Diabolical Danger

There is a scene in 1954's Creature from the Black Lagoon where the female lead, played by Julie Adams, swims through the water. Shot from both above and below, there is a loving elegance to the camera work, and, in a few of the underwater moments, the lighting almost makes it seem as if she is swimming in the nude. Eventually, the Creature appears, and what develops can be looked at in two lights. . . one – that he is stalking her, murder in the monster’s every fibre; two – his movements, mirroring hers, are almost like a sensuous dance, a love-match for the long secluded and lonely Creature. This year’s Academy Award Best Picture contender, The Shape of Water, accepts the second perspective not followed in the Universal horror classic, developing a movie that very much could be its long lost alternate reality sequel. Written and directed by horror maestro Guillermo del Toro, he sews several threads together so that movie afficionados could almost believe that this is the case – perhaps most importantly that it is set only a few years after 1954 (a moment when xenophobic fears were running high with the Cold War at its most tense) and that the creature comes from the Amazon as well. . . while security expert Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon) makes it very clear that it was no easy feat transporting the powerful and mysterious amphibian back to America. Its look is also very much influenced by the horror classic.

One of the most originally creative scripts to be found on either side of Ebbing, Missouri, Martin McDonagh’s Seven Psychopaths, released in 2012, is an example of the writer/director’s many talents (twisty nuanced stories, richly drawn characters, beautiful dialogue, and so much more) that have made his most recent effort, hinted at above, Oscar bait this Awards season. With a screenplay that keeps the audience on its toes for quite a while, we are often guessing what we are truly watching. At first glance a meta cinematic commentary on writing a screenplay – Colin Farrell’s Marty has writer’s block, it is perhaps best summed up after he heads out into the desert with his two buddies. . . leading to one of them, Sam Rockwell’s Billy, describing how his treatment of the script should conclude. With Marty in disbelief at its over-the-top violence, the third friend, Christopher Walken’s Hans responds, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, “It’s got layers, you know. . . it’s got. . . It’s got many layers”. Adding another ‘layer’ of meta, we eventually realize that not all that is written on the page is fictional and that we may be watching flashbacks from several characters’ pasts.

To provide a reference point, 1953's It Came From Outer Space comes off like a mix between an episode of The Twilight Zone and Star Trek, a science fiction horror tale with a message at its heart. A prime example of the way in which horror movies transformed in the Atomic Age (the fear of nuclear annihilation on the collective consciousness throughout North America and around the world), yet with a unique twist, director Jack Arnold brings Ray Bradbury’s story (adapted into a screenplay by Harry Essex) to vivid life. After the title explodes onto the screen, we meet amateur astronomer John Putnam (Richard Carlson – Hold That Ghost; Creature From the Black Lagoon) and his teacher girlfriend, Ellen Fields (Barbara Rush – she won Most Promising Newcomer - Female, for this film at The Golden Globes), who spot a giant meteor that hits the desert close to his home.

If you were formulating a modern day all-star cast and crew, you couldn’t do much better than The Post. Directed by the legend that is Steven Spielberg (three time Oscar winner and seventeen time nominee, as well as the recipient of the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for “Creative producers, whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production”), Meryl Streep (three time Oscar winner and twenty-one time nominee), Tom Hanks (two time Oscar winner and five time nominee), composer John Williams (five time Oscar winner and fifty-one time nominee), cinematographer Janusz Kaminski (two time Oscar winner and six time nominee), and co-writer Josh Singer (Oscar winner for 2015's Spotlight), it is a veritable who’s who of the industry. Tackling the battle between the Washington Post and Richard Nixon’s government of the 1970s, Streep plays Kay Graham, the somewhat reluctant head of said newspaper. A woman in a man’s world, she has a difficult time transitioning from the non-working socialite wife to decision-making newspaper mogul. Tears always seem like they are soon to come as she clumsily drops things and nervously bumbles her way through this confusing world.

An influential and innovative director that is sadly unknown to multiple generations of movie enthusiasts is Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, who would have turned one hundred and twenty a couple of weeks ago on January 10th. Best known for Battleship Potemkin (a laudable feature that will be reviewed here in due course), those in the know also point to his first full length motion picture, Strike, as being a vital piece of film history (it is often cited along with Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane as being one of the most audacious and impressive efforts by a first time filmmaker). Released in 1925 (the same year as Potempkin), though set in 1903, the aptly named picture, told in six parts, looks at a factory workers’ strike in pre-Revolutionary Russia. A fascinating study of early socialism versus capitalism from the Soviet perspective, the workers are close to their tipping point. . . looking for better hours, higher pay, less work for the child labourers and other such things. With the elite sensing their waning drive, they warn their spies on the inside to keep both eyes open for civil unrest – each of these men have an animalistic nickname, their personas connected to the beast they have been named for.

Bringing to life the fierce bulldog, the prolific orator, the never wavering backbone of a nation during wartime that was Winston Churchill, Gary Oldman has placed himself as the early frontrunner as Lead Actor this Awards season (already having taken home the honour at The Golden Globes). Transforming into the stately politician by way of superlative make-up work and masterful acting, it is as if the man himself has been regenerated, mumbling growl and all. Before delving into the depths of Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour, I must indulge myself and pass along a few examples of Churchill’s legendary wit. Constantly at odds with fellow politician Lady Astor (the first female Member of Parliament), she targeted him by saying, “if you were my husband, I’d poison your tea”, to which he dryly replied, “Madam, if you were my wife, I’d drink it!”. Another retort finds Astor pointing out that he was drunk, to which he responded, “but I shall be sober in the morning and you, madam, will still be ugly”. This should give you an idea of what to expect from Anthony McCarten’s script – a Churchill-ism if I’ve ever heard one; “would you stop interrupting me while I am interrupting you”. Another one for good measure finds the man in the washroom while one of his aids tells him that he “needs to reply to the Lord Privy Seal”, to which he explains, “I am sealed in the privy, and I can only deal with one shit at a time”.