, might fill your bill.

Village of the Damned (1960) (***, sci fi, horror) (12-14-98) (D.-Wolf Rilla; George Sanders, Barbara Shelley, Martin Stephens, Michael Gwynne, Laurence Naismith, John Phillips, Richard Vernon) Low budget, but very effective film version of John Wyndham's cooly malevolent novel The Midwitch Cuckoos. For those unfamiliar with European cuckoos, they lay their eggs in other bird's nests. The young cuckoos then compete with, and overwhelm, the natural young ones. An animal kingdom 5^th column. The film opens with the town of Midwitch being cut off from all contact with the outside world for a while. Afterwards, all fertile women in the town are pregnant. All of the children are born at the same time, look remarkably similar and develop with frightening rapidity. The father of one of them is a professor (Sanders) who works toward educating and civilizing them (from our standpoint). The alienness of the children is conveyed chillingly with little nuances and few special effects. David (Stephens), their leader, is particularly malevolent as he carries out many normal childhood actions, but with a frightening undertone.

The children's behavior is quite realistic; they behave very Darwinianly based on what is obviously a limited understanding of their function and ultimate capabilities. There are clearly limits to what can be genetically programmed. It is this lack of sophistication on the part of the children that leads to the primary conflicts with humanity. The scientist's behavior is also very believable based on his "fatherhood", his basic humanism, and his genuine scientific curiosity. Beginning

Villainy Since villainy and psychopathy are generally so much more complicated and interesting than the usual hero, it is no wonder that so many great actors repeatedly take these plum parts. In some cases the movie itself is so-so, but it contains performance of villainy so good that they alone are worth the price of admission. For villainy, check out Prizzi's Honor, Street Smart, Q&A, and Scarface. Beginning

Virginia Film Festival '93 was GREAT!! Roger Ebert was even more charming and delightful in person than he appears to be on TV. Bright, quick, witty, and incredibly good natured. He will be returning again in 1994. I highly recommend. (11-1-93) Beginning

Virginia Film Festival '94: The Virginia Film Festival this week is enough to make movie lovers overdose. If you haven't already checked out the schedule, do so. One movie, in particular, I would like to recommend is Days of Heaven (***). This movie loses much of its impact on TV and screams for a big screen. A tragic triangle set in the awesomely beautiful Canadian wheat country. The environment's beauty is juxtaposed against the petty, base, frail humans. Dog Day Afternoon is also an outstanding, albeit offbeat, film with an electrifying performance by Al Pacino. (10-24-94)

Virginia Film Festival: The Virginia Film Festival was every bit as much fun as it looked like it was going to be. Don't miss it next year. My favorites were the lovingly and stunningly restored My Fair Lady and the panel discussion with the restorers (to be reviewed), and Roger Ebert's frame by frame short course on Vertigo. Ebert is even more charming and knowledgeable than you might expect from the TV show. If you get a chance to see him, don't miss it. (11-31-94) Beginning

VIRGINIA FILM FESTIVAL 95. Superb as always. I hope that some of you had the opportunity to see some of the films. Roger Ebert's short course on The Third Man was excellent. He is an exceptionally knowledgeable, witty, and charming fellow. He will be back in the spring as the first Kluge Fellow and will do Raging Bull. From the three short courses that I have done with him, I recommend this without reservations (****).(10-30-95) Beginning

Virginia Film Festival '96: Great again this year even in the stripped down format. The organizers and the Drama Department, which has assumed control, deserve the highest praise for being able to pull everything together in relatively short order and give us a first-class festival. The hope is that they will at least break even this year, and the festival will continue next year.Beginning

The 10th Annual Virginia Film Festival (1997). For film lovers, it is not to be missed. Four glorious days from October 30 through November 2 in Charlottesville. The theme is Caged and the films range from film noir to Sci Fi to documentaries. There will even be a debate between Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and Reverend Jerry Falwell. There will be sessions with actors, directors, and others. This year's featured guest is the superb Jason Robards, who brings both a strong stage and a film background. If they have the same policy as past years, you can use your student Art Dollars. The festival's web site is

http://www.virginia.edu/~vafilm

Additional information and ordering can be done at 1-800-UVA-FEST. (10-15-97)

North by Northwest was fabulous. A classic. The print was in mint condition (restored by Turner Classics) and Eva Marie Saint and the writer Ernest Lehman were great afterwards. North is one of those movies that you haven't seen unless you've seen it on a big screen. The corn field and chase on Rushmore scenes necessitate it, although it is difficult to believe that the Rushmore scene was done in a studio. There is an error during the shooting in the Mount Rushmore cafeteria. There is a child in the background, who has clearly been through this scene before, and he crams his fingers into his ears and hunkers down awaiting the explosive gun fire. Neither Lehman nor Saint were sure whether Hitchcock was aware of the error before it was released, but felt he probably was. As frequently happens, the director probably either just liked the overall character of the take relative to others or it was too expensive to reshoot. Another error is that the Roosevelt is facing in the wrong direction for the line in the dialog.

The Rushmore set was very high and Saint became somewhat alarmed when they started placing mattresses at the bottom in case someone fell. Indeed, when she "slipped", her catcher misjudged and she sustained a nasty cut on her elbow. The taking off of her shoes was not in the script. As soon as she got on the face, she realized doing it in shoes, especially those ever-present high heels, was crazy and took them off.

The key to the development of North was that Hitchcock wanted a final scene where his hero was chased across the face of Mount Rushmore. The rest of the film was written to arrive at this! Indeed, two weeks before the Rushmore sequence, Lehman still hadn't figured out why they would be there. North by Northwest was just a working title and not intended to be the final. It was used because the geographical movement was in that general direction. However, after trying to come up with another title, including The Man on Lincoln's Nose, they left it.

Hitchcock had a draconian reputation, but Saint loved working with him. He story- boarded everything himself (he was a talented artist) and controlled every detail with an iron fist; there were NO deviations in physical structure or dialogue. However, he did allow the actors freedom to interpret their characters. She apparently liked this very structured environment. Beginning

Speed: Another big screen flic was Speed, which looked great on the magnificent screen they brought in for Culbreth. One of our students, who had never seen it before on the big screen, was suitably impressed. The producer, Mark Gordon, talked about the making of the film. It was one of those films that almost didn't get made because nobody big would touch it. The director was first time and Reeves and Bullock were virtual unknowns. Finally, they got a paltry $35M. It looks like more, a lot more, since everyone involved had their futures riding on it.

All the bus scenes were shot on a bus not on a sound stage. They were fortunate enough to have a freeway under construction that they could use. The use of an unused runway was arrived at after exhausting all of the obvious, and some not so obvious choices, including on the streets or Dodger Stadium. The last was nixed because the owners couldn't live with the public relations problem of people visualizing a bus full of explosives racing around the stadium. Some of the subway scenes were shot in the subway, but with only 5 hours a night to work. much of what you see underground are models. The scene on top of the subway was rear screen projection. The fabulous opening credits with the elevator shaft that goes on forever was also a model.

Reeves did most of his own stunts including being under the bus. It shows. He isn't in Speed 2 because he wanted to tour with his rock band. .Beginning

Virginia Film Festival (1998) is almost upon us. It will be October 29-November 1. This year's theme is CRIME, JAZZ, BEAT GENERATION AND BEYOND. Films will include the original prerelease version of The Big Sleep (the one just rereleased rather than the one we are familiar with); Blow Up (both as a separate showing and with a frame-by-frame analysis by noted film critic Roger Ebert); the classic silent Pandora's Box with live accompaniment by our superb Art Wheeler; Superfly; Chaplin Shorts with live accompaniment by the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra, etc. Student Art Dollars can be applied to tickets. Typical film showings cost $5 for students and $6 for others. The Ebert course is $50 and Chaplin is $10 for nonstudents. Of course, there will be gala evenings. For details and ordering information, check out their web sit at

http://www.virginia.edu/~vafilm/

Do get your tickets early. The better attended shows will sell out early. (9-21-98) Beginning

Virginia Film Festival (12th) TechnoVision (1999)

Stan Winston Exhibit. The Bayly hosts a fabulous little Stan Winston Exhibit through December 22. The photo is Stan Winston with one of his friends at the Bayly. The photo is by Starke Jett and was kindly supplied by Richard Herskowitz

Virtual Roller Coaster. (11-1-99) If you like roller coasters and didn’t get a chance to try the one down at the Regal, you missed a pleasurable experience. I am sure you will see more of them. In these systems, you get to program in your ride from a wide variety of conditions ranging from mild to extreme. The coaster is sealed, you are harnessed in as in the most extreme coaster, and you have a projection of where you are going on the wall in front of you. The car rolls, dip, drops, twists and accelerates in response to your program. You must empty all pockets before riding, otherwise there would be numerous objects airborne in the cabin. There is also panic button that will terminate the ride at any time to keep other things from becoming airborne. In spite of the fact that the "coaster" fit comfortably in the Regal lobby, the illusion was quite effective. You get plenty of acceleration, slams and "left my stomach up there". The projected images, while computer generated and a bit crude, made the illusion much more effective. "When you are up to your posterior in alligators, it is hard to remember your reason for being there is to drain the swamp." When you are being slammed around, your mind is much more willing to accept the images that seem to correlate with your car's movements.

20 Million Miles to Earth (1957) (***, 50s sci fi) (11-1-99)

Buster Keaton's The General

Dial M for Murder 3D (1954) (11-1-99) (D.-Alfred Hitchcock) Full Review

Virginia Film Festival 2001(10-29-01) The Film Festival is over. A great time was had by all. I will include a few reviews here and more next week.

Virginian, The (1929) (**1/2, classic, Western) (D.-Victor Fleming; Gary Cooper, Richard Arlen, Walter Huston, Mary Brian, Chester Conklin, Eugene Pallette) The third film version and first talkie of Owen Wister's novel. Cooper and weak-willed Arlen are good friends and competitors for the new school marm (Brian). Arlen falls under the influence of evil Huston with catastrophic results. Cooper's later laconic character was largely defined in this role. The film is badly dated and feels more like a silent film with some words. Indeed, the story is less interesting than the individual vignettes. Life was hard and cheap (a stolen steer was cause of a happy hanging), and the sense of humor equally hard edged. The story establishes so many icons of modern Westerns (High Noon, Maverick, and Unforgiven come to mind) that it is a must see for students of the genre. (4-21-97)Beginning

Virginia Film Festival, The 10th Annual (1997). For film lovers, it is not to be missed. Four glorious days from October 30 through November 2 in Charlottesville. The theme is Caged and the films range from film noir to Sci Fi to documentaries. There will even be a debate between Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and Reverend Jerry Falwell. There will be sessions with actors, directors, and others. This year's featured guest is the superb Jason Robard, who brings both a strong stage and a film background. If they have the same policy as past years, you can use your student Art Dollars. The festival's web site is

http://www.virginia.edu/~vafilm

Additional information and ordering can be done at 1-800-UVA-FEST. (10-15-97) Beginning

Virginian, The (comments): Filmed in part at Shadwell and Howardsville. The director located a perfect, shabby, run-down spot with waist high grass, and when he showed up the residents had meticulously cleaned it up for him! From Leroy Snow's diary. The father also sprayed locust with water to keep them quiet.He built a movable white fence for the director, and located a suitable dead stump near Palmyra. Duane Snow's The Garden GateVol III Fall 1992. (5-5-97) Beginning

Restored Films at The Virginia Film Festiva 2000 (11-27-00) We were treated to two recently restored classic silent films, Nosferatu and Lost World. Both will shortly be available on DVD. Modern audiences who have not seen silent films frequently don’t realize that they were neither silent nor black and white. They were invariably accompanied by live music. Sometimes a complete orchestra. The music was frequently as carefully composed as the best modern sound tracks. Tinting, sometimes quite extreme, was used to convey mood and atmosphere. Sometimes a frame or part of a frame would be hand painted. The film archivist David Shepard was responsible for both restorations and introduced both films. Regrettably I was not there for his introduction to Nosferatu.

As an added feature, Nosferatu was followed by Shadow of the Vampire, which will be released in late December. Below I include my comments on the restored versions along with my original reviews and a review of Shadow. Beginning

Virus (1999) (*1/2, sci fi, horror) (3-25-02) (D.- John Bruno; W.-Chuck Pfarrer (comic book series Virus screen play), Jamie Lee Curtis, William Baldwin, Donald Sutherland, Joanna Pacula, Marshall Bell) We accidentally tuned into this one. It was hard to believe that the savage reviews that I had read could be accurate, so we decided to check it out. The reviewers did it an injustice. It was worse. This film once again reminds me that even good actors have to pay their monthly bills. The film starts with the ludicrous premise of an electronic virus infecting a Russian research ship that just happens to be superbly equipped for robotics. The crew of a seagoing tug just happens to get into serious trouble and just happens to come upon the deserted Russian ship in the middle of the eye of a hurricane. Hint, hint: the eye of a hurricane doesn’t last forever. The plot unfolds as they discover the nature of the menace, try to deal with it, and are picked off one-by-one in the standard horror film format. A little bit of internecine in their own ranks adds to the tension.

The creature effects are respectable showing that with modern technology even the lowest budget film can sport reasonable monsters. Donald Sutherland does an over the top performance as the captain whose grip on reality is less than perfect even before confronted with an electronic virus. If you need a grade Z horror film fix, as I do on a regular basis, and enjoy picking apart a bad movie, Virus might just fill your bill—if you can rent it cheaply or pick it off the air waves.

Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography (1992) (****, documentary) (Written by Todd McCarthy) Spellbinding! If you are interested in film making, run, do not walk to Visions. The world's great cinematographers comment on their own and others great films. The result is breath taking as you are carried from movie to movie, style to style, director to director, and cinematographer to cinematographer. Scenes and observations by the likes of Vittorio Storrao, Vilmos Zsigmond, James Wong Howe, Lee Garmes, Caleb Deshanel, and Gordon Willis. Clips from such diverse movies as Grapes of Waith and Starwars. An absolute visual knock out that makes you want to rush out and see the movies again. The prison scene in In Cold Blood and the description of the serendipitous way in which part of the set up was discovered are fascinating and alone worth the price of admission. I had also forgotten the scene in that movie where the two killers try to hitch a ride--one makes a comment when the farmer fails to pick them up in the desert that is more chilling than the title and will leave you cold for long afterwards. (10-25-93) Beginning

Void, The (2001) (*1/2, sci fi) (6-17-02) (D.-Gilbert M. Shilton; Adrian Paul, Amanda Tapping, Andrew McIlroy, Kirsten Robek, Malcolm McDowell) Mad scientist McDowell plans to solve all the energy problems of the world by creating a sustained and stable black hole. As most mad scientists, he isn’t too particular about how many bodies must lubricate the gears of his machine. As we learn in the opening few minutes this is probably not a project blessed in heaven. Opposed to him are scientists Steven Price (Paul) and Eva Soderstrom (Tapping). Not always working on the same wavelength

Besides the black hole, which sucks everything into it, there are a few other voids in the film. Like plot, suspense, story line, and acting. One of the biggest problems of the film is that the actors try to talk their audience to death with philosophy. Give us a break. For a grade Z sci fi, at least give us non-stop action, even if it is totally unbelievable. The one thing I will say in its favor is that the effects at the end aren’t bad at all. Quite dramatic and imaginative. Low budget no longer means cheesey effects. The film does provide a little skin, I guess to get it up to an R rating to increase teenage viewers. Interestingly at least some of it is provided by a body double credited at the end. Everybody now gets their name at the end, even if the credits run longer than the movie. As an aside it would be nice if Paul would use a consistent accent. There are a few good laughs as the technobabble flows off their lips while they describe how something that pulls everything into it including light actually provides external energy.

7/2/08. You can stop worrying about black holes eating your term paper. Even the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) going on line this fall has been carefully studied and will not genertat black holes. It is doing nothing more than what nature does on a regular basis with cosmic rays.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/21/science/21cernw.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/LHC/Safety-en.html for a more detailed analysis

Scientist receive death threats over LHC (9/8/08)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2008/09/08/scicern108.xml

Beginning

Interesting. I accidently reviewed this a years after the first watching. Makes an interesting comparison.

The Void (2001) (**, sci fi) (8-13-07) (D.-Gilbert M. Shilton; W.-Geri Cudia Barger, Gilbert M. Shilton; Adrian Paul, ,Amanda Tapping, Andrew McIlroy, Kirsten Robek, French Tickner, Malcolm McDowell) A cut above Shockwave with a recognizable and credible cast. An early attempt by a scientist (McDowell) to create free energy to solve the energy crisis goes badly awry. However, years later he knows what went wrong and plans to repeat the experiment. You can guess from the title, he wasn’t anymore successful on the second attempt as a black hole opens up and proceeds to threaten to consume the world. That certainly is one way to solve the energy crisis, but probably not a very popular one with voters. Two science professors (Paul, Tapping) try to stop Armageddon. We get the usual skullduggery, twists, counter twists, the good versus the bad (actually Macdowell isn’t bad, just misguided).. Will they fall in love? Will they save the earth? Will the sun rise tomorrow?. Fun schlock. Actually, this film is probably based on an article from Scientific American where a reputable scientist was genuinely concerned that the Brookhaven Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) would create a black hole that could consume the earth.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/399513.stm

He was wrong, at least for the moment, but some now believe that RIHC actually did create a non-sustaining black hole.

http://www.bnl.gov/rhic/black_holes.htm

But don’t worry. If it happens, it will all be over in a minute or two.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961) (**1/2, 50s sci fi) (D.-Irwin Allen; Walter Pidgeon, Joan Fontaine, Robert Sterling, Barbara Eden, Michael Ansara, Peter Lorre, Frankie Avalon, Henry Daniell, Regis Toomey) A meteor shower sets the van Allen belt on fire (you don't ask in a 50s sci fi), and a new atomic submarine developed by dictatorial Pidgeon is the only thing that might stand between humanity and being "shrimp on the barbie"; but it is a race against time and sabateurs on the sub. Not bad submarine effects with models, and the flaming atmosphere looks good. Actually, the ground temperature gets to 172 F before it is over, so I think we could safely say that humanity is well done. For younger readers, Avalon was a singer and teenage heart throb at the time, which accounts for his role. Unfortunately, he sings on the opening credits--but after that he get minor billing. Lorre gets one of his nice guy roles. While atomic submarines were under development by the Navy, they would not give the director any information. So what you see is his creation. Not bad, and the attack submarine was dead on. Beginning