Year: 2021

So we had some time on Sunday evening, my youngest and I, to watch a film. As my youngest is very patient and will watch old movies with me, I picked Elvis Presley’s Blue Hawaii. You know, my sainted mother was a big Elvis fan–she was a woman of a certain age, after all, and so many of the Baby Boomer women were Elvis fans–but I had not actually seen an Elvis picture before. So I got it in my head to watch this film, and I set it upon my entertainment centers for just such an occasion.

So: It’s Elvis being Elvis, in Hawaii. It was one of the first films after he returned from his army service (c’mon, man, you know he was drafted and served in Europe for a couple years in the fifties, ainna? How old are you, son?). So he plays a GI returning to Hawaii, where he wants to take up again his life of surfing and goofing off with his friends who are mostly natives. His parents are transplants, his father an executive at the pineapple canning plant and his mother (played by a 36-year-old Angela Lansbury–at 36, she was cast as a matron, a look that she would carry for, what, sixty years now? Hollywood certainly had a bright line for when actresses were old in those days). They (his parents, not the people in Hollywood) want Elvis to come work at the plant, but he wants to find his own way. He gets a job with the tourist agency where his native girlfriend works (Joan Blackman with a makeup tan/native coloring). His first assignment is to show an attractive teacher and her teenaged companions around. Which he does, with some hijinks including a surly and worldly teen who is unimpressed with Hawaii but wants to nail Elvis and who causes trouble–including inciting a bar fight that lands Elvis in jail and fired from his tour guide job.

Ah, you know the plot does not get much beyond its treatment, stock characters, and a handful of scenes with dialog between the musical numbers. But, c’mon, man, if you’re watching an Elvis movie, you’re watching it for the musical numbers (or you’re interested in them as a cultural artifact). Apparently, this was Elvis’s biggest film, and its soundtrack includes “(I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With You. One who was not there must wonder if this film was taking advantage of the tiki bar fad or if it triggered it–given this film is from 1960, probably riding on the interest as I think it preceded this film (this article asserts such a place existed before the first recognized tiki bar in the 1930s).

At any rate, it’s a bit of light fun, a summer movie before they had to feature explosions or super heroes. But my son had a couple things to say.

First, he said he’d seen the movie before. Well, part of it. Apparently his teacher likes Elvis movies. And she showed them the first thirty minutes of this film during their lunch period. Last week. Friday. So it was very fresh in his mind, and quite the coincidence that he watched the whole film three days later.

The other thing he said was that the women in the movie were ugly.

Son, I tried to explain to him, perhaps you’re just not used to the fashions of the early 1960s. I mean, it was before my time, but I grew up watching movies from the era, so I’m at least acclimated a bit to it (although since my parents, aunts, and uncles dressed and wore their hair like that, I still kind of thought it was old when I saw it as a kid). But, gentle reader, I would leave it to you to determine if the women of Blue Hawaii were ugly or if my son has a lot to learn.

Continue reading “Weekend Movie Viewing: Blue Hawaii“ →

Friar, in his quest to entice us to watch foreign films that do not star Jackie Chan, wrote up a more meaningful and insightful review of Naam Shabana starring Taapse Pannu than any movie report you find on this humble blog.

But he forgot to include photos. But don’t worry, gentle reader. I got you.

Continue reading “Did Someone Say “Taapsee Pannu”?” →

With a name like this, you might expect a direct-to-video or cable schlockfest designed to cash in on one or more contemporary fads. Oh, but no. This is a big budget Chinese release from 2017 that stars Jackie Chan and is Chan’s highest grossing film in China according to Wikipedia.

The plot revolves around a lost treasure that some ancient treasure traveling from India to China that was lost. The movie starts with a very video-game looking historical battle sequence leading up to this event with two of the stars (including Chan) green screened onto some elephants and flying arrows. In the present day, a Chinese archeology professor played by Chan is approached by an Indian archeology professor who might have a clue to where this lost treasure is. Using Chinese technology, they follow the lead to a frozen lake where they’re ambushed by some Indian heavies who also want the treasure. One of the archeologist’s team, the son of a friend who has made clear he’s a treasure hunter, escapes with a piece of treasure; although the bad guys bury the good guys alive in an ice cave, the good guys escape, and although they recover the treasure “for the world” (it belongs in a museum!), they soon have to travel to Dubai to participate in an auction to recover the bit of treasure and participate in a car chase, including a bit where Chan is driving a car with an unrestrained lion in it as depicted on the cover. Then they have to go to India because this bit of treasure is a key to an ancient treasure.

The film was supposed to be a joint Indian-Chinese production, but the Indian component dropped out. And with any bit of Chinese culture or history starting in the middle of the twentieth century, one must view it with a gimlet eye and recognize that it’s Chinese propaganda (see also Hero). This one fosters a message of India and China as friends, which perhaps might have worked if their armies weren’t continuing to skirmish in disputed border regions. I might be unexperienced in international affairs, but friends typically have worked out their border disputes by now (c’mon, man, England and France aren’t friends–France has no friends). Regardless of how it might have worked on international audiences, it does portray the Chinese protagonists as altruistic and friendly and cooperative with outsiders. Wouldn’t it be pretty to think so?

Yeah, the key having to be mounted on a scepter and have light shine on it is directly copied from Raiders of the Lost Ark–and the movie does mention Indiana Jones by name (“I love Indiana Jones!” says Chan at one point, and when the ladies are confronted by snakes in the marketplace, one says “I hate snakes!”).

The movie started playing with subtitles on, and as I read them, eventually I heard English, but I was too lazy to turn them off. Which is just as well–it turns out that when the Chinese characters are speaking together, they’re talking Mandarin, so the subtitles are required, but when the Indian characters talk to each other or with the Chinese characters, they all speak English. Which makes me wonder what was not translated or translated differently from the Mandarin for the English subtitles.

The film also conflates Buddhism and Hinduism a bit, as they talk about yoga, which is a Hindu tradition and the travel of Buddhism from India to China–and the ending has a large Buddha statue at a temple. Perhaps they’re not as separate as we think of them.

Jackie Chan is getting older, so the stunts and craziness from his older movies (and, presumably, the injuries) are muted. And its intentions are suspect. But it’s a fun little caper movie and not a bad way to spend a couple of hours.

Also, it features Disha Patani as the fake Indian archeologist/actual Indian princess, and she has Dish right in her name.
Continue reading “Weekend Movie Watching: Kung Fu Yoga“ →

As you know, gentle reader, I have spent some time this spring reading movie and television tie-in paperbacks (and a hardback). Which has led me to watch a couple of movies last week.

I watched Alien because I read the book, and I watched Young Guns because Heroes and Outlaws of the Old West featured a lot of participants in the Lincoln County War in New Mexico, which Young Guns dramatizes.

So, what did I think?

I had not seen Alien before. As I noted in the book report, I had read that some scenes in the book were missing. Which was true. The ship seemed bigger in the film than in the book, which made for creepy empty rooms for filming, but I have to wonder about how much metal and stuff would really go into the Nostromo, a tug pulling a large industrial complex. Or does the movie take place on the whole refinery? Perhaps I am asking too many questions. But these slasher movies in space are not my bag, so although I will keep my eye out for Aliens since I somehow missed picking it up when I bought the other three of the first four entries in this series, it might well take me years to get to them.

I had seen Young Guns before, but much closer to its release than today (thirty-three years later, old man). It’s rated R, but it’s an eighties R for violence and swearing, but the violence is not especially gory. Although it’s probably not indicative of how one would fare against gunshot wounds, as some people get shot a bunch and die cinematically whilst others, like Billy the Kid, get shot three times and ride away without any distress. I do like the way that Emilio Estevez (Emilio! Emilio!) played Billy the Kid as a manipulative psychopath, just enough so that you think maybe he’s not psycho, but, yeah, he’s probably psycho. The film is not historically accurate, but it’s probably better than any Western made in the 21st century.