Category Archives: Mystery

Blu-ray reissue: Mulholland Drive ****

December 7, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 5, 2015)

Mulholland Drive – The Criterion Collection Blu-ray

David Lynch’s nightmarish, yet mordantly droll twist on the Hollywood dream makes The Day of the Locust seem like an upbeat romp. Naomi Watts stars as a fresh-faced ingénue with high hopes who blows into Hollywood from Somewhere in Middle America to (wait for it) become a star. Those plans get, shall we say, put on hold…once she crosses paths with a voluptuous and mysterious amnesiac (Laura Harring).

What ensues is the usual Lynch mindfuck, and if you buy the ticket, you better be ready to take the ride, because this is one of his more fun ones (or as close as one gets to having “fun” watching a Lynch film). This one grew on me; by the third (or was it fourth?) time I’d seen it I decided that it’s one of the iconoclastic director’s finest efforts. Criterion’s sparkling transfer brings new depth to the light and shadow of Peter Deming’s cinematography. Extras include new interviews with Deming, Lynch, Watts and Harring.

Animated, Art world, Family Issues, Mystery

The art of storytelling: When Marnie Was There ****

October 1, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on July 11, 2015)

Japan’s Studio Ghibli has consistently raised the bar on the (nearly) lost art of cel animation (don’t get me started on my Pixar rant). While it’s sad that the undisputed master of anime (and Ghibli’s star director), Hayao Miyazaki, has now retired, it is heartening to know that the Studio still “has it”, as evidenced in this breathtakingly beautiful new anime film from writer-director Hiromasa Yonebayashi.

The story (adapted from a book by the late British author and illustrator Joan G. Robinson) centers on a 12 year-old girl named Anna (voiced by Sara Takatsuki in the subtitled Japanese version that this review is based upon). Anna, a budding artist, is an insular foster child whose health problems precipitate an extended visit to a seaside town, where she will stay with relatives while she mends. While exploring her new environs one day, she espies a rundown mansion at the edge of a marsh. She finds herself strangely drawn to the place, but doesn’t understand why. Unwittingly stranding herself there when the tide rises, she is rescued by a crusty (yet benign) fisherman. As night begins to fall, she thinks she sees lights in the windows of the abandoned structure. A mystery is afoot.

I don’t want to give anything away, as many twists and turns ensue, with a 4-handkerchief denouement that will leave only those with a heart of stone unmoved. It’s really a lovely story, with some of the most gorgeous animation I’ve seen from Ghibli. Gentle enough for children, but imbued with an intelligent, classical narrative compelling enough for adults. No dinosaurs, male strippers, killer androids, teddy bears with Tourette’s, explosions, car chases or blazing guns…just good old fashioned storytelling.

Drama, Family Issues, Mystery, Troubled Teens

The antisocial network: The Sisterhood of Night ***

October 1, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on April 11, 2015)

Jeez…adolescence was traumatic enough before the internet and advent of cyber-bullying (yes, I’m that old). Unfortunately (and perversely), it’s become much easier for the perpetrators and that much tougher on the victims. Your tormentors no longer have to hang out after school, bundled up for inclement weather, waiting for you to finish with chess club so they can stomp on your glasses (or worse). Now, they can chill out in the comfort of their parent’s basement, cloaked in anonymity, as they harass, denigrate, flame, impersonate, or stalk ‘til the cows come home (with virtual impunity).

But hey, enough about our comment section (you know I’m a kidder).

They are certainly not kidding around about the darker side of social media in The Sisterhood of Night, the debut feature film from director Caryn Waechter. Adapted by Marilyn Fu from a short story by Steven Millhauser, it’s a sharply observed, contemporary take on the Salem witch trials. The “sisterhood” in question is comprised of an insular trio of high-school students (Georgie Henley, Willa Cuthrell-Tuttleman, and Olivia DeJonge), who make a pact to disengage from social media; opting instead for late-night gatherings in the woods.

What they “do” there (wouldn’t you like to know?) is a mystery; and in an era where people compulsively hit “send” to share too much information about what they’re up to every waking moment, this secretiveness naturally makes them suspect. For personal reasons (which I won’t reveal here) one of their classmates (Kara Hayward) starts her own nasty whisper campaign about the girls on her low-traffic blog, igniting a firestorm of small-town hysteria, which escalates into a media feeding frenzy.

This film blindsided me, going in some unexpected directions. It was also deeper and more emotionally resonant than I had anticipated (judge not a movie by its trailer, which suggested something along the lines of Heathers meets The Virgin Suicides). The performances are all quite good; especially from the four leads, with excellent support from Kal Penn (as a guidance counselor) and Laura Fraser (as the mother of one of the girls). Sensitive direction, atmospheric photography by DP Zak Mulligan (particularly for the night scenes) and a moody score from The Crystal Method rounds things off nicely.

Con Game, Mystery, Thriller

My life in ruins: The Two Faces of January **

September 29, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on October 11, 2014)

There’s something that Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train, Wim Wenders’ The American Friend, Rene Clement’s Purple Noon (and Anthony Minghella’s 1999 remake, The Talented Mr. Ripley) all share in common (aside from being memorable thrillers). They are all based on novels by the late Patricia Highsmith. Hossein Amini’s directorial debut, The Two Faces of January, is the latest Highsmith adaptation…but that may be all it has in common with the aforementioned. Then again, perhaps only time will tell us that for sure (and it wouldn’t be the first time that History has proven me an ass; but I digress).

While Highsmith’s pet recurring character Tom Ripley is absent in this outing, we do have our requisite Young American Abroad Who Becomes Ensnared In Intrigue (bet you’re glad I didn’t say that he “gets caught in a web of deceit”). His name is Rydal (played by Inside Llewyn Davis star Oscar Isaac), an Athens-based tour guide/con man who scams tourists. He may have more than met his match when he runs into Chester (Viggo Mortensen), an apparently well-to-do American who is traveling through Europe with his young wife Colette (Kirsten Dunst). The three become quick friends. Too quickly. From the outset, Rydal and Chester circle each other warily, in such a way that telegraphs to the viewer that Someone’s Gonna End Up Dead. But who is conning who?

Don’t worry, I harbor no spoilers. If you’re an old-school mystery fan, and you’ve already read enough to be intrigued, I won’t stop you from buying a ticket. Just be forewarned: while this all sounds very Hitchcockian…don’t expect another Strangers on a Train here. The performances are good (Mortensen in particular) and the location filming is lovely, but there is something curiously static about the production. Maybe it’s because feels like something you might stumble across on PBS while channel-surfing on a Sunday night? I can’t put my finger on why it didn’t work for me. That’s the mystery…

Documentary, Mystery

The big whirl of little atoms: Particle Fever ***

September 26, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on March 15, 2014)

What I know about particle physics couldn’t fill a flea’s codpiece. And if you’re like me (isn’t everyone?), I’d bet you don’t spend a good deal of your day contemplating quarks, hadrons, mesons or baryons (wasn’t he a famous English poet?). Nonetheless, I found Particle Fever, physicist-turned-filmmaker Mark Levinson’s documentary about a group of folks who do spend a good deal of their day thinking about such things, to be much more riveting than I had expected. Levinson documents the years of experiments and painstaking analysis that led up to the astounding announcement in 2012 that scientists had successfully identified the elusive “Higgs boson” (aka “The God Particle”), which could be the crucial key in proving that The Big Bang is, well, more than just a “theory”.

Levinson gives equal time to the empirical and theoretical schools of thought on this groundbreaking discovery. The former group is represented by the physicists who work at CERN, which houses the Large Hadron Collider (an immense complex that resembles the set of Metropolis), and the latter by academics and theoreticians. While largely concerning itself with the parsing of the scientific minutiae, it is the sometimes uneasy yet necessary yin-yang partnership between those camps that lends the film a very human center. One theoretical physicist sums it up best when he bemusedly wonders aloud if this discovery makes the previous 40 years of his life meaningless. Higgs boson only knows…

Culture Clash, Documentary, Mystery, Religion

SIFF 2014: This May Be the Last Time ***1/2

September 21, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 31, 2014)

Did you know that the eponymous Rolling Stones song shares the same roots with a venerable Native-American tribal hymn, that is still sung in Seminole and Muscogee churches to this day? While that’s far from the main thrust of Sterlin Harjo’s documentary, it’s but one of its surprises.

This is really two films in one. On a very personal level (similar in tone to a 2013 SIFF documentary selection, Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell), Harjo investigates a family story concerning the disappearance of his Oklahoman Seminole grandfather in 1962.

After a perfunctory search by local authorities turned up nothing, tribal members pooled their resources and continued to look. Some members of the search party kept up spirits by singing traditional Seminole and Muscogee hymns…which inform the second level of Harjo’s film.

Through interviews with tribal members and musicologists, he traces the roots of this unique genre, connecting the dots between the hymns, African-American spirituals, Scottish and Appalachian music. The film doubles as a fascinating history lesson, as well as a moving personal journey.

Journalism, Mystery, Road Movie, Rock 'n' Roll

SIFF 2014: Lucky Them ***

September 21, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 31, 2014)

This wry, bittersweet road movie/romantic comedy from Seattle-based director Megan Griffiths benefits greatly from the pairing of Toni Collette and Thomas Haden Church, playing a rock journalist and first-time documentarian (respectively). They team up to search for a celebrated local singer-songwriter who mysteriously disappeared. What they find may not be what they were initially seeking. It reminded me of the 1998 UK rock ‘n’ roll comedy Still Crazy. And for dessert, there’s a surprise cameo!

Culture Clash, Drama, Mystery

SIFF 2014: Kinderwald **

September 21, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 24, 2014)

If Terrence Malick had directed The Blair Witch Project, it might resemble Lise Raven’s naturalistic period drama, set in the backwoods of 1850s Pennsylvania. The story centers on the reaction of a clannish pioneer community after two boys mysteriously vanish from their family’s encampment. While one gets a sense that the film was a labor of love for its creator, any noble intentions are undermined by a dull script and stilted acting. On the plus side, it is nicely photographed and imbued with period flavor; however, despite a compelling setup, the narrative itself wanders off and gets lost.

Mystery, Neo-Noir

Blu-ray reissue: The Long Goodbye ****

September 17, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 6, 2014)

The Long Goodbye – Kino Video Blu-ray

If there is something vaguely familiar about the shambolic anti-hero of Robert Altman’s 1973 L.A. noir, it’s because he was clearly the inspiration for the protagonist in the Coen Brothers’ 1998 film, The Big Lebowski (at least that’s my theory). Granted, the “Dude” is a purely circumstantial “detective” who becomes embroiled in a complex mystery, and Philip Marlowe (Elliott Gould) is an actual shamus…who becomes embroiled in a complex mystery.

But both characters are wise asses, which tends to land them in hot water. Yet both also share a kind of Zen philosophy that helps them land on their feet. Gould’s Marlowe slouches his way through Altman’s slyly arch reinvention of the stock Raymond Chandler milieu with a bemused detachment, denoted by a shrug and a mumbled catchphrase that he repeats throughout the film (“It’s OK with me.”).

Leigh Brackett’s screenplay is rich in characterization; which is a good thing, because the plot is byzantine to the point of self-parody (which I’m sure was the intent). The great supporting cast includes Sterling Hayden, Nina van Pallandt and Henry Gibson. Director Mark Rydell (Cinderella Liberty, The Reivers, On Golden Pond) makes a rare acting appearance (and steals all his scenes) as a sadistic gangster.

Kino Video’s Blu-ray transfer, while on the grainy side, is still a marked improvement over MGM’s DVD. Extras include a session with Altman and Gould recalling the making of the film, and an interesting segment with the great cinematographer, Vilmos Zsigmond.

Cult Movie, Horror, Mystery

Blu-ray reissue: Twin Peaks: the Entire Mystery ****

September 17, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on August 9, 2014)

Twin Peaks: the Entire Mystery – Paramount Blu-ray (box set)

Who killed Laura Palmer? Who cares? The key to binge-watching David Lynch’s short-lived early 90s cult TV series about the denizens of a sleepy Northwestern lumber town and their twisted secrets is to unlearn all that you have learned about neatly wrapped story arcs and to just embrace the wonderfully warped weirdness. The real “mystery” is how the creator of avant-garde films like Eraserhead and Blue Velvet managed to snag a prime time network TV slot in the first place…and got away with it for two seasons! Paramount’s Blu-ray box set sports vibrant transfers and crisply re-mastered audio tracks. Extras include the “international” cut of the pilot episode, and the “prequel” feature film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. All extras from the DVD “gold box” are ported over, with new bonus material.