Back to the Jacques Tati box. His fifth feature film is entitled "Trafic" and uses as its central premise an automobile show in Amsterdam and the journey auto manufacturer Altra's employees (including Tati's M. Hulot) have getting to the show from France.
I'm watching Tati's films in order of production, albeit slowly. And despite "Trafic" being held in lesser regard than "Mon Oncle" and "Playtime," I think I enjoyed this one even more than the two of them. It's typical Tati, in that the film is full of sight gags, contains very little dialog (Tati's movies are great for non-French speakers who don't want to read subtitles), and plays as a whole....watching just a part of the movie won't have nearly the effect watching the whole thing will. For me, it was only at the 25-minute mark or so that I really started to get into it.
I'm also realizing that trying to talk about a Tati film in terms of examples is almost impossible. Since much of the films are a series of carefully-choreographed site gags and character behaviors, you just have to watch the films to get a sense of Tati, if you haven't. Describing them is futile. That much I know, with one film to go! Check 'em out....
Back to the multi-movie posts. Up first is "Acacia," a South Korean horror-of-sorts from 2003 and part of the Asian horror boom. (I keep finding Tartan Asia Extreme discs at Half Price Books for $3.99 brand new, and I can't ever resist them.) "Acacia" concerns the adoption of a boy by a couple who have been unlucky at child conception for years. The boy they adopt is definitely on the aloof side and does a lot of staring at a tree in the back yard. Of course, not long after he's adopted, the couple find out the wife is pregnant, and she gives birth to another kid. And thus starts the fun.
The couple lives with her parents, which seems odd, as the husband has a good job. And the mother has to constantly remind her daughter how the adopted boy is not her own, etc. He usually hears this stuff which can't be good for mental health. Anyway, things ramp up about halfway through the movie with a series of scenes that don't really make sense but do by the end of the movie. It's a good thriller overall, and I give it a B+. I couldn't find the trailer, so here's a whole collection of Tartan releases.....I still have four or five to go through from the aforementioned $3.99 pile.
"The Dorm that Dripped Blood," from 1982, is one of those movies that's both good and bad in almost equal measures. Made during the slasher boom by a couple of UCLA students, it's definitely got the low-budget feel to it, and the Synapse Blu-ray video is grainy and unstable. I think that adds to its charm. There's some nice atmosphere here, with probably half of the movie being shot with only a light or two....probably due to budget. But that works. And the gore effects aren't bad.
The script, though, is fairly horrible. REALLY trite dialog. Cringe-inducing. But the plot isn't bad, and there are a couple of nice "red herrings" set up along the way. I like it overall. B-, maybe. And this is the first movie Daphne Zuniga was in, if you're keeping count.
By the way, the title card here reads "Death Dorm," which was the original title of the film....and this print is the original director's cut. "The Dorm that Dripped Blood" was edited somewhat, and there was a separate British release called "Pranks." Can't find a trailer......
"The Gorilla," from 1939, is a title that I always thought belonged alongside others in the public domain like "The Ape" or "The Ape Man." Turns out it's not a Monogram or PRC picture; it's a 20th Century Fox production. Huh! It's a 66-minute whodunit based on a play (obviously). It's a bit like "The Mystery of Irma Vep," a drawing-room mystery. This stars the Ritz Brothers, who apparently didn't want to do the movie at first, but ended up having to. It also stars Lionel Atwill, Joseph Calleia, and Bela Lugosi, who by this time was accepting creepy butler roles. He actually gets a couple of good scenes, trading off his Dracula persona still.
It's worth a watch, fun in that 1939 kind of way; the last six minutes have two twists. And the Roan-produced copy I got actually looks fairly nice. B- (why am I grading these suddenly?). Here's the whole damn movie!
